ABSTRACT
Pakistan is undoubtedly a leading country where a number of projects are under implementation under the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The overall portfolio of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is estimated to be over USD60 billion, to be implemented during 2015–30. The CPEC is a collection of numerous projects aimed at building transport infrastructure and power plants, and developing the port city of Gwadar and Special Economic Zones across the country. This chapter critically reviews selected urban development projects and questions their sustainability from the local perspective. The chapter starts with a brief overview of the CPEC, which transforms the pre-existing geo-political relationship with China to a geo-economic relationship, and critically reviews major urban development projects such as Pakistan’s first ever metro train in Lahore and the development of the port city of Gwadar. These projects were selected because of their advanced stages of implementation, impact and the controversies that they have generated in Pakistan. This discussion of the CPEC is placed in the broader context of economic, financial, social, environmental and institutional sustainability. The chapter concludes that fluctuating political commitments and weak institutional capacity are creating challenges to extracting the benefits of the CPEC in Pakistan.
