“Cities That Have Stopped Dreaming” By Abid Rasheed

Nations step onto the threshold of decline on the day they stop thinking and begin to mistake imitation for wisdom. This decline does not appear in slogans or speeches; it reveals itself in the shape of cities.

Architecture is the most honest testimony of a nation. It cannot lie, nor can it hide behind veils. Whatever exists in a nation’s collective mind eventually reflects in its buildings—and when the mind becomes empty, cities too become soulless.

History bears witness that great civilizations established their identity not through swords, but through brick and stone. The pyramids of Egypt were not merely displays of power; they were symbols of an entire intellectual system. Greek columns were not just designs; they expressed proportion, balance, and reason. The mosques of Isfahan, Samarkand, and Bukhara were places of worship, yes—but they were also civilizational declarations, proclaiming that beauty, knowledge, and purpose lived in a single breath.

There was also a time in the subcontinent when Persian architectural traditions shaped the intellectual direction of the entire region. The Taj Mahal is not merely a mausoleum; it is the product of a mind that united aesthetics, engineering, and the emotion of love. It was rooted in the land, in harmony with climate, and deeply aware of human scale.

But where do we stand today?

Today, our cities testify that we have stopped thinking.

Islamabad—once considered a model of planning, order, and moderation—has now become an ugly experimental lab. The buildings standing in Blue Area scream that there is no vision, no direction, no intellectual oversight. Glass walls, chaotic masses, inhuman scales—these are not symbols of modernity but visual representations of state indifference.

These buildings represent neither Pakistan nor Islamabad. They are connected to no civilization, no history, no society. They speak only the language of capital. Here, design decisions are not made by architects but by the market. Cities are not built for humans; humans are sacrificed for buildings.

The real tragedy is that this is not the result of an accident, but the logical outcome of the absence of state policy. Urban planning in Pakistan was never treated as a national intellectual concern. Master plans are buried in files, and cities are handed over to mafias. There are no architectural regulations that question identity, no state institution asking what kind of cities we are building—and why.

Around the world, cities express the vision of the state. In our case, cities have become proof of the state’s absence. The question is never whether a building aligns with the local climate; instead, it is how many more floors can be added. Sidewalks, shade, air, light, human beings—these are all treated as unnecessary details.

This is not merely an aesthetic issue; it is a political issue. A state that does not care about its urban face, in reality, does not care about its citizens. Disorderly cities produce disorderly minds. Where there are no spaces for dialogue, democracy becomes nothing more than a word.

We have turned cities from places to live into real estate projects. We have turned citizens into consumers, and society into a crowd. That is why our cities produce noise, not thought; sparkle, not meaning; height, not dignity.

To claim that we lack resources is a lie. We have architects, knowledge, and tradition. What we lack is state will. Because imitation is easy, creation is difficult—and difficult tasks are always avoided by weak states.

Until architecture becomes part of a national intellectual policy, until cities are built for humans rather than capital, this crisis will deepen. And when we finally wake up, we will see that while our cities are still standing, the nation itself is sitting down.

Because there is one simple truth we have long avoided:

When cities stop dreaming, nations are robbed of their future.

And perhaps the time has come to face this truth—because buildings never lie; they simply show us who we have truly become.

Published in Chatzyr, December 28th, 2025