Metropolitan cities have more population than others, for instance, around 2 billion people are living in Lahore which is one fourth of the provincial population, in Punjab. Moreover, in recent decade people have started moving rapidly from small towns to big cities due to certain reasons. Intensity of this movement should be reduced to avoid any adverse results resultant of overpopulation.
Cumbersome population in some cities make administration and management more complex and difficult. Furthermore, it is pertinent to mention that, cost of living in such areas jumps with the growing crowd.
To overcome this issue first step is to look for the reasons behind this shifting and then respond accordingly. Small towns and villages mostly lack in basic facilities like, medical, education; moreover, in urban areas there are vast job and business opportunities. When I used to work with an NGO, shockingly, it came to my knowledge that, Villages in Pakistan lack many basics like, 80% do not have colleges, 55% have no qualified doctors and 75% are in short of clean drinking water. Absence of these necessities is root cause of people’s migration towards developed areas.
In response to aforementioned problems, action plan should be defined. Firstly, provision of basics in these remote areas should be ensured, up to a reasonable extent and which is practically possible. Secondly, comfortable, convenient and time and cost effective transportation should be provided for natives of such places. Which connects them with developed cities; as a result to this people will prefer to stay in their home towns and travel on need basis. Lastly, taxes are another important tool to affect people’s choice of residence. More taxes should be levied upon residents of big towns and rebates should be given to rural population.
In my opinion, governments should start thinking do something to handle this in a timely manner and proactively. Although, many states are already working hard to cope with this dilemma but in some countries, either it is still not thought as a considerable problem or administrations are unable to devise and implement an effective response plan.
