Kabul Urban Survey - Groupe URD

Herat. The use of this map represents a major urban management and development
problem.
Historical context of the Master Plan
The Kabul Master Plan was established more than thirty years ago. Marcus Shadl, an
architect working for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), an international organisation
who has been heavily involved in the physical rehabilitation of Kabul, presents some aspects
of the historical context in which the Master Plan was drawn up. “In 1964 the first Master
Plan for Kabul was developed with the help of the Soviet Union. Later, in 1971, the original
plan was slightly revised. Simultaneously, the first Soviet-style apartment blocks with
prefabricated elements were raised in Mikrorayan. By the mid 1970s the city was inhabited
by approximately 750,000 people. According to the Master Plan, Kabul should have been
adequately remodelled and enlarged for an estimated population of 1.4 million people
between 1978 and 2003, less than half of today’s estimated. Soon after the implementation
of the plan had started, the shadow of war and destruction fell on Kabul and the rest of the
country for the next 22 years 22 ”
General consensus for the need to update this 1978 Master Plan
All urban actors in Kabul are in agreement that a new Master Plan needs to be drawn up for
the next twenty years. Pathak, as urban planner and policy advisor to the Kabul Municipality,
highlights the need to review the now obsolete 1978 Master Plan. “A Master Plan for Kabul
was prepared in 1978. This Plan was based on the projected population of the city to be 2
million in 2003. The present population of Kabul is estimated between 3.5 million to 4.0
million. There is a general consensus on the fact that this Master Plan is outdated as the
city’s population is already double of what was projected. Therefore, the Plan needs to be
revised taking into account the present reality and projected needs of the city for the next 15-
20 years 23 .
Master Plan as an obsolete administrative reference for spatial boundaries
The expansion of Kabul city today is far removed from this outdated spatial administrative
reference. Kabul was initially composed of sixteen administrative districts. Even if today the
extra six new districts are supposed to be linked to administrative urban areas, they do not
cover all of the existing urban settlements that can be considered to be part of Kabul. There
is no consensus on the boundaries of the city. “As per the Kabul Master Plan-1978, Kabul
city with an area of 33,240 hectares was designed for a population of 2 million to be reached
in 2003. […] The boundary of Kabul city has increased to include 22 Districts spread over an
area of about 95,000 hectares. The current population of the city is estimated to be about
4.00 million, which accounts for about half of the country’s total urban population” 24 , (an
estimated 61% by the Strategy Development Team within the MoUDH).
Comments
This administrative overview on spatial representation references is important with
respect to the impact that it has on the urban living conditions.
Whole sectors of the urban population are excluded from urban administrative
responsibilities
In Kabul, like the other main Afghan cities, the problem is that urban administration
does not tally with the urban physical reality. There is no link between urban
administrative authorities, which work with administrative decisions made seventy years
ago, and the physical urban territory, which is the urban reality of today. As a
22 Shadl M., “Historic notes on Kabul” in Development of Kabul - Reconstruction and planning issues,
issued from the colloquium organised by MUNTAZ (B)-NOSHIS (K), Lausanne, 2004
23 Pathak P., “Planning Institutions, Roles and Recommendations for Kabul City”, Kabul, 2005
24 Pathak P., “Urban Policy, priorities and Recommendations for Kabul”, Kabul, 2006
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