Kabul is now considered one of the clearest symbols of Afghanistan's urban development crisis, a crisis that has taken root not only in the city's physical landscape but also in its social, economic and environmental structures. What has brought Kabul to its current state is the confluence of several factors: the mass return of refugees, structural poverty, weak urban governance and planning, and a sharp decline in international resources. Together they have transformed the capital from an administrative center into a bloated, unplanned and unstable entity. In recent years, Kabul has become a haven for millions of homeless and displaced citizens fleeing drought, economic insecurity and systemic social discrimination, only to be confronted with a more complex and relentless crisis within the city itself.
In reality, Kabul has never benefited from a comprehensive, enforceable urban development plan. The city plans of past decades have never been updated and even when they were introduced, they encountered political obstacles, legal disputes and institutional barriers. After the collapse of the republic in August 2021, these weaknesses became even more acute. The Taliban regime neither has the organizational capacity for urban planning nor understands the connection between urban development, social justice and environmental sustainability. As a result, the very concept of urban planning was reduced to spontaneous, arbitrary and politically motivated short-term decisions.
The return of millions of refugees from Iran and Pakistan, as well as hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, has disrupted the already fragile urban balance in Kabul. The lack of land for horizontal expansion, the lack of a coherent land use policy, and the city's limited ability to absorb new populations have made Kabul nearly ungovernable. According to a 2023 World Bank report, urban development in Kabul is largely focused on affluent, high-income neighborhoods, developed largely through private investment that contributes little to affordable housing for middle- and low-income groups. This pattern of concentrated development has deepened class divisions and spatial segregation, making Kabul a visible site of stark contrasts between wealth and poverty. Although the Taliban repeatedly claim to address class inequality in urban areas, the divide not only persists but is even more pronounced than before.
In the absence of a land management system and an urban development framework, the housing market is entirely driven by profit. The unprecedented rise in rental prices has forced many families into informal settlements. Today, more than 70 percent of Kabul's population lives in neighborhoods outside the city's official boundaries and lacks access to essential urban services (UN-Habitat, 2024). These settlements, often built on mountainsides or on confiscated land, are a direct result of the lack of oversight and the absence of a comprehensive urban development plan. Kabul has long been fragmented into self-made neighborhoods and unplanned districts, but the collapse of the republic has brought the entire city to the brink of systemic failure, a danger whose consequences could lead to collective urban collapse.
From an urban planning perspective, Kabul has fallen victim to a phenomenon best described as “disorderly population accumulation.” This state of affairs is due to the centralization of administration, forced migration and the uneven distribution of investments among other Afghan cities. The resulting demographic and economic concentration has increased pressure on the capital and made the crisis in Kabul a reflection of the general failure of national development policy and the collapse of Afghanistan's urban planning framework. In addition, the collapse of urban service systems has become a fundamental challenge. Water supply networks, sewage systems, public transport and basic urban infrastructure are all in critical condition. Field studies and international reports warn that Kabul will face acute water shortages within the next five years if excessive groundwater extraction continues. This alarming forecast reflects the lack of integrated resource management in the city – a metropolis that cannot remain viable without coherent policies governing water, land and population.
In such an environment, the Kabul municipality and other Taliban-affiliated institutions have focused on short-term, symbolic projects rather than strategic, long-term urban programs. Initiatives such as paving alleys or demolishing old houses without a comprehensive plan do not improve the quality of life; Instead, they increase social instability and exacerbate economic hardship. While more than two-thirds of the population lives in informal settlements, the Taliban's so-called “standardization policies,” often implemented through the demolition of houses, have violated spatial justice and completely undermined public trust in urban institutions. Currently, Afghan local authorities face a severe shortage of qualified professionals and lack a strategic vision for future development.
The fundamental problem is that urban development in Afghanistan continues to progress without independent, specialized institutions. The Ministry of Urban Development and Housing is weakened and local institutions lack technical and professional capacity. There is no data-driven system to monitor urban changes, no land information bank, no building registration system and no mechanism to track population growth. Therefore, development decisions are based on assessments, political influence and personal interests. Almost the entire government system, including sectoral institutions, is now run by clerics trained in Pakistani madrasas, an arrangement that seriously endangers the entire urban apparatus.
Experiences from other countries show that addressing such a complex and multidimensional crisis requires the integration of key components: an enforceable master plan, a transparent land management system and independent urban planning institutions. Countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Turkey have managed to curb unregulated urban expansion and institutionalize sustainable development by creating independent planning bodies and implementing comprehensive urban strategies. However, none of these elements exist in Kabul. The city's Urban Design Framework (2018) remains stuck in the implementation phase (see The Pathology of Kabul's Urban Design Framework, published by Hasht-e Subh Daily in 2019). Land registration has become almost impossible due to overlapping ownership claims and municipalities lack financial independence. As a result, urban development has been reduced to small, fragmented projects without strategic coherence.
This raises a crucial question: What can be done to reverse this situation, or, if it continues, what will happen to Kabul and other Afghan cities, as well as to urban planning in the country as a whole? From the author's perspective, the first step must be a shift from a technical-operational to a strategic approach. This shift would help develop a clearer long-term vision for the future of Kabul and urban development in general across Afghanistan. Given its complexity, Kabul urgently needs an independent and professional urban development authority, an institution made up of urban planners, engineers, sociologists and environmental experts capable of making evidence-based decisions without political interference.
The second step involves reforming the land administration system and clarifying ownership, an essential basis for any urban development initiative. Without this reform, affordable housing plans, the renewal of informal settlements, structural reforms of the city and balanced urban growth remain impossible. Another important issue is the reassessment of the distribution of urban services. The concentration of resources in certain areas while others remain disadvantaged has significantly compromised spatial equity. In the medium term, this imbalance will further fragment the city's structural fabric and hinder its development process.
In the medium term, Kabul's development must be integrated into a network of regional cities. The author argues that investing in the New Kabul City project is a waste of time and resources; Instead, decentralizing and relocating some administrative and economic institutions to neighboring provinces could reduce demographic pressure on the capital and promote balanced national development. The experiences in Iran, Turkey and Malaysia show that the creation of satellite or complementary cities around a capital is the most effective way to redistribute population and capital. It is important to recognize that urban development cannot be achieved through technical or architectural tools alone. This first requires good governance, citizen participation and a connection between development and social justice. The current crisis in Kabul is indeed testing urban planning and development capacity in Afghanistan.
If a future political system replaces short-term, reactionary decisions with institutional reforms in urban planning and development, there remains hope for Kabul's renewal. Otherwise, the Afghan capital will soon no longer be the administrative heart of the country and will instead stand as a clear symbol of the failure of national development. In this context, the role of the media, universities and research institutions plays a central role. Systematic documentation of urban development problems, investigative reporting on the consequences of unplanned growth and analytical studies on the social effects of uneven development can promote public dialogue and civil pressure for reform. The future of Kabul is the future of Afghanistan, and the fate of the country's development ultimately depends on the reconstruction of its urban planning institutions.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
The crisis of urban development and the collapse of the planning system in Afghanistan