by
Rana Irfan Rafi
When evening falls in big cities like Lahore, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi, the heavy daytime heat finally starts to fade. For a moment, the city feels alive and breathing. Years ago, that was a favorite time of day for ordinary families. It didn’t matter how much money was in your pocket; everyone could go to a local public park. Children would run and play on the grass; old people would sit and talk on wooden benches, and hard-working men could finally breathe some fresh air without worrying about their expenses.
Today, if we walk up to a major park of these cities, the scene looks entirely different. You are greeted by tall iron fences, private guards looking at you with suspicion, ticket counters at every entrance, and parking fee charges before you even step, quietly and step by step. Our public spaces turned into private clubs for the rich. If you are a daily wage worker, a low-income laborer, or belong to a struggling middle-class family, going to a green park for a breath of fresh air has become a luxury you simply cannot afford.
Let us stop and ask a very simple question: who pays to build these public parks? Public parks are not built out of the private city owners; they are paid for with the hard-earned tax money of everyday citizens. Every time even a poor worker buys a packet of milk, fills a tiny amount of fuel, or pays heavy electricity bills, they are paying indirect taxes; that money builds these parks.
If a public park is built using public money, every single citizen has an equal and undeniable right to use it. But the reality on the ground is completely upside down. The government builds these spaces using public funds and then hands them over to private vendors or city offices where the only goal is to make a profit by charging entry tickets and high parking fees. They draw an invisible line: “if you have cash, you are welcome; if you are struggling to survive, stay outside.”
Imaging a hardworking father who earns just enough money to buy food for his family every day, he manages to save a small amount of money for this little trip, but the moment he reaches the park gate, his stress shoots up. Before he can even help his kids climb down from the bike, a parking collector demands a steep fee; in many places, parking a bike or vehicle costs almost as much as buying a meal. Once he gets inside, he finds everywhere someone has their hands out asking for money. If you walk inside any major public park today, you will notice that all parks are given to expensive commercial vendors. The question is, why is a public park allowed to run like an expensive hotel or a shopping mall? Who gave these local offices the right to turn a public rest area into a business market? This brings us to a very painful question: where is an ordinary person supposed to take his family for a brief period of rest and recreation? The playgrounds and green areas are now locked behind iron gates, and the streets outside are packed with heavy traffic, broken roads, and noisy shops. Natural water spots and open spaces are being taken by business. If a poor man can’t sit in a public park. With paying heavy entry, parking, and food fees, the city is basically telling him, “You have no right to rest; your only job in this life is to work, pay taxes, and stay out of sight.”
We are dividing our cities into two different worlds: those who can pay to buy clean air, nature, and peace and those who are forced to live in dusty, crowded, and polluted streets.
Public parks were originally created to be the lungs of a city—places where the rich and the poor could breathe the same air as equal. By turning them into guarded, ticketed business zones, we are killing the true soul of our society. Journalists, economists, and experts talk about big numbers and growth rates, but no one talks about the missing laughter of children in our public parks. It is time to ask tough questions of our local government and city administration to cancel the entry tickets. Lower or completely remove parking fees for ordinary motorcycle people. Stop turning public spaces into profit-making bazaars, because a city that refuses to give its poorest children a place to play on the grass has lost its humanity long before it ever lost its green spaces.
The Author is Associated with SDPI as Survey Assistant email: irfanrafi@sdpi.org
