LAHORE has always known what it is.The question, for a long time, was whether its institutions knew it too. The Lahore Heritage Areas Revival, known as LAHAR, offers a clear answer. Under Chief Minister Punjab Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the program commits an estimated Rs 50 billion across phased interventions, treating the old city not as a relic behind glass but as living infrastructure to be revitalized.
The precedents are instructive. Bologna restored its historic centre in the 1970s by treating residents as stakeholders rather than obstacles, a model the UN later held as a global standard. Medellín invested in public space and cultural infrastructure in neglected districts, winning the Urban Land Institute’s award for the world’s most innovative city in 2013. Istanbul’s Beyoğlu corridor was transformed through pedestrianization, anchoring Turkiye’s $46 billion heritage tourism economy. George Town in Penang, earning UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008, saw tourism revenues rise over 300 percent within a decade through adaptive reuse of shophouses.
The lesson is consistent: cities that invest in their identity tend to get it back, with interest. LAHAR follows the same logic. Tollinton Market’s rear precinct is being reimagined as Convent Garden, with artisan shops, an organic café, underground parking and a hybrid space where commerce and character coexist. The New Museum Block will house collections on ancient arms and armour, numismatics, Chinese civilizational heritage and Sikh history through interactive installations. UNESCO places cultural tourism at 40 percent of global tourism, within a sector projected to cross $1 trillion annually by 2030. The World Bank finds that every dollar invested in heritage restoration returns up to four dollars in local economic activity. LAHAR represents a deliberate effort to recalibrate Pakistan’s cultural economy.
The Walled City is being physically rewoven. The Shah Alam Gate–Rang Mahal Chowk corridor will become a pedestrian walkway. Eight royal pathways, including Bhati, Mochi, Delhi, Yakki and Masti Gates, are being restored with zero-emission electric tourist carts, consistent with low-emission heritage zones of Kyoto and Florence. Lahore Fort’s historic perimeter wall is being rebuilt in two phases. Revival of the city’s drainage channels incorporates climate resilience, a principle Amsterdam has applied for decades. What makes LAHAR more than conservation is its focus on people. Thirty-six artisan-linked streets in the historic core—home to leather workers, textile craftsmen, woodcarvers and tile makers—will be integrated into the tourism economy. UNESCO estimates creative industries contribute over three percent of global GDP and employ 30 million people; leveraging Lahore’s craft corridors is both heritage preservation and a legitimate employment strategy, especially for youth.
Pak Tea House will be restored. Maryam Zamani Mosque, Baoli Bagh and structures around Neela Gumbad will follow. Historic road names and the original identities of colleges will be reinstated, a gesture reminiscent of Prague’s post-1989 restoration. Eighteen kanals near Data Darbar will be acquired at market rate for expansion.
The deeper ambition is a reordering of how Pakistan thinks about development. For too long, progress meant replacement, severing the thread between past and future. Warsaw rebuilt its Old Town from wartime rubble using 18th-century paintings as blueprints; it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If LAHAR holds—if budgets are maintained, institutions staffed and communities treated as partners—what returns will not just be the old city, but something Lahore has not quite been before: a model.
—The writer is a Lahore-based public policy analyst.
