Assessing the socioeconomic and infrastructure development disparity – a case study of city districts of Punjab, Pakistan

Socioeconomic and infrastructure development are the major sectors linked to prosperity of any region, while disparity in these sectors, in certain instances, hinder economic growth. This paper outlines an approach to examine development disparity in both spatial and temporal dimensions. A comparative analyses of socioeconomic and infrastructure development disparity among five city districts of Punjab province of Pakistan helped testing the proposed methods. The data variables and time periods (2002, 2007 and 2012) were selected based on the policy programmes introduced by the governments to reflect the closest factual position. Analyses revealed that development disparity prevailed, and the provincial capital (Lahore) remained the most developed. Moreover, the policy scrutiny indicate that despite the introduction of several national level policies and programmes, local Municipal Administrations have been incapable at handling the development issues. The proposed approach proved useful, and robust enough to be tested in a different regional setting.