There’s an old saying in Lahore, “When life gives you lemons, make an underpass.”

Alright, fine, it’s not an old saying.

Actually, it’s not a saying at all.

It just appears to be the central philosophy of the Government of Punjab when it comes to ruling Lahore. His Excellency the Chief Minister (or the Chief Servant of the People as he has self-styled) of the Punjab wants to be seen as a man of action. Pull out the wellingtons when it’s raining and go stand in knee-high water. That’s the flooding handled. Show up at a hospital and sack a bunch of doctors for minor transgressions after a major public health catastrophe. Sehatmand Punjab, anyone? And closest to his heart, of course, build an underpass on a road where there is absolutely zero need for any. While I cannot verify this, I’m assuming his desire to achieve the greatest underpass per capita ratio in a city ties in quite neatly with the general thirst of the Government of Punjab to see its name in the Guinness Book of World Records.

There’s a certain tawdriness to the proposed road building programme of Lahore. The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) envisions a signal-free corridor that covers Jail Road and the Main Boulevard. Never mind that traffic flow on these roads is among the best in the city, the term “signal-free” has "free" in it — and who doesn’t love freebies? Please also disregard the fact that these are major thoroughfares that link to other major thoroughfares. If you want to turn onto M M Alam Road or onto Liberty, well, there’s a term that rhymes very closely to Bit Out Of Luck that might describe your situation.

While this might look like the worst bit of news when it comes to Lahore’s developmental agenda, the outlook is actually far grimmer. Among the LDA’s plans is one that proposes building an enormous flyover linking Gulberg straight to the motorway. Things Lahore needs more than this enormous flyover include: more 'gourmet' restaurants that serve everything from Chinese to chicken steak; snotty teenage kids hanging out at coffee shops; and a spell of the bubonic plague.

Said flyover will be an enormous monstrosity, leaving much of Lahore under a shadow. One has to stop and wonder if the eventual plan is to just cover all of existing Lahore with an over-city and bring to life the dystopian future foreseen by prescient Sylvester Stallone classic Demolition Man. The movie predicted cyber sex and that certainly turned out to be far more accurate than Back To The Future’s hoverboard.

On this over-city, the rich will get to drive their incredibly expensive cars and get from tony neighbourhoods to tonier neighbourhoods in record speed. They’ll descend to the under-city from time to time to find where their domestic help has absconded to, but won’t really find much other use for it.

As a concerned resident of Lahore, my request to the LDA is singular: Please build a wall around the future over-city. Then we can just pretend the historic one never existed and we can please all those nasty preservationists by just naming the new one The Official and Absolutely Authentic Walled City of Lahore.