Fizzah is a PhD candidate in Human Geography and Urban Studies. Her research focuses on speculative practices in residential real estate in Lahore, Pakistan, and examines their links with real estate growth, public investment in housing, and the market for adequate housing.
Fizzah has a background in urban planning, and has over a decade of research and project management experience. Her research interests focus on questions of land, housing, transport, and the politics of infrastructure development. She has worked on affordable housing development, gender equity in transport planning, and dispossession in rapidly urbanizing cities of the Global South.
Most recently, she worked as Co-Investigator on the project ‘Navigating the grid in the ‘world-class city: poverty, gender and access to services in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka,’ under the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) GCRF ‘(Re)Thinking the Off-Grid City’ programme. This work examined how the urban poor access basic services in South Asian cities. The Pakistan sub-project more specifically explored peri-urban expansion in the city of Lahore, focusing on transformations and service provision challenges in formerly rural ‘urban villages’ that are now surrounded and encircled by suburban residential real estate projects.
Fizzah is co-editor of ‘Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging,’ with Dr. Ammara Maqsood (UCL) and Dr. Chris Moffat (Queen Mary), published by UCL Press. She holds a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with a specialization in International Development Planning, and a Bachelors in Social Sciences from the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Research interests
- Land and housing
- Gender and mobility
- Dispossession and resettlement
- Cities and Infrastructure
- Urban inequality and politics
Provisional thesis title
Speculation and Circulation: Real Estate Development and the Market for Land in Urban Pakistan
Publications
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Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan. UCL Press. Ammara Maqsood, Chris Moffat and Fizzah Sajjad. 2025.
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Ethnographic Mapping as a Critical Pedagogical Tool in Planning and Architecture. ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Cities Working Papers. Julia King, Fizzah Sajjad and Suneela Ahmed. 2022.
- Democracy, Legitimacy, and Mega-Project Politics: The Evolution of Lahore’s First BRT Corridor. Antipode. Fizzah Sajjad and Umair Javed. 2022. .
- Victim, broker, activist, fixer: Surviving dispossession in working class. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. Ammara Maqsood and Fizzah Sajjad. 2021. .
- Discipline in Sri Lanka, punish in Pakistan: neoliberalism, governance, and housing compared, (w/ Dr. Asha Abeyasekera, Dr. Ammara Maqsood, Iromi Perera, Dr. Jonathan Spencer), Journal of the British Academy September 2019. .
- Overcoming Barriers to Women’s Mobility, policy brief and policy paper, supported by the Punjab Commission on the Status for Women (PCSW), January 2019. .
- Resource Urbanisms: Asia’s divergent city models of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Hong Kong,” report commissioned by the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Middle East Center, ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Cities, November 2017. .
- High Streets for All, report commissioned by the Greater London Authority/Mayor of London , ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Cities & We Made That, September 2017. Read report.
- Gender Equity in Transport Planning: Improving Women’s Access to Public Transport in Pakistan, policy paper, supported by the International Growth Centre, CERP, March 2017. .
Media
Scholarships
- Fulbright Graduate Scholarship 2012-2014
Affiliations/memberships
- Research Fellow, Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre, Lahore University of Management Sciences
- Graduate Researcher, Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, Pakistan
Skills
ArcGIS, QGIS, NviVo
Supervisors
Prof Claire Mercer
Dr Romola Sanyal