Why has Kabul’s rapid population growth made basic services difficult to provide?

Kabul’s rapid population growth has made the provision of basic services difficult primarily due to the poor state of urban infrastructure and the informal, unplanned manner in which much of the city’s expansion has occurred.1

While there have been investments in urban services since 2002, these efforts have not kept pace with the city's swift growth. Much of the development has been driven by internal migration from conflict-affected rural areas, leading many residents to build homes on government-owned land with only rudimentary services. Furthermore, massive investments in speculative commercial and residential real estate have not been matched by sufficient public spending on essential urban infrastructure, leaving many residents without access to adequate basic services and resulting in poor environmental conditions in the city's fast-growing suburbs.123