Karachi
is Pakistan's only port and its main commercial and industrial city. It
was also its first capital. Since the country's independence in 1947, Karachi's population increased, mainly through migration, from
450,000 to 10 million in 1998. Migration has changed the ethnic
composition not only of the city but also of the province in which it is located, creating social, economic and political stress. Over the
years, various ambitious plans were prepared for the city but could not be
implemented for a variety of political, technical and institutional
reasons. As a result, much of Karachi's employment, housing and physical and social infrastructure needs could not be met. This demand-supply
gap is increasingly met by informal service providers, whom the citizens of
Karachi refer to as 'mafias'. These 'mafias' operate through a powerful
nexus with bureaucrats and politicians, which further weakens the state
institutions or, indeed, makes them redundant. Because of these factors, powerful lobbies of contractors and consultants (both local and
foreign) are able to promote inappropriate but profit-making plans for the city
and use foreign loans for them; developers are able to acquire land by
manipulating illegal evictions and burnings of low-income settlements;
land-use and traffic regulations can be violated with impunity; master
plans remain unimplemented, and law enforcing agencies fail to provide
protection to citizens from crime, violence and extortion.
In Understanding Karachi, Arif Hasan, a renowned Karachi architect, researcher and development activist, gives the background of Karachi's present situation and describes the actors and factors - and their relationship to each other - that are determining the direction and nature of Karachi's development and hence shaping its social and physical environment. He also proposes practical solutions to the city's problems based on the work of selfless CBOs, NGOs, professionals and concerned citizens who are struggling - with increasing success - for the creation of a new and better system of governance.
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