A Changing Cityscape
Initially, after 1947, Karachi expanded along the roads that linked it to its suburbs and to other parts of the country. Later, however, colonies sprung up around the older city to house government servants and the new affluent groups in society. Thus the link roads became ribbons of commercial activity and at every yard absorbed or discharged traffic into the surrounding areas. The continuation of this policy has had disastrous effects on Karachi’s traffic circulation patterns.
Until the late 1960’s it was necessary, in many cases, to come back to the city centre to go to a suburb which was only a few miles from one’s house, the concept of periphery roads and link roads having been alien, to the early planners of post-independence Karachi.
The lower income groups, which had squatted in the city centre until 1958, were packed off to the distant suburbs, far from their places of work. This gave birth to Karachi’s chronic transport problems and burdened the city’s economy with a government transport system which runs at a permanent loss. It also ate into the pockets of the working class, who according to a study conducted in 1,967, were forced to spend 15% of their income on rail or bus fares as compared o an earlier 3%. This move also divorced the working class from the possibility of being integrated into, the socio-cultural life of the city. Their alienation and the city elite’s fairy tale world are the frightful results of our rulers’ failure to see planning as anything more than a physical problem.
From the late fifties onwards the planners of KDA in their discussions, were using terms as sectors, buffer zones, densities, freeways, land-use patterns, regularisation etc. However, it was only after the formation of the Karachi Master Plan in 1969 that a serious attempt was made to integrate various aspects of development into a Master Plan for the city. The Plan has been successful in giving the city a rational road structure (although much of it remains on paper) but KDA has failed to transform its studies on other urban matters into implementation plans.
As a result, KDA’s new schemes continue to be built along the main link roads which continue to be transformed into ribbons of commercial and residential development, making free movement of vehicles impossible and eat away into the countryside in a haphazard manner. Sectors in present day planning are still not segregated from each other by buffer zones of open countryside, thus creating a large, unidentified, traffic-choked, polluted urban sprawl. The New Karachi Buffer Zone, developed for this purpose has now become one of the most densely populated suburbs of the city.
The value of land, due to the political power of speculators, is calculated solely in economic terms, making effective land-use impossible. Thus we find a 700 bed hospital being built at the junction of the two busiest roads in Karachi. The environmental problems this will create for the city and face itself does not seem to matter. In the same manner, the changes in land use being brought about by the Lines Area Redevelopment Project, will eventually transform this non-traffic generating area into a traffic congested one. This effect will not only be felt on its periphery roads but will effect movement in most parts of the city.
In the same way, the belt of commercial activity developing along the Shahrah-e-Faisal to the west of its intersection with Korangi Road, should have been reserved, to the north for the growth of existing educational institutions, and to the south for the growth of the existing medical ones.
All planning in Karachi is still done for the convenience of the automobile. The concept of segregating vehicular and pedestrian movement has been applied. For this reason, roads are unsafe and people have to walk through and cross a maze of busy streets while taking their children to school or for purchasing their daily requirements. This vehicle dominated planning is done for low income areas as well, where the motorcar is non-existent. Once the lanes in these areas are paved, they become insecure and the social interaction between the residents of these lanes declines. Air and noise pollution accompanies the final implementation of this planning.
The city centre is faced with immense traffic problems. The roads are adequate to take this load of traffic but parking on them, and loitering in search of a parking space, reduces their utility by as much as 70%. Related to this problem is the constant building activity in the business and commercial districts, where at present 53 high-rise office and shopping plazas are under construction. Together they will add over 2000 vehicles to the city centre. Car parking in these buildings is not as per the KDA’s regulations, and a study by the students of Architecture of Dawood College has shown that many of these parking spaces are subsequently turned into shops and godowns.
It is high time that roads are made free of parking and that the local bodies acquire all possible land for parking purposes. Further, construction in the central district should also be discouraged and to reduce congestion a Rapid Transport System (RTS) should be introduced. The RTS, it is hoped will be easy to construct and maintain, and will not disrupt traffic during the years while it is under construction, or create environmental problems for the city or for its users. It is hoped also that the citizens of our city will be able to afford to use it, and that it will not be forced to run at a loss. To achieve these results it will probably be necessary to opt for a simpler and less efficient system than a sophisticated one.
On the peripheries of the city, the katchi abadis continue to grow. This informal sector in housing has so far not been effectively integrated into the Master Plan of the city. Its growth will continue as the poor of this city cannot afford to pay for the water, sewerage and road services offered by the planned schemes. Maybe, planned areas without these facilities could be made available to the people, and the development of these services left to them. The local bodies could set up organizations to assist them in this work, as the Orangi Pilot Project is doing for the people of Orangi.
The solution or the correct approach to the problems of Karachi does not lie only with the professionals or with planners in the local bodies. The latter complain of political pressures on their organizations which make a mockery of the planning process. Nor does the solution lie in the framing of laws alone. Effective change can be brought about if the citizens of Karachi lobby with the authorities on the one hand, and pressurize the local bodies politically on the other, and if consumer awareness tackles the private sector developers. In the absence of this political action, or the building of institutions around consumer awareness, no change is possible, and our city’s development will continue to reflect the evils of our society.
