Articles
Traffic and Mass Transit Issues: Lessons from Other Countries
“It is very clear today that solving traffic problems by building more and bigger roads is like trying to put out a fire by gasoline” Enrique Penalosa, the mayor who solved Bogota’s traffic problems In...
Reconstruction of Earthquake Affected Areas
According to the 1998 Housing Census, there were 807,605 housing units in the twelve earthquake effected districts of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP. It is estimated that fifty per cent of this housing stock has...
Some Water and Sanitation Related Issues: Initial Thoughts
1. Observed and Documented Ground Realities 1.1 In the urban areas of Pakistan sewage schemes have been formally planned over the years to dispose into the natural drainage system. This reality is often ignored when trying...
A Partitioning of Clifton Beach
The Defence Housing Authority (DHA) has taken over the Clifton Beach and developed it from McDoland’s to the Salt and Pepper Restaurant. A stone embankment wall has been built on which people can sit and...
Karachi: Past, Present and Future
Legend has it that Karrack Bunder was an important port on the Arabian Sea in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. It handled the South Indian-Central Asian trade and was situated about forty kilometres...
Understanding Karachi’s Traffic Problems
Karachi’s traffic and transport problems are increasing rapidly. There are huge traffic jams every day inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of commuters; pavements and even entire streets have been encroached upon at all key transit locations,...
Karachi Mass Transit: What we can learn from others
Recently, a seminar on rail based mass transit systems was arranged in Karachi by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Pakistan and the Mass Transit Cell of the Karachi City Government. In a paper...
Towards a Drainage System for Karachi
As predicted in various newspaper articles, research monographs by Karachi academics and professionals and NGO researchers and activists, the monsoons have devastated the city. They will devastate the city again, irrespective of how much money...
A Development Plan for Karachi
The purpose of a development plan is to create a physical environment and support structures that promote social harmony, economic betterment, and improved health conditions. An understanding of the city and its trends is a...
No to the Lyari Expressway
The immense humanitarian disaster (physical, social and economic) that is being created as a result of the building of the Lyari Expressway has been covered by the press. Urban planning considerations for and against the...
