Karachi
December 11, 2020
In total absence of any urban planning or strategy, the sprawling city of Karachi has been governed on an ad hoc basis, said urban planner Arif Hasan on Thursday.
Speaking on the third and the last day of the ‘8th International Conference on Karachi’ at the IBA, Hasan was addressing a session titled ‘What I have learnt in 45 years about urban planning of Karachi through participation, voyeurism, disillusionment, love, hope and affection’. He presented the reasons behind the ill-planning in the metropolis.
“A city of 0.4 million all of a sudden was inducted with 0.6 million population,” he said explaining a population boom in Karachi following Pakistan came into being in 1947. For six years at least the issue was to get the migrators settled; although they were all rehabilitated, he said, it became a culture to making settlements in the city. “We never fulfilled the required necessities of the city,” he said adding that only houses were c