Post-Covid planning.

Byline: Arif Hasan

BEFORE the coronavirus arrived, the directions for the development of Karachi had already been set in keeping with neoliberal thinking. The city was going to be 'gentrified', which meant taking away space from the poor both within the built city and in the rural areas for the use of elite functions. This also meant the development of fancy public spaces, parks and other follies that require heavy investments, both in terms of construction costs and subsequent maintenance, as well as create difficulties for poor communities in accessing these facilities.

Gentrification has also meant the removal of Karachi's street economy, which provides incomes to about 80,000 families and serves the needs of almost the entire city population of 16 million. It meant the demolition of over 15,000 homes and small businesses without compensation or relocation, and along with this the demolition of schools, madressahs and ancestral graveyards. It meant the capture of heritage for elite purposes and the eviction from it of people who have lived there for decades. With their departure, the intangible heritage of the communities that lived there would also be destroyed. It meant the continuous expansion of 'semi legal' elite gated settlements, mostly for speculative purposes at the cost of weak rural communities who are the original owners of this land.

In promoting this form of development, capitalists, their architects/planners and dependents have come together and parts of the academia have unwittingly supported the process. Those who have opposed this development have been dubbed by the powerful government-capitalist-architect/planner nexus as 'enemies of development'.

However, the pandemic has taught us that this inequitable development in the post-Covid-19 period will only increase poverty, crime and social unrest, especially when according to official estimates 18.5m jobs will be lost. Given these figures, it is easy to appreciate the dangers of living in a world of increasing poverty and deprivation.

What should be the objectives for Karachi?

So what should be the objectives for the future planning of our city so as to promote a better physical and social environment? First, the ecology of the region in which Karachi is located has to be respected, which means the protection of its natural drainage system, its water bodies (especially its coastline and its flora and fauna), expansion of its existing green areas, limiting extraction of...