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UPWARD AND OUTWARD 46 CURRENT FALL 2017
Feature Hundreds Of Thousands Have Flocked To Karachi In Search Of A Better Life, But Can The City Cope? KARACHI URBAN SPRAWL 2020 2013 2000 1991 Karachi Area Landcover Source: Institute of Geographical Information Systems, City of Karachi KARACHI IS THE TEENAGE TEARAWAY of global mega-cities: it is growing up fast and doing as it pleases. Here it is growing outwards, cementing over desert and villages. Elsewhere it is building upon its buildings, growing upwards because it can no longer expand outwards, packing people into the inner city because the periphery has been exhausted. Karachi’s civic infrastructure is on the brink of collapse. It is Pakistan’s cultural and commercial capital, yet there is no city-wide system for cleaning the streets, repairing the roads, flushing the drains and providing homes with running water and steady electricity. The poor, who make up the majority of Karachi-ites, would regard the very idea of such a system as fantasy. To speak of Karachi is to speak in superlatives. It is one of the fastest growing megacities in the world and the largest city in Pakistan, which in turn is the most rapidly urbanizing nation in south Asia. To grasp what Karachi is, ask what it is not. It is not Islamabad, an orderly grid of gardens, boulevards and government buildings that supplanted Karachi as Pakistan’s capital in the 1960s. Islamabad followed the plan; Karachi ran away from it. The rationale behind Islamabad , build it and they will come , is reversed in Karachi. The people keep coming and so the city is built, stretching haphazardly along every possible axis. FALL 2017 CURRENT 47
Page 1: THE GROWTH OF KARACHI A rural town
Page 10 and 11: EDITOR’S NOTE 2017 Tokyo 38.8 M N
Page 12 and 13: CONTENTS 29 37 FEATURES 29 37 THE F
Page 14 and 15: A CONVERSATION WITH: Printed Doors
Page 16 and 17: A DAY IN THE LIFE: BY AZAD MAJUMDER
Page 18 and 19: Indian women collect water from a b
Page 20 and 21: 20 CURRENT FALL 2017
Page 22 and 23: The middle class neighborhood of Do
Page 26 and 27: “The dream that you hoped for, th
Page 28 and 29: A Native American Tribe Struggles T
Page 30 and 31: Kenya LaMeroux wanders along Island
Page 32 and 33: Keyondre Authement, 15, throwing ro
Page 34 and 35: By 2050, 200 Million People Will Be
Page 38 and 39: China Plans To Move 70% Of The Coun
Page 40 and 41: Chen Hua, 50, moving to her new hom
Page 42 and 43: of the Institute of World Economics
Page 44 and 45: Ran Shunbi, 75, plays mah-jongg whi
Page 48 and 49: People cool off near a damaged wate
Page 50 and 51: The residents of Benazir Colony eit
Page 52 and 53: Karachi’s business and financial
Page 56 and 57: THE D.C.-BASED SOCIAL VENTURE, UBEL
Page 58 and 59: JUAN, 72 (left), telling the story
Page 60 and 61: AMERICA LIBERTAD, 80 (left), and he
Page 62 and 63: JUAN CASANOVA, 47 (left), showing h
Page 64 and 65: Book Review Jason De Leon’s The L
Page 66 and 67: ESSAY Refugees Get Their Own Flag F
Page 72: FALL 2017 CURRENT 72

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