It Hasn’t Changed
The smog, the desert-styled buildings and the overall chaos remains and if anything has increased. I’m not surprised that it hasn’t changed.
‘The city of twenty-million people that really just about worked’
Organised chaos.
That was the words of one man in the cab on the way to the hotel.
A new experience.
Karachi by hotel.
We wil see how that goes — so far so good.
I don’t think it’s organised.
It’s just chaos.
On a three lane road, there are six dynamic lanes.
Interweaving and changing every few seconds.
There are a million or so motorbikes and there is a shared understanding that a collision is no more than bumper cars and avoiding any bumps is a successful trip.
This time Shahrah-e-Faisal road which connects Karachi city to the airport was as clogged as a London sewer.
There were buses.
People on top of the buses. Hanging off the buses.
People on the road.
Rickshaws.
Cars.
Motorbikes.
Trucks.
As I’ve got much more interested in transport planning and urban development in general in the last two years, it was amazing to see with perspective.
Oh I forgot the donkeys with fruit trollies on their backs.
Chaos.
Not organised.
Just chaos.
The funny thing is that it works.
Everyone gets where they need to be eventually.
However, I find it incredibly strange that instead of spending money to fix traffic lights, they have police directing traffic where they could allocate these police to crimes that happen.
The last time I was in Pakistan, DAWN (Pakistan national newspaper) developed a GIS software for mapping crimes in Karachi.
It revolutionised the way the police allocated resource.
It seems that has been reversed.
Although I’ve only been here one day.
There is still abject poverty.
A lot.
Too much that I’d care to see.
And given my family’s position in the societal hierarchy here in Pakistan it’s difficult to even contemplate getting actively involved in helping.
I think this trip to Pakistan will be a reflective one.
Coming to the end of the year, the end of the blog, and being in Pakistan where so many things just don’t work.
It will be fun to see how my mind processes everything.
My initial observations is that the city is the same.
It hasn’t changed