Karachi in 2020: approaching planning as a project

Pakistan's ongoing Karachi strategic development plan 2020 (KSDP 2020) approaches city planning as a project. The overall assignment, comprising vision building, articulation of objectives, situation analysis and development of planning scenarios, was undertaken from a project-oriented standpoint. It poses a challenge to the various stakeholders in the city, including city planners. Empirical research has established several urban development trends in the city. These include large-scale real estate projects with the assistance of foreign venture capitalists, mega transportation projects in the form of expressways and light rail transit, large schemes of landscape development, swift conversion and demolition of heritage properties and land sale ventures for housing projects. Almost all the projects have been announced on an ad hoc basis without any relevance to current or past urban planning guidelines. This paper examines the plan-making process undertaken for KSDP 2020. It analyses the planning approach with respect to internally defined objectives, stated procedures and findings. Based on specific case studies, the paper highlights the nature of the relationship between the various projects and the existing planning attempt, which is perceived as a project by the city administration. The paper presents an overall critique of whether city planning can be applied as a project across the outlined parameters.