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Spatialising Karachi

31 0
17.06.2026

The US-Israeli war with Iran has realigned regional and intercity urban spaces, deeply influencing the way an economic system functions. The war has converted several business advantages into disadvantages, and vice versa, in the cities in the Persian Gulf and its vicinity. These include, but not limited to, drastic variations in geographical advantages in terms of high or low endowments of raw material, production factors and transportation costs.

The new turn of events has placed Dubai at a highly disadvantageous position. As inexorable rise in transportation costs remains central in relocating regional businesses, Karachi's case as an alternative to Dubai merits an informed analysis. However, it is not just about having more air traffic or an increase in Pakistan's western maritime trade by bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, it is about creating meaningful urban spaces by diligently managing politico economic power, order and disorder in the city congruous enough to bypass Dubai.

Spatialisation of Karachi will, therefore, be an intellectually deeper project aimed not only at merely erecting physical infrastructure but also meaningfully revitalising socioeconomic struggle, urban mobilisation of economic opportunity, justice and civic order in the city. The literature shows that cities of a region compete on various political, economic, social, spatial and aesthetic fronts aimed at generating urbanism. The notion and concept of urbanism is, therefore, discursively exhaustive and inclusive in its inherent nature. Professor A Roy's 2011 article "Urbanisms, worlding practices and the theory of planning" treats urbanism as an........

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