Usually, in this series, we tend to pick up the topic discussed in other blogs that are relevant to Karachi and expand on them but the following description of the North Nazimabad Town by Owais Mughal in All Things Pakistan is worthy of being reproduced in full. Enjoy!

In April 2008, we had a post on Eight Bazaars of Faisalabad, and we presented it as one of the best examples of town planning in Pakistan. We would like to develop this topic into a whole new series about the best planned localities of Pakistan. Among many examples of fine town planning in Pakistan are North Nazimabad Karachi, Model Town Lahore, Faisalabad’s 8 bazaars, Federal-B-Area Karachi, Islamabad Master Plan, Wah Cantonment, and many more in other cities. In today’s post we will cover North Nazimabad, Karachi.

The satellite image below shows North Nazimabad’s 20 residential blocks bound in red polygon. East of NN is Federal-B-Area where as North of NN is North Karachi and Buffer Zone.

Whenever the aesthetics of Civil Engineering and Town Planning Projects is considered; it is an accpetable fact that curves and gradiants are considered more natural than squares or rectangles. Cities planned in rectangular grids, though easy to navigate, don’t have same aesthtics as brought out by circular roads and curves. If you look at North Nazimabad’s map above you can clearly see how aesthetically the curved roads and plots have been designed within mostly rectanguar grids. Atleast to me this is the town planning of highest aesthetic order.

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Yesterday this image caught my attention when rounding the Hotel Metropole. It seems that quite a few travel agents are very serious about sending a strong statement to AirBlue over their tussle regarding the way AirBlue ticket pricing

The News, 24th June 2008: Travel Agents Association of Pakistan (TAAP) on Monday vowed to maintain the embargo on the sale of Airblue tickets fearing that any relaxation will encourage other carriers to reduce their commissions as well. In a general body meeting held here, members of the association said the private airline since June 3, 2008, increased fuel surcharge but decreased travelling fare, which is used to calculate fixed margin of agents who in reprisal stopped selling its tickets. “An airline calculates its fare structure on basis of total expenditure including fuel surcharge and travel agents earn commission on that fare value,” said Tahir Sheikh, Regional Chairman TAAP. “And on this commission we pay withholding tax to government.” He said change in mechanism to calculate commission has not only reduced profitability of travel agents but decision will cost government taxes. TAAP claimed that its members paid Rs240 million to government in taxes on sale of Air Blue tickets.

Hamara Karachi festival starts off tomorrow (June 7, 2008) at 7:30-8:00pm, Beach View Park. This festival has been organized by Hamara Karachi Foundation. Musical concert & Fireworks would be the main attraction this time. Different events have been organized in this regard. Eventions’s (the event management company for this festival) CEO Aslam Khan briefed about different preparations being done to make the event successful & expects a 25k+ audience in an event that was long overdue for a city that is mainly known to outside world for security reasons rather than any entertainment related event. KMB would love to spread the word and would encourage people to go to this event with their families. Following pics taken today show organizers putting their act together for a grand show. Let’s hope the end result come out good for Karachi’s image.

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[Image/ Post Credit: Bilal Ahmed]

” A typical Afghan refugee in Karachi will be seen doing all the inhumane labor, from picking up garbage to doing construction work for a dirt cheap price. Here, you can see a kid with a load of garbage on his back, crossing a sewerage on a gas pipe. Before i could shoot, there were a whole dozen of them crossing it, mostly trying to push each other off, a childish behavior indeed but they are children alright, i mean, deep down inside, underneath the coat of dirt, hardships and irony, they are still … children”

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Let’s see how many of you can guess this, answers at 9 o clock. As a hint, here’s a translation of the poetry on the wall:

This thing is for looking, look at it again & again
Talk to it, Look at it closer
The head of a human, the body of an animal
This is not real but an illusion.

Image credit: To be revealed with the answer!

Update at 11:58 PM : Sorry about the delay, but as most of you have figured out, the correct answer is of course, Karachi Zoo. Thanks to Umair Mohsin for the image who uploaded it on Flickr yesterday. Read more

The administration of this city is dheet no doubt but people like me are even dheetar than them. Till they understand and implement a proper Public transport system and stop flooding our already-ugly city with more cars we(i) shall keep on highlighting this issue. Now do i need to explain this image?

This image shows the comparative amount of space required to transport the same number of people by car and bus. Its a photo from Muenster Planning Office.

[Credit: Doctor]

Ali Adnan Qazalbash explains why many people take any other route than SF.View Full Image

By the mid of 2005 Shahrah-e-Faisal (Faisal Highway) used to be the fastest way of traveling from southern Karachi to north-east part of city and vice versa i.e. Karachi Airport. Now a days many people avoid using this highway during rush hours of evening as a huge tide of traffic pass through this time of week days.

This image is of a hoarding spread ALL OVER Karachi, its Shezan add of its Twister Drink, with a tagline that says “Jeeto Josh Se”

I cannot say what you might think of the marketing strategy of these guys back at shezan. But for me, I find it totally inappropriate and useles. The picture portrays a totally different concept as it should be for a refreshing drink.

Again so sorry for poor quality picture :(

Please express your views on the marketing concept…

Check the plate number that says HC-0021 . Is that High Court ?

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