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Life and Death in Karachi
Penguin Press
October 2011
On Sale: October 13, 2011
304 pages
ISBN: 1594203156
EAN: 9781594203152
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
>From the host of NPR's Morning Edition, a deeply
reported portrait of Karachi, Pakistan, a city that
illuminates the perils and possibilities of rapidly growing
metropolises all around the world. In recent
decades, the world has seen an unprecedented shift of people
from the countryside into cities. As Steve Inskeep so aptly
puts it, we are now living in the age of the "instant city,"
when new megacities can emerge practically overnight,
creating a host of unique pressures surrounding land use,
energy, housing, and the environment. In his first book, the
co-host of Morning Edition explores how this epic
migration has transformed one of the world's most intriguing
instant cities: Karachi, Pakistan. Karachi has
exploded from a colonial port town of 350,000 in 1941 to a
sprawling metropolis of at least 13 million today. As the
booming commercial center of Pakistan, Karachi is perhaps
the largest city whose stability is a vital security concern
of the United States, and yet it is a place that Americans
have frequently misunderstood. As Inskeep
underscores, one of the great ironies of Karachi's history
is that the decision to divide Pakistan and India along
religious lines in 1947 only unleashed deeper divisions
within the city-over religious sect, ethnic group, and
political party. In Instant City, Inskeep
investigates the 2009 bombing of a Shia religious procession
that killed dozens of people and led to further acts of
terrorism, including widespread arson at a popular market.
As he discovers, the bombing is in many ways a microcosm of
the numerous conflicts that divide Karachi, because people
wondered if the perpetrators were motivated by religious
fervor, political revenge, or simply a desire to make way
for new real estate in the heart of the city. Despite the
violence that frequently consumes Karachi, Inskeep finds
remarkable signs of the city's tolerance, vitality, and
thriving civil society-from a world-renowned ambulance
service to a socially innovative project that helps
residents of the vast squatter neighborhoods find their own
solutions to sanitation, health care, and education.
Drawing on interviews with a broad cross section of
Karachi residents, from ER doctors to architects to
shopkeepers, Inskeep has created a vibrant and nuanced
portrait of the forces competing to shape the future of one
of the world's fastest growing cities.
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