The Hawkers of Saddar Bazaar: A Plan for the Revitalisation of Saddar Bazaar Karachi Through Traffic Rerouting and the Rehabilitation of its Hawkers

City hawkers are street retailers who carry their wares on carts or display them in ways that allow them to be mobile on the streets. They occupy pavements and even road space, preferably around low-income areas or next to public transport facilities. Lower- and lower middle-income social sectors are generally their clients. City governments are responding to the problem of hawkers through evictions and these take place regularly in, among many cities, Manila, Jakarta, Mumbai and Karachi.

This book suggests that in Saddar Bazaar in Karachi, the problem of hawkers can be solved instead as part of a larger city planning exercise that deals with the traffic and transport problems of the city in general and this neighbourhood in particular. Hawkers and entertainers must be seen as part of the transport issue and the transport issue as part of the problem of hawkers. Without this mutual interaction, no effective rehabilitation can take place. The book presents several proposals for improving local traffic plans. The concepts behind these proposals are aimed at constituting the basis of a future revitalization plan for Saddar. The authors suggest that this area should be converted into a multi-class entertainment and recreational agglomeration, which is essentially what the currently socially fragmented Karachi needs.

Chapter 1 introduces the book and provides historical and geographical insight. Chapter 2 focuses on the “actors in the Saddar drama”. After being a vital cultural neighbourhood in the 1960s, Saddar became derelict in the 1970s and soon was affected by subsequent transport planning decisions. All these factors attracted hawkers, who reshaped the whole space. Yet hawkers are heterogeneous and can be classified in different ways, such as their relations with the state, ethnicity, social/commercial functions, levels of association, legal status, etc. Chapter 3 analyzes the physical environment of current Saddar, observing the radical evolution of the transport system through its several interventions. Chapter 4 complements this physical approach, observing historic (since 1936) aspects of land use, urban rehabilitation, changes in residential and commercial activities, built density and public spaces. Chapter 5 proposes a plan for the rehabilitation of both Saddar and the hawkers, and considers aspects of transport planning and traffic management, environmental improvement, humanitarian and socioeconomic implications and the roles of professionals and the state. The basic parameters for this plan are: traffic segregation; re-routing; the provision of ring roads, pedestrian zones and stalls for vendors; the provision of a bus terminal in Saddar; street and multi-storey parking; and the relocation of hawkers, encroachers and leased markets. Chapter 6 provides a physical planning proposal and a conceptual sketch design. Several full colour maps and figures are presented. The book includes 16 appendices, with a glossary, classifications of hawkers and encroachers, socioeconomic surveys, aspects of law, reports of meetings with state officers, and maps, among other relevant data.