Over the last few years, there has been growing chorus for recognising Karachi as a “smart city”.

From the then city mayor Waseem Akhtar declaring that “Karachi [was] to be made [a] smart city”, to more recent calls by the outgoing Sindh governor, demanded that “Karachi must be declared [a] smart city”, the push for the “smartification” of Karachi seems to be the dominant developmental discourse.

However, these narratives of urban smartness are often conflated with ideas of the “World Class City”, prompting ill-suited developmental aesthetics, and homogenising discourses of “city” experiences that gloss over uneven terrains of liveability, particularly in developing regions of the Global South.

So, what really is a smart city?

Smart cities are considered modern urban areas that use information and communication technologies to improve quality of life for their citizens, by incorporating operational efficiencies, and infrastructures based around technology. This also includes temperature-controlled indoor environments, as well as alternative energy systems.

However, these practices are more often than not accompanied by interventions based on aesthetics of the World Class City, such as climatically unsuitable materials and inaccessible and unaffordable energy sources.

These are further complicated in the current context of climate change, and contesting this discourse is pertinent as cities get hotter, with variegated ecologies contributing to highly differentiated lived experiences.

In South Asia, temperatures have already reached levels that are higher than what is considered biologically liveable. According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, Pakistan is the eighth most vulnerable country in the world, while Sindh is understood to be one of South Asia’s hotspots for climate change.

Hot, messy Karachi

Within this context, Karachi assumes a particularly vulnerable position as it is located 24 degrees north of the equator — within the zone of 'ultraviolent' radiation. This is the zone between 30 degrees North and 30 degrees South that is increasingly exposed to intense ultraviolet radiation.

Overexposure to this radiation can cause illnesses such as skin burns, eye ailments, and can even lead to cancer from long-term exposure.

Karachi's temperature has risen by an average of 2.25°C - 3°C over the last 60 years — an increase that is substantially higher than the rest of the world. Given these alarming statistics, it is crucial to examine Karachi’s urban development discourse and future visions of smartness, especially in relation to heat.

In the post-colonial context of Karachi, urban experiences of smartification are highly variegated, both spatially and temporally. With an unofficial population of 25 million, and 62 per cent of its residents living in informal settlements, the city hosts a diverse range of thermal experiences, as well as “smart” and “unsmart” technologies used to manage them.

Mapping the heat

In attempts to capture these contrasts, we ventured into what are conventionally understood to be “smart” and “unsmart” spaces in Karachi’s dense old city area, and used thermal cameras to visualise corresponding temperature variations.

These thermal images read contrasting temperatures using colour gradations — the warmest parts of the image depicted in yellow and the coolest in blue — and give temperature values for the material surfaces in focus.

By forming this visual landscape, we examine a multiplicity of cooling practices, materialities and technologies, particularly as they interplay with spatial and socio-political inequalities. The result is a series of panels shown in the header image, which portray the unequal city, not only through aesthetics of the built environment, but also in the ways in which globally informed ideas of smartification clash with culturally grounded practices. In doing so, we present multi-scalar perspectives on “smartness” when it comes to cooling.

This artwork was presented at a symposium organised by the University of Ottawa, titled “The Smartification of Everything” in March 2022 as part of the panel, Inequity in/of Smartness, and was also displayed at the corresponding smART exhibition at the department of visual studies.

Through this series of panels, we break down dense public spaces in Karachi’s Southern District into three crucial elements that contribute to ongoing conversations on heating cities: the “smart” built environment, the “unsmart” informal space, and the disintegrated greening practices that are common to both.

We use thermal imagery to assess the contrasting intensities of heat emissivity and visualise how material choices and cooling infrastructures in the smart and unsmart interact with the already scorching city. Collages of these images are superimposed with sketches to contextualise the elements explored within each panel.

The smart and the unsmart

In the panel on the left, we collect images of the emerging high-rise constructions on I I Chundrigar Road and Shahrah-e-Faisal which utilise materials that are climatically inappropriate in Karachi’s hot, arid environment.

Buildings such as the MCB Tower, UBL Tower and IBM Building, most of which are south-facing with glass facades, recorded temperature readings as high as 66.6˚C, while stone buildings in the same orientation only rose to 24.3˚C. Other surface materials such as asphalt on the road, metal street furniture, and signage were evidently more heated than surrounding elements such as stone pavements and wood-clad surfaces.

“Smart” interventions such as solar panels, air conditioning units, cars, and passive electrical devices such as transformers were largely inaccessible and, in most cases, reflected heat onto surrounding spaces. Most notably, building facades covered in air conditioning outer units emitted hot air onto the surrounding streets, intensifying heat experiences of pedestrians and occupants of informal markets within the area.

The panel on the right counters this notion of “smart” by investigating localised practices often labeled as “unsmart”, but which can be observed to manage heat efficiently.

These images were collected from different formal and informal markets in Saddar area, including Empress Market and Regal Mobile Market. Practices such as the use of fabric for shade, clay pots for storage of drinking water, and make-shift stalls that can be re-oriented throughout the day, actively mitigate the impacts of heat by keeping temperatures between 29˚C and 32˚C on hot summer days.

These mitigation strategies often work in tandem with the properties of stone used to construct the colonial buildings in which most of such markets are set up.

Not only do they contribute to keeping indoor temperatures as low as 28˚C — given the insulation properties of these thick stone blocks — they also provide shaded nooks for several informal vendors. Other practices observed included wall mounted fans installed to keep both the vendor and the vegetable produce in certain markets under consistent ventilation, awnings extending beyond shop boundaries ensuring shade for the customers, and umbrella style sheds at different traffic intersections of the city to provide shade for the traffic policeman who spend their entire day outdoors under direct sun.

The final panel in the centre depicts the way greening practices remain isolated from the overall understanding of climate management. Imported plantations and practices such as palm trees, roof gardens and seasonal flowers are characteristic of “smart” landscaping, serving little purpose beyond aesthetic greening.

As one of the images shows, temperature contrasts between concrete buildings and palm trees were hardly noticeable. The ‘smartness’ in using palm species in urban outdoor spaces is questionable given their inconspicuous shading abilities.

In costrast, rapidly disappearing native species such as the Banyan tree are routinely occupied by pedestrians and informal workers for its shade. While efforts to preserve these species are underway, particularly in the area of 70 Clifton, little has been done to encourage the inclusion of these species in ongoing plantation drives across the city.

Similarly, mangroves — a species characteristic of coastal cities in South Asia and one that is essential for healthy coastal ecosystems — are fast depleting under ongoing land reclamation practices by formal as well as low income, informal settlements given the land pressures in a fast urbanising city.

Having visualised the disparities of what is perceived to be smart in an unequal Karachi, and how these ongoing attempts at smartification are further contributing to the exacerbating impacts of climate change, we urge the reimagination of the ‘smart’ Karachi of the future. A Karachi that is fair to all. A Karachi that does not forget its roots in its attempts to look smart. Most importantly, a Karachi that does not only look smart, but is also cool.

Header image: This artwork was originally presented at the symposium/exhibition, “The Smartification of Everything”, organised by the University of Ottawa, Canada. — Photo provided by authors