Emirati developers want to build another Dubai on thousands of acres of land across Pakistan’s sprawling business capital, but some question whether their billion-dollar investments makes any sense. Chundrigar Road, named after a former prime minister of Pakistan, is the heart of Karachi’s central business district. On it stand relics of British colonial architecture like the State Bank, the Karachi Port Trust and the Cotton Exchange, buildings from another age which sit uncomfortably alongside new corporate HQs. But this is not your average CBD. Aging guards with bright henna in their hair and ammunition clips flung over their shoulders sit on plastic chairs inside dilapidated tower blocks. Darting through the traffic are flocks of multicolored rickshaws, driven by hunched men with skullcaps and beards down to their chests. There are wooden carts with donkeys, homeless beggars, open drains and even the occasional camel lying around. Appearances notwithstanding, this is the
