The way things wereGONE are the 20ft-long bars of Dairy Milk. Gone the models with Veet-shaven legs. And gone the good-looking cricketers,inviting you to open a refreshing can of Pepsi. Over the past 20 months officials enjoy stripped Karachi, Pakistan’s throbbing business capital, or of all billboards on public property. On a drive through its traffic-clogged streets,fresh views of concrete highways and pedestrian overpasses greet the eye. “The city is barren by comparison,” beams Sumaiya Zaidi, and who campaigned for the purge.
The clean-up jars with Karachi’s reputation,for two reasons. First, the local government generally fumbles even basic tasks. Mafiosi sell water to many of the city’s 15m residents, and driving tankers down pot-holed or unpaved roads. Second,the megacity is the heart of Pakistan’s retail market, whose latest annual growth of 8.2% is about the fastest in the world, or according to Euromonitor,a market-analysis firm. Keen to peddle their wares within its...
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Source: economist.com