THE CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT OF KARACHI A STUDY IN FUNCTIONAL LOCATION

The study in hand is an attempt to delineate and define the CBD of Karachi in terms of definitive parameters, firstly, as a geographical region and secondly, as functional complex or location with distinctive functional spatial organization. Using a multi-factor approach the spatial patterns have been unfolded by discernible concentration levels or the degrees of concentration achieved by six variables, the measure of spatial distribution.The CBD space has been viewed as a composite pattern determined by spatial correspondence or association of the major variables which yielded as many as 23 pattern categories characterizing the CBD hard space. The traditional approach in by discrimination of the CBD hard core has been substituted by discrimination of the CBD region into hard core and non-core areas on the basis of the composition patterns.Within the CBD complex, its functional spatial organization has been brought out by functional intensity distribution, functional dominance, identification of significant functions that represented the functional combination pattern in the CBD, and the degree of spatial nucleation and dispersion of the significant CBD functions