Islamabad is a very peculiar urban space. Though no longer a town, it is still struggling to become a city. Arguably, it is the most 'inhabitable' place in Pakistan, and ranks far ahead of several other capitals in Asia and Southasia, nearly all of which are plagued by pollution, traffic jams, crime cartels and civil strife. Islamabad, despite the disturbances and security threats that became endemic during 2007, remains largely aloof from this pattern – at least for now.
Located in the foothills of the Margallas, and boasting green spaces and forests intertwined among the folds of the city, Islamabad appears almost surreal against the densely populated rest of Pakistan. Built during the early 1960s by Pakistan's developmentalist dictator, General Ayub Khan, Islamabad was seen as an antidote to politicised Karachi – which, in any case, was a bit too far from the Punjab and the NWFP, the popular bases for Pakistan's powerful military. Laid out as a model city with the help of Greek architects, this city of the exclusive was formally born in 1965. Nearby Rawalpindi was already the seat of the army's headquarters, and its proximity to the new capital was certainly intentional.
The new city's layout was divided into sectors, numbered streets and broad avenues that are called ramna, using the Bengali term. The civil bureaucracy of federal united Pakistan moved here, and thus the sleepy town suddenly emerged as a new urban settlement in line with the earlier planned emergence of Chandigarh. In Islamabad, roads would empty out after sunset, and the national capital would be oddly deserted on all public holidays. After all, for decades none of the residents actually belonged to this city.
The capital's creation was not without controversy, though. The populist leader of then-East Pakistan, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, dubbed it a visible sign of East Pakistan's exploitation by the West Pakistani elites. A famous line had it that Islamabad reeked of the toils of East Pakistan, which produced jute and provided foreign exchange to the Pakistani coffers. Such voices were made redundant within a few years, though, as the army action in Pakistan's eastern wing led to the War of Liberation, which in turn resulted in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.