Safe Behind Their Walls

Hussain's focus and energy toward providing all this are limitless. He's up at his Islamabad residence by 6 most mornings, receiving project managers, local politicians and friends for breakfast before driving out to the project site in a heavily armed motorcade. He spouts off facts and figures about the development with encyclopedic knowledge, and says he frequently changes plans for the phases still being developed to make them better. He added an exact replica of Trafalgar Square at the Bahria Town development in the city of Lahore.

Hussain is familiar with reinvention. Although born into a wealthy family, his father's contracting business collapsed, and he was forced at the age of 19 to start his career as a lowly clerk in Islamabad. He remembers vividly, three years later, having to sell some family silverware just to buy medicine for his sick 2-year-old daughter. "I've never forgotten being poor," Hussain says, pointing out that Bahria Town also includes thousands of low-cost prefabricated houses. Still, there's no missing the fact that Hussain's dream city is mainly for upper-class Pakistanis who "want the good things in life," says Khan, the marketing manager.

Hussain says Bhutto's death has only increased his motivation to push forward his groundbreaking development projects. He claims that Pakistan's instability has not affected sales at Bahria Town. Pakistani economists like Qaisar Bengali aren't so sure: "There are many housing schemes stuck in the middle because real-estate prices have dropped in the last year or so." Nonetheless, Hussain says he's optimistic about the future, especially given that last week's national elections were more peaceful and transparent than people had expected. A new civilian government will take charge in the coming weeks after more than eight years of military rule, which has stymied Pakistan's economy (it grew about 7 percent last year, trailing neighboring India by nearly two points). Corruption, kickbacks and red tape are rife.

Hussain himself maintains close ties to the military establishment; his early business success was due in large part to construction contracts with the Pakistan Navy. ("Bahria" is Urdu for "naval.")

But he and others hope the country is at a turning point—one that will fuel private projects like Bahria Town. Pakistan certainly has no shortage of natural resources or cheap labor; now that elections are settled, economists believe FDI will flow back into the country. Investors from the Middle East (including regional giant Damac, based in Dubai) have already been knocking on Hussain's door, looking to put money in joint ventures here. With the return of civilian government and the removal of the shackles of stringent, military-led development, Hussain is free to ponder his next megaproject: digging a traffic tunnel through the Margalla Hills on the northern outskirts of Islamabad, and putting up a new bedroom residential community in the valley on the other side. If he builds it, says the developer confidently, they will come.

© 2008