Karachi ranks 170th out of 173 cities in the world, with poor performance in 5 core areas such as health, infrastructure, education, environment and sustainability
Staff Reporter Daily Dawn, Dawn TV Report
London: Karachi has once again been ranked among the world’s ‘unliveable cities’ in a global survey, with Karachi’s inclusion in the bottom 5 cities of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) global survey reflecting the deep and ongoing crisis facing the city.
Karachi’s ranking of 170th out of 173 cities worldwide means that Karachi is only slightly better than Dhaka, Tripoli and Damascus, and it shows poor performance in 5 core areas such as health, infrastructure, education, environment and sustainability.
Despite the extremely poor ranking, Karachi was the only Pakistani city to make the list.
Copenhagen topped the list with a score of 98, followed by Vienna and Zurich with a score of 97.1, followed by Melbourne with a score of 97.0 and Geneva with a score of 96.8.
The annual survey aims to help companies assess the hardship allowances they can expect when relocating their employees.
According to The Economist, the survey ranks 173 cities in five categories: healthcare, culture and environment, education, infrastructure and sustainability.
Karachi was ranked 169th out of 173 countries in last year’s ranking, compared to cities such as Lagos, Tripoli, Algiers and Damascus.
Last October, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that Pakistan’s cities are losing livability, and urban centers are becoming ineffective, with low scores on several competitive indices, including congestion, ugliness, and pollution.
The ADB report also said that class division is a major problem in Karachi, with the majority of the elite living in cantonment areas or private housing societies, while low-income earners are pushed into the city’s largest district, Karachi East.
The report said the city has become further divided along religious and ethnic lines, which have led to violent clashes several times in the past.
Karachi is the only city in Pakistan that is experiencing some vertical expansion, as land is limited and housing is urgently needed.
In July, a Forbes Advisor list ranked Karachi as the second most dangerous city for tourists, with a score of 93.12 out of 100.
According to the ranking, Karachi had the highest personal safety risk, which includes crime, violence, terrorist threats, natural disasters, and economic vulnerabilities.
The list said that Karachi has the second-worst (Level 3, Reconsider Travel) travel safety rating from the US State Department, and further stated that the city has the fourth-worst infrastructure security rating, which reflects the availability and quality of the city’s infrastructure.
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