Karachi ranked among world’s least liveable cities

KARACHI: Karachi has been ranked as one of the world’s least liveable cities in The Global Liveability Index 2023 published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Karachi, the only Pakistani city in the ranking, is at the bottom fifth spot, standing at number 169 out of 173 cities. Its ranking is the same as that of last year, when it ranked 168 out of 172 cities in the 2022 survey.

The EIU judges a city’s performance on the basis of five factors: stability, reliable infrastructure, health services, education, culture and entertainment. Vienna has successfully maintained its position as the world’s most liveable city for the second consecutive year – it was ranked No1 in 2018 and 2019 and lost its place briefly to Auckland in 2021.

The other top five cities include Copenhagen, Melbourne, Sydney and Vancouver. War-ravaged Damascus remains the lowest-ranked city. The report says the Syrian city has seen no improvement in its liveability scores despite the regional political comeback of President Bashar al-Assad.

Even though Karachi stands at the bottom of EIU rankings, it has made some improvements in education and healthcare sectors. From its score in 2022 index – 33.3 in healthcare – Karachi now stands at 50 in the healthcare indicator. In education, Karachi has jumped up from 66.7 to 75, showing a 12.4 percent improvement. In culture and environment, it has gone up from 35.2 in the 2022 index to 38.7 in the current one – a close to 10 percent improvement.

Overall, the city has scored 42.5 points – an improvement of 13.3 percent from the previous 37.5. But its performance has remained the same on the stability and infrastructure fronts where it has not budged from its 2022 index scores of 20 and 51.8 respectively. Karachi has always had an infrastructure problem, but the issue was highlighted in the wake of 2020 flash floods that brought life in the city to a standstill. Last year, a team of health experts shared with media 56 percent of young motorcyclists in Karachi suffered from lower back pain due to strain and injuries while riding motorcycles on dilapidated roads with depressions, potholes and open manholes. Meanwhile, in the Sustainable Cities Index 2023, published by Corporate Knights in April, Karachi has come last with a score of D. This is for the first time the city was included in the survey. The survey scores cities on the basis of municipal services, including open public space, water access, sustainable transport, road infrastructure efficiency, climate change resilience, etc. Though the EIU survey does not include a city’s crime statistics, Karachi’s law and order situation is stuck in reverse. According to Sindh Police data, 164 murder cases, 27 murder cases during robbery, 34 car snatching cases and 15 gang rape cases were reported in the city from January 2023 to April 2023.