Forget ‘better’

For at least the second time in as many years, Karachi has been ranked among the world’s least liveable cities by the 2025 Global Liveability Index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). In this year’s rankings, Pakistan’s financial capital was placed 170th out of 173 cities surveyed, with an overall score of 42.7 out of 100. Only Dhaka, Tripoli and Damascus ranked lower. Karachi was the only Pakistani city to appear in the rankings this year. In 2024, the city was ranked 169th. The liveability index score for a particular city takes into account stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Karachi scored lowest on the stability sub-index, 20.0/100.0, and scored just 35.9 on culture and environment. Its highest score was on the education sub-index (75.0) and it managed to score 54.2 on healthcare and 51.8 on infrastructure. Karachi’s low ranking will not be a surprise to its residents or any Pakistanis acquainted with the city. If anything, the fact that the city managed to score over 50 on infrastructure, one of its most frequently criticised shortcomings, and 75.0 on education, will raise some eyebrows among those most familiar with the city.

Karachi has long been the poster child for Pakistan’s urban dysfunction. While none of the country’s major cities can claim to be exceptionally well-run and/or great places to live, this issue becomes especially heated and toxic when it comes to the business capital. Part of this is, indeed, because Karachi is the business capital, and such cities always play an outsized role in any nation’s psyche. There is also the fact that Karachi’s governance was and is highly contested, often along ethnic and regional lines, which only exacerbates the inability to find a solution to its woes. And this is really the main issue with the city. While everyone can agree that the city is a mess, who is responsible for it and for cleaning up the mess is far more disputed. It often seems like more time is spent on this dispute than on finding actual solutions. The city’s politicians, and most of its residents, tend to blame the provincial government, which in turn kicks the can up to the federal government, often citing a lack of funds from the centre. Islamabad, for its part, often bats the blame right back at Sindh.

The Sindh budget for FY2025-26, released last week, brought Karachi and its woes to the fore again. Opposition politicians say urban Sindh has been ignored once again and that the budget does not include a mega development project for Karachi. One cannot blame Karachi’s people for being deeply frustrated when key projects like the Karachi Circular Railway, Greater Karachi Water Supply Scheme (K-IV) and Greater Karachi Sewerage Plan remain mired in delays. However, even when there is a new initiative that aims to make life better, the execution is so poor that things somehow get worse. The case in point for this trend is the ongoing construction on University Road, one of the city’s main arteries. A route used by people from across the city to get to universities has been dug-up down the middle, greatly disrupting transport, without any clear or viable alternative routes being put in place. This is apparently being done to build a bus rapid transit line but progress has been very slow and reports from back in March claimed that it could take another two years before work is finished. One can only look at the open ditches that now stretch down the road and wonder what will happen in about a months’ time, when the monsoon arrives. If this is what the state working to improve the city looks like, it is probably better to pray things do not get any worse and give up any hope of them getting better.