KARACHI makes it to the news for all the wrong reasons, with high crime, crumbling infrastructure and pollution topping the list. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that the Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked the Sindh capital amongst the least liveable cities of the world. Karachi has come in at an unenviable 169th position out of 173 cities in 2023. The metropolis has consistently featured at the bottom of this ranking for the past several years. There is a background behind repeatedly earning this dubious distinction. Despite being the nation’s economic engine, Karachi has, over the decades, gotten the rough end of the stick from both the federal and provincial governments. Perhaps the rot started in the Ayub era, when the ‘field marshal,’ not known to be much of an admirer of the city, decided to shift the capital further north. In the decades since, Karachi has suffered as its population has swelled, and its urban sprawl has spread exponentially, while the state has not been able to keep pace where providing facilities and services is concerned. The result has been the transformation of this city into a hard-to-navigate urban jungle that ranks near the bottom of liveable cities.

Perhaps this presents a major opportunity for the newly elected Mayor of Karachi Murtaza Wahab to change these negative perceptions. This can best be done not through PR campaigns, but by giving Karachi the funds it needs and the empowered local government it requires to transform itself into a liveable 21st-century megacity. While it is true that large swathes of the city are not under the KMC’s control, and are run by federal organisations and the military, the mayor can make a strong case for regaining administrative control of the entire city by running in an exemplary manner those areas that fall within his jurisdiction. Considering that his party runs the provincial government, Mayor Wahab should have no excuses about lacking the power to manage Karachi.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2023