Muhammad Usman Adil

The size of the urban population have exponentially grown since the industrial revolution. Numerous employment opportunities, better education and living standard attracted large number of people to migrate in urban cities.  The structural change of economic activities and mass production and consumption opened the doors for millions of people to work in the cities in the hope of better quality of life. Currently around half of the world’s population lives in the cities and these numbers are projected to reach two third of the world’s population to be living in the cities by 2050 (Kinney2, 2019) . However, this rapid urbanization have created humongous challenges for sustainability of the environment, health and equality. This post will be talking about the relationship between cities and environment and the issues of sustainability in the context of the fifth largest metropolitan city of the world ‘Karachi’.

Karachi is not only the largest city of Pakistan but with its strategic location of the sea port linking to Arabian Sea it is also the center point of economic activities. After the partition of 1947 the city witnessed one of the highest number of inflow of migrants from India. Consequently with its strategic location, all the business centers, factories and markets started to get established in Karachi. This provided opportunities to not only natives of the city but also to the people of different regions and provinces of the country. In the coming years they started to migrate to Karachi in search of jobs and better quality of life just like the other European countries. However, this rapid urban development also caused environmental degradation with unsustainable transport, waste management, land use and exposure to various kinds of pollution. The cluster of close constructed buildings and vertical towers created unsustainability of health as many people started facing depression and psychological issues living in the city. Similarly unsustainable transport running around the city started to become the source of noise and air pollution. This is further supported by the vertical business towers exhibiting the heat and gases from their air conditioning units. This resulted in degradation of the environment and subsequently city started to witness its results as well. In 2015 Karachi witnessed one of the worst heatwaves ever in which about 1200 people died because of it (Why did so many die in Karachi’s heatwave?, 2015). Similarly air quality in the city is detreating rapidly and on top of that the noise pollution is also a cause of major concern.

Greenery is in the city is minimal or close to non-existing.  This also contributes to the rising temperature of the city every year. Although Karachi use to be the first choice for both local and foreign investors for the establishment of business activity. However over the years the city faced huge deficit of investment in civic facilities that have contributed to unsustainability in quality of life (Karachi: A case study of an unsustainable city) . There are many factors polluting the city and degrading its environment. The untreated waste and sewage from the factory that goes in to the ocean pollutes the ocean and damages the marine life (Coastline Pollution Problems of Karachi). Moreover, oil spills from the ships adds on to it. This causing one of the greatest water pollution issues in the region degrading the quality of water and damaging the mangroves along the coastline. About 10,000 tons of waste is produced in Karachi city out of which 60% of the waste is dumped at the landfill site and rest of the 40% is left in the streets of the city (Environmental impact of municipal solid waste in Karachi city) . This degrades the environment in terms of causing water pollution and also produces many diseases.

 Since the city faced unstructured influx of population it also witnessed many informal settlements. The problem with these in formal settlements is that since they are in formal and off the record they are excluded from the basic necessities like fresh water, electricity and access to health care. This contributes to the increase and commutable and non-commutable diseases. The failure of the local government to accommodate the people living in these settlements even after so many decades, resulted in severe issues of waste management and rapid growth of slums in the cities. This lack of planning in the development of civic facilities like adequate transport, waste management, access to health care and etc have resulted in rapid degradation in sustainability of environment and living standard.

Moreover it has also contributed in social in equality because as the government fails to provide civic facilities the private sector cashes in the opportunity of maximizing profits. In Karachi private sector started to build the civic infra structure in terms of private schools, private hospitals, private security, private housing societies and etc. This only contributes to widen the gap of disparity and inequality among the social classes. Only rich and elitist class of the society gets access to these facilities while the poor segment of the society remains vulnerable. Today Karachi have great in equality in every aspect ranging from class differences, access to basic facilities, unequal impact of natural disasters and etc.

On the brighter side with science and technology advancing there are ways to tackle the sustainability issues and make urban cities better. As mentioned earlier it is projected that by 2050 about 75% of the world population will be living in the cities which means there is no going back from this. The only way to make things better is to devise ways that can make cities sustainable and the quality of life of the people living in them. On the event of World Cities Day 2018, UNU-EHS Senior Scientist Dr. Simone Sandholz names five promising viewpoints how urban communities can become more sustainable (Bonn, 2018) .

Karachi needs to adopt some of these recommendations to tackle its issues of unsustainable environment and its constant degradation. Firstly the urban transport system needs to have drastic changes like giving priority to bicycles over cars. This will reduce the noise pollution and air pollution caused by carbon emission. Furthermore, the introduction of bus rapid transit (BRT) with dedicated routes can help reduce the number of individual cars honking around the city polluting the environment. These examples have already been tested in some of the cities around the world, Karachi also needs to take such steps to resolve its environmental issues. Karachi can also control its unsustainability of environment by using nature based solutions like greened rooftops and streets which absorb the rain water and improve urban climate (Bonn, 2018) . Moreover, the local bodies of the city needs to invest in civic facilities and accommodate the people living in informal settlements.

This way Karachi can achieve sustainable development and manage its environmental issues. Urban cities like Karachi were expected to provide better quality of lives then the rural areas. However, the unplanned growth of the population along with the ignorance of the local bodies in dealing with environmental issues have created the situation right opposite. Karachi needs to adopt programs that could tackle the unsustainability and environmental degradations. Various international programs are already in process to carb such issues in different parts of the world like The Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) in Europe. (Sommer) Similar initiatives can also help Karachi improving its environment and inequality issues. 

Bibliography

Bonn. (2018, 10 30). Five ways to make cities more sustainable and resilient. Retrieved from United nations university: https://ehs.unu.edu/news/news/five-ways-to-make-cities-more-sustainable-and-resilient.html

Coastline Pollution Problems of Karachi. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726626_Coastline_Pollution_Problems_of_Karachi

Environmental impact of municipal solid waste in Karachi city. (n.d.). Retrieved from researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286192903_Environmental_impact_of_municipal_solid_waste_in_Karachi_city

Karachi: A case study of an unsustainable city. (n.d.). Retrieved from mostlyeconomics: https://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/karachi-a-case-study-of-an-unsustainable-city-just-replace-karachi-by-mumbai-in-the-article/

Kinney2, S. V. (2019, 12 12). Grand Challenges in Sustainable Cities and Health. Retrieved from frontiers: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2019.00007/full

Sommer, Y. L. (n.d.). Sustainable Cities Initiative. Retrieved from The world bank: https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eca/brief/sustainable-cities-initiative

Why did so many die in Karachi’s heatwave? (2015, 07 02). Retrieved from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33358705