Daily Times

The provincial capital of Sindh and Pakistan’s commercial hub, Karachi has been ranked among the world’s least liveable cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is a parent organisation of the Economist Group.

Karachi ranked near the bottom of this year’s list coming in at 137 out of 140 cities. The city only managed to fare better than Lagos in Nigeria (138), Dhaka in Bangladesh (139) and Damascus in Syria (140).

In order to calculate the ranking, EIU consider factors such as stability, healthcare, education, infrastructure, culture and environment. Karachi received a 40.9 out of an overall 100 rating in stability, the city received 20, 45.8 in health care, 66.7 in education, 51.8 in infrastructure and 38.7 in culture and environment.

The survey states that on-going terrorism and civil war played strong role in determining the worst liveable cities.

Damascus, Karachi and Tripoli suggest that conflict is responsible for many of the lowest scores. “This is not only because stability indicators have the highest single scores but also because factors defining stability can spread to have an adverse effect on other categories,” researchers said in the report.

Published in Daily Times, August 16^th 2018.