KARACHI: The Econo­mist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has ranked Pakistan’s largest city among the top five ‘least livable’ urban centres in the world.

On the EIU’s Global Livability Index 2023, Karachi is ranked 169th out of a total of 173 cities. Only Lagos, Algiers, Tripoli and Damascus are ranked lower than Karachi.

Incidentally, Karachi is the only city in Pakistan ranked on the index.

The index focuses on the post-Covid recovery of cities across the world, and rates living conditions based on five categories — including stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

Scores are compiled and judged to evaluate the livability factor within the range of 1-100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal.

Karachi has an overall score of 42.5, which is lower than ideal. It performed most poorly on the stability indicator, with a score of 20, similar to 2022, implying that the situation has not changed much over the past year. It scored 50 on healthcare, 38.7 on culture and environment, 75 on education, and 51.8 on infrastructure.

The city’s history on the EIU’s index is not too good, either. Back in 2019, Karachi was ranked 136 out of 140 cities in the index, while no report was published in 2020. In 2022, it was ranked 134th out of 140 cities.

Most of the top-ranked cities on the index are from Western Europe and Canada. Austrian capital Vienna topped the list for the second year in a row and has a perfect score of 100 on four out of the five indicators.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2023