Essay On Challenges Of Urban Life

The dichotomies of urban development are sharply felt in the mega-cities of South Asia and especially in Karachi. As the city expands, the opportunities and amenities available to its residents are constrained by several factors affecting its social, geographical, infrastructural and environmental dynamics.

Karachi performs a vital function with regard to trade, investment, employment, growth and innovation while simultaneously bearing the cost of this function. Not only does the city face acute challenges in terms of densification, overburdened and dilapidated infrastructure, poor urban service provision and a growing slum population, they also pose significant threats to urban life—traffic congestion, environmental pollution, polarization of communities and rampant poverty and violence.

Unplanned and chaotic urban development is central to understanding such dualities. Karachi in many respects exposes the underlying link between a city’s social, economic and governance arrangements and how they undermine the quality of urban life.

The very features of Pakistani society that are represented so conspicuously in Karachi are the ones that are often thought to challenge the coherence and stability of the nation. Challenges facing the mega city the social and spatial divide, Shortage of key infrastructure and

Balancing the negative externalities associated with a spatial concentration of people and economic activities is dependent upon effective mega-city management. More often, the city’s problems are caused by the pattern of land-use, the violation of laws and regulations and overall urban mismanagement. To rectify these, the city’s administrative organization can conduct annual surveys and assess both the quality of urbanization and its scale. Moreover, it can document the contribution of the informal sector, which plays a central role in the city’s growth and