Dawn.com
KARACHI
KARACHI has been named among the least liveable cities in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) — the research and analysis division of the Economist Group.
The annual EIU survey ranks 140 cities on a range of factors, including political and social stability, crime, education and access to healthcare.
This year, Karachi has been ranked 137th on the list — the fourth least liveable city in the world — only managing to fare better than Damascus in Syria, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Lagos in Nigeria.
The survey found that civil war and terrorism played a"strong role" in the worst performing cities. Of the cities with poor scores, 11 occupied the very bottom tier of liveability, where ratings fell below 50 per cent and most aspects of living were severely restricted. The low rankings of cities like Damascus, Karachi and Tripoli suggested that conflict was responsible for many of the lowest scores.
This is not only because stability indicators had the highest single scores but also because factors defining stability could spread to have an adverse effect on other categories, the EIU observed.
It added that the Middle East, Africa and Asia accounted for the 10 lowest-scoring cities in the survey where violence, whether through crime, civil insurgency, terrorism or war, played a significant role.
In Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the threat of military conflict increased owing to the UAE's recent decision of extending its military reach in Yemen and Somalia. The UAE's deployment of armed forces in Yemen, as well as political hostility with Iran, continued to pose a threat in the country and the region, it observed.