IT has happened again. Karachi — Pakistan’s largest city, financial centre and revenue generator — was ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) as one of the least liveable cities in the world — a source of shame for the country’s rulers.

Everyone in Karachi knows that the ranking is the most honest thing to be said about the city every year. If the city could speak, its screams of desperation would be heard across several galaxies. The messy mix of intense heat, power outages, water shortages and corruption means that every step Karachi dwellers take is fraught with danger and uncertainty. To wake up in Karachi in the summer of 2026 is to prepare oneself to battle a city that has been so abused and neglected that it abuses those who dare to leave their homes and enter its dug-up, garbage-rutted roads. To sleep in this city is to lie on sweat-soiled sheets under unmoving fans in airless rooms — the fresh wounds of the day stinging, the old ones barely scabbed over.

Around the time of the release of the EIU’s latest Global Liveability Index, a pipeline burst for the umpteenth time on University Road. Construction continues on this arterial road, and the digging always does more damage........

© Dawn