4th and Final Blog post for Cities and Development

In this blog post I try to look at the geographical and environmental factors in two major cities of the world. Pakistan’s geography tells us that it is located at the gateway of the Persian gulf. In the context of Cities and the Environment I am taking the example of Karachi. Karachi is a metropolitan city that has a interesting environment. It has a land size of over 3780 Km2 a population of over 14.91 million people, as a globalized town, is the hub of Pakistan’s industry and was the capital of Pakistan until 1958. It is one of the biggest cities in the world in terms of size and Economic growth due to this the environment of the region has shifted dramatically the last couple of years. It a coastal city and it benefits from the geo-strategic position of Pakistan. On the down side Karachi does have weak air qualities though its Karachi is still only the 234th most polluted city in the world, it has only an avg 40.1 µg/m³ pollution throughout the year.

Karachi is a port city and most of Pakistan’s imported goods are brought through. On IQ air quality website it categorized Karachi it considered Karachi as “Unhealthy for sensitive groups”. Karachi’s Bin Qasim port. Karachi also harbors fisheries and forestry like the mangroves, communication and roads, coastal agriculture, coastal power plants and the energy sector. Karachi’s coastline is extremely damaged because of the increasing amount of pollution levels. This is also tied to the increasing trade due to the shipping industry in Bin Qasim port. This results to mangrove and marine life in Karachi are getting more and more contaminated.This poses the issue that the governmental wants to control this environmental damage but wants encourage the upswing of trade. Karachi can be broken up to two different categories, in the north and west of the city it has a hilly portion of the Kirthar Range. At the South East of the city there is an undulating plain and coastal area. Karachi is also a extremely humid city during the summer the humidity is nearly 85%. However, right now in the pandemic world cities like Karachi which are considered to be in the third world is fairly better where people are locked down and not polluting the coastal line since under their policies beaches and public areas are closed. The complete lock down of major cities like Karachi and next New York are improving themselves during this pandemic crisis.

New York is also a city in the United States if America, with a land area of 783.8 Km2 and a population of over 8.3 million people. It is located in n at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic ocean in a naturally sheltered Harbor. It is #3821 on IQ air quality list in the most polluted cities of the world. Just gripping the required WHO target of 7 µg/m³. New York also happens to have a port “the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey” which is at the mouth of the Hudson river. New York also while comparing to Karachi is a polluted city in its own manner. It is the 15 most polluted city in the United States alone. Not only this the U.S environmental Agency reports it had 206 days in 2018 where air quality was “unhealthy for sensitive groups” as well. The bulk of this is that the pollutant inside of New York is particular matter, which is thought to have come from power plants, wood burning and forest fires in within the city. Comparing to New York 3700 people/km²vs 10194 people/km of Karachi’s both cities are densely populated. New York beaches are one of the worst affected beaches in America. While the sewage and drainage system within New York was in complete overload. Nearly 65% of the cities swimming sport were potentially harmful to its visitors. This was due to the harmful sewage drainage and experimentation determined contain fecal matter.

When New York is compared to Karachi keeping the topic of Climate Change and the environment within the cities an important aspect. Both Cities are most definitely Metropolitan cities. They both are on two different sides of the same scale. They both have harmful pollution to some degree and reports to prove that such cities do have toxins and chemicals within the air, causing extreme trouble to its residents. Both cities in post pandemic world have slowed down with the amount of air pollution they produced monthly. During the lock down where people are maintaining social distancing and isolation. Most people and residents within these cities are now benefiting their environment by an extremely slow rate. For the first time in decades globalization and cities have started to repair themselves mother nature is given a break from human activity. Societies within cities has started to exhibit different patterns that are indirectly benefiting the environment. For example, within New York and Karachi the need for transportation has stopped due to the closure of Schools and offices. This has limited human interaction with the outside world. Now in certain cities gradually due to working at home more and more people are reducing the strain on the environment, resulting that within cities air quality is starting to improve. On the other hand, due to social distancing most beaches and public gatherings are either closed or banned. In both cities the coastline is gradually improving. With the closure of beaches in Clifton beach in Karachi the amount of pollution on the beaches and coastline has improved greatly. In New York Carbon Monoxide levels have decline by 50% in the city. “It’s not a sustainable way to reduce air pollution, and the long-term economic and well-being impacts of this crisis are going to be devastating for many people,” said Jill Baumgartner, an associate professor and epidemiologist at McGill University (Weaver, 2020). 

I for one agree with Mr Jill Baumgartner that in cities like New York and Karachi where air and water pollution is not given enough importance in the past in the pre pandemic world. During COVID-19  both cities where residents are  ordered to stay at home to flatten the curve within the two cities pollution statistics have decreased. This might no be a sustainable cities and at the state level both the State of Sindh, Pakistan and New York State of USA need to adopt better policies within the metropolitan cities easing the different environmental constraints  each cities face, a lock down is no the most sustainable solution it does prove that it is possible. In the different industrial and energy processes each city undergoes to sustain itself. Though Karachi is the bigger and more populated of the two cities that I am making a comparison of. Karachi has more functions as it is in a third world country as compared to New York and undergoes more rigorous industrial and sewage waste due to its fast-paced economic burden. Both cities are harmful to the environment in both their respective ways.

References:
1. Weaver, S. (2020, March 24). Pollution in New York City has dropped dramatically as New Yorkers stay in. Time Out New York. https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/pollution-in-new-york-city-has-dropped-dramatically-as-new-yorkers-stay-in-032420
2. Committee to Review the New York City Watershed Management Strategy; Water Science and Technology Board; Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources; National Research Council. (n.d.). Read “Watershed Management for Potable Water Supply: Assessing the New York City Strategy” at NAP.edu. National Research Council. Retrieved July 7, 2020, from https://www.nap.edu/read/9677/chapter/7#163
3. IQ Air. (2018). Worlds Most polluted cities. https://www.iqair.com/world-most-polluted-cities
Versus. (n.d.). Karachi vs New York: What is the difference? Retrieved July 7, 2020, from https://versus.com/en/karachi-vs-new-york
4. O’Neill, N. (2019, July 23). Over half of NY’s beaches “potentially unsafe” due to fecal matter: report. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2019/07/23/over-half-of-nys-beaches-potentially-unsafe-due-to-fecal-matter-report/#:%7E:text=New%20York%20beaches%20are%20among,study%20on%20fecal%20water%20pollution.&text=In%20total%2C%20researchers%20took%20422,least%20one%20day%20last%20year.
5. Khan, R. S. (2017, August 16). 70 Years of Environmental Degradation and the Challenge of Climate Change. Youlin Magazine. https://www.youlinmagazine.com/story/70-years-of-environment-and-climate-in-pakistan/OTEz
5. Syed Ayub Qutub. (1992). Rapid Population Growth and Urban Problems in Pakistan. Ambio, 21(1), 46-49. Retrieved July 6, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4313885
6. Salman Qureshi, S. (2010, September 23). The fast growing megacity Karachi as a frontier of environmental challenges: Urbanization and contemporary urbanism issues. GEOGRAPHY AND REGIONAL PLANNING. https://academicjournals.org/journal/JGRP/article-full-text-pdf/1AB8B9B40675
7.

2nd Blog Post

3rd Blog post

26th February 2020, Pakistani  special minister to Health Zafar Mirza had reported two cases of Corona virus. In Sindh within a couple of hours all Schools were shut down and after a couple of weeks on the 23rd of March 2020 Sindh was completely shutdown and closed off. This was what needed to be done however, the floodgates of Inequality were opened in Sindh and the prime example was Karachi. The PKR to USD conversion rates spiked from  Rs 154.40 to 166.53 from 23rd March to now. Further to give insult to injury Pakistan’s GDP growth rate will shrink to 2.6% from 3.3%, while inflation will remain around 11.5% for 2020. The economy will take enormous hits from high capital outflows, lost export earnings due to falling commodity prices and currency depreciation, with an overall impact likely worse than the 2008 economic crash. This lock down has only affected the poor for now I expect it to start affecting the middle class soon.  Even before the Corona lockdown daily wage workers started to vanish, in the past we could visibly see them in Karachi at Hassan Square, Gizri and Bahadrabad the daily wage workers who sit on sidewalks slowly started to vanish. The informal sector provides as much as 75 per cent of the total jobs in the city, up from 48 percent in 1974, and today is responsible for 60 percent of all housing needs, which range from assistance for credit, construction material,technical assistance.  We see it more and more when the Prime Minister starts fighting with his own demons on to have a complete lock down or a partial though Sindh already is completely locked down. Several members of Hindu and Christian communities said that they are being denied ration by authorities in Pakistan’s Sindh Province amid corona virus pandemic. They were denied ration by authorities because of their religion (Times of India, 2020) . Referring back to Michael Lipton and Robert Bates Why Poor People Stay Poor: Urban Bias in World development (1977).  The Zero sum game is apparent in the Corona Outbreak. The Urban classes though affected by the Virus are not affected far enough as they still have their houses. The rural class has had to have to walk back home barefoot to their village with their dreams crushed by the blistering pain that the last Rs 2000 they spent to start living in Karachi while all their hope and dreams were washed away with the bleach used to sterilize the cities roads.

The unplanned regions in Karachi which consist mainly of katchi abadis and squatter settlements, have nearly all been advanced by way of informal sector marketers via the illegal subdivision and sale of state land. Most of these settlements are in the peri-urban areas of Karachi, along natural drainage channels that now deliver Karachi’s sewerage to the ocean, alongside railway traces, and in regions prone to flooding. Because the position of international donors increases in Pakistan, political choices should be taken
concerning problems of countrywide sovereignty and neighborhood manage over decisions. With inter-country wide companies dictating the monetary and political agendas of the authorities at a countrywide level, political manipulate over policy
has waned. this is also manifested at a Karachi stage, where the privatisation of nearby government institutions like the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board have provoked commentators to argue that, It’s far a depend of deep concern that Islamabad
and Washington are foisting their privatization program upon Karachi, without
the clean transparency and huge citizen participation that might make certain consensus on so essential a count number because the provision of water and sewerage services. The reason I am concerned regarding the Kachi abadis is there must be some sort of effect that will play on these people due to Corona Virus. The fact of the matter is that this has changed the thinking and mindset of people. People will start washing their hands more and hygiene will play a vital role in each of our lives. Can a country like Pakistan that already has weak sewage and water treatment handle such a load? Will this over flood our sewage and water pipelines. Hand Sanitizers do help and are effective in killing most germs but doctors have urged that hand washing for 20 seconds is necessary. Though this is not something to look down upon. We can surely hope that because of the lock down mother nature will have a huge drop air pollution and other sorts. I firmly and strongly believe when this crisis is over hand washing will be a staple in all industries will the waste of water and resources completely fracture the sewage system affecting the Kachi abadis greatly and during monsoon season will matter tip the equilibrium to complete destruction. I speculate that it will. I speculate that by the end of July 2020 there will be more that 300,000 cases in Pakistan alone based on WHO and UN reports.

My own personal opinion happens to be the following while I reflect on how all things are at halt during this crisis during the last month of March, where all of us have been isolated from family and our own peers and our normal human interactions within the frames of our society have been temporarily changed. The Sindh government has extended the lock down from 1st of April to the 15th of April. The harsh reality is that Pakistan at this time has around 1000 cases while KPK, Balochistan and Punjab are in partial lockdowns and Sindh only certain essential stores are open the situation will get worse as time passes by. Pakistan is a country that inadequately equipped with the right tools to combat this pandemic. Though cases are low now compared to America and other Major cities of the world things will go out of hand fast. If other sectors of Karachi and other cities are lifted and this virus is not taken seriously the number of cases will go out of hand at a much higher rate than around 100 cases a day. The health sector is not properly equipped with the right tools to sustain themselves in a country like Pakistan. Though China is sending Pakistan relief packages where a certain amount of ventilators are gifted to Pakistan far more will be needed for Pakistan to survive.

On the other side of the rainbow while there is a lock down in Sindh Pakistan will not be able to thrive economically if Karachi is completely shut down Karachi is at the economic forefront for Pakistan and if the industries that are in Karachi that sustain the rest of Pakistan remain closed it will also hurt Pakistan in its own way. Karachi is the financial and industrial capital of Pakistan. As of 2019, Karachi had an estimated GDP (PPP) of $164 billion. For Pakistan develop and consolidate its economy Karachi is the most important cog in the machine. Some sort of ease of lock down is necessary for Pakistan especially in Sindh so that Karachi is opened up and some industries are able to function.

Wilson, R., & Lipton, M. (1977). Why Poor People Stay Poor: Urban Bias in World Development. The Economic Journal, 87(347), 611. doi: 10.2307/223158
Desk, W. (2020, March 23). Pakistan reports sixth death from coronavirus, number of confirmed cases rises to 882. Geo News. https://www.geo.tv/latest/278713-pakistan-reports-sixth-death-from-coronavirus-number-of-confirmed-cases-rise-to
Reuters. (2020, March 31). Pakistan will be among hardest-hit economies by coronavirus crisis, says UN report. DAWN.COM. https://www.dawn.com/news/1545267
S. Akbar Zaidi. (1997). Politics, Institutions, Poverty: The Case of Karachi. Economic and Political Weekly, 32(51), 3282-3293. Retrieved July 6, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4406207
A. (2020, April 1). COVID-19: Hindus being denied rations in Pakistan amid lockdown. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/news/covid-19-hindus-being-denied-rations-in-pakistan-amid-lockdown/videoshow/74929571.cms

1st Blogpost

Pakistan is a country riddled by inequality. Inequality is seen in Karachi when the poor only seem to vanish or get poorer. Though the streets are green with the newest Audi, Mercedes and BMW car, there are those who are still cannot afford a bicycle to go to the supermarket in. Inequality is when the rich only buy imported goods from Agha’s super store while the poor walks to the Tahir Pan shop to buy a cigarette to blow their pain away. Karachi is an unequal city. Inequality in Karachi exists when there is a gas leak of H2SO4 and none of the people who live in that area are evacuated. They are not evacuated because their lives might cost the government a concession of 10 lac rupees which might be 10% of how much it cost to relocate them. There is inequality in Karachi when the poor are paid pennies for their lives but are in such deep debt that those pennies in those poor person’s eyes is a brand new wardrobe, guaranteed food for the next six months and some form of financial stability. That is the definition of inequality.

The idea of salary imbalance in the course of recent decades is that the world all in all is turning out to be progressively equal yet most nations, particularly the high income countries, are becoming more unequal. On the off chance that the world’s poor and working classes are improving, because of development triumphs in rising and creating economies, that is for sure a positive turn of events. In any case, the inequality is rising at high rate inside numerous nations, including the outrageous growth of the 1% and they are using globalization to its advantage while the middle class is only becoming weaker and smaller, this is of concern. Not exclusively does high pay imbalance raise moral issues, huge and constant increments in imbalance inside nations can sabotage their monetary exhibition and compromise sociopolitical security. They can likewise create a reaction against globalization that many see as a significant factor behind the ongoing dynamic of salary appropriation, feeding national populism what’s more, protectionism is increasing as it can be seen by Brexit and US migration laws.

Singapore is a sovereign island state city-state. It has a small area of 725km2 , it is considered one of the safest cities in the world. Singapore has a high GDP per capita of 64,581.94 USD (2018). In June of 2019 Singapore has a population of 5.70 million people which is extremely small compared to Karachi’s 14.91 million. Singapore is a multiracial and multicultural country with ethnic Chinese (76.2% of the citizen population), Malays (15.0%), and ethnic Indians (7.4%). Chinese Singaporeans make up the majority of the population. Singapore majorly developed itself as a nation in 90s laying the groundwork for what the country developed into today. It is considered as a developed country. The reason I chose to cover in Singapore is because it is a city-state and also because I happened to live in Singapore from 2009 to 2012 while my father worked there.

In rich countries, over the last 60 years, evidence shows countries like the US and Singapore who countries governments adopt the idea that the best way to help the poor is to help the rich. Singaporean economist Donald Low tries to denounce this myth that the effect known in Economics as “trickle-down economics” was introduced in Singapore when their growth was stunting. Evidence actually proposes the opposite notion, In countries where uplifting the poor serves as a better way to help them than decreasing taxes for the rich and cutting down safety nets like “top income taxes and unions”. We see this especially in the US where the trickle-down effect has not worked and leaving cooperate entities on their own market force is actually far more detrimental. A welfare state is much better in this way and through more redistributive means poor people benefit more. Singaporean government despite showing data that supports income inequality has decreased data is bias due to them heavily backing the trickle-down effect. Even though there is growth these policies and there is no reason to believe that these kind of policies are helpful

Qureshi, Z. (n.d.). TRENDS IN INCOME INEQUALITY: GLOBAL, INTER-COUNTRY, AND WITHIN COUNTRIES. Brookings. Retrieved March 15, 2020, from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/global-inequality.pdf

Peng, N. (2019). Inequality and the Social Compact in Singapore: Macro Trends versus Lived Realities. Journal of Southeast Asian Economies, 36(3), 355-379. doi:10.2307/26842380

Mothership Singapore. (2019, July 28). Economist Donald Low explains 2 myths the S’pore govt has been repeating about inequality. Mothership.SG – News from Singapore, Asia and around the World. https://mothership.sg/2019/07/donald-low-singapore-income-inequality-myths/