Karachi, Pakistan, houses 13 million residents and presides over 95% of Pakistan’s foreign trade, but poor infrastructure destines the overcrowded megacity to endure everlasting poverty. The Karachi Mega Development Project report of 2005 blatantly acknowledges that the deteriorated quality of Karachi’s infrastructure “impacts adversely on the country’s economic growth and development prospects.” Households allege to only having running water for a few hours every other day. Pipe leakages lose an estimated 50% of all drinkable water and the leaks’ detriments to water pressure only exacerbate the problem. Nonetheless, the shortfalls of the sewage systems make the water network admirable in comparison.
Only one quarter of Karachi’s sewage successfully journeys through “undersized and broken sections” of the sewage network to the city’s wastewater treatment plants. Once there, the plants suffer from operating at 50% overcapacity. The Mega Development Project report asserts that “annual flooding causes both damage to homes and infrastructure, and constitutes a significant health risk from floodwaters contaminated by the raw sewage which flows in the drainage network.”
Unfortunately, the infrastructure problems that plague Karachi are not unique. Growing urban populations across the globe expose the limitations and the finite durability of ever thinly-stretched city infrastructure. Many existing water pipes, inner-city roads, and sewage systems, often built for the cities of yesteryear and a pre-seven billion inhabitant world, have already surpassed or are approaching their maximum capacities. Sadly, fixing existing problems tends to be too costly a burden for city and national governments, and cost-cutting maneuvers lead to poorly constructed, short-term solutions.
However, instead of expensively retrofitting infrastructure through piecemeal reconstruction, a modern trend has provided governments a long-term, cost effective way to house expanding populations: New City construction.
Thoroughly engineered, decongested cities allocate resources more efficiently through their fully integrated infrastructure – an indispensable trait that will prove a matter of survival in a sustainable 21st century. As efficiency demands increase and technologies speed globalization, master planned cities also add needed economic benefits by defining clear regional roles in the world economy. Planners, engineers, and architects now design cities specifically to give industries naturally built advantages.
As the world hastily industrializes and urban populations relentlessly grow, the overcrowding problems that infected the dreary, 20th century rapidly industrializing cities now reach every corner of the globe. Yet decentralized, new urban systems help mitigate population growth to rates manageable enough for cities to address infrastructure demands. New cities can alleviate these increasing pressures while joining populations to an international, globalized world economy.
City-Scale Development: A Look into How New Cities Ease the Infrastructure Burdens of the 21st Century
