Karachi is the largest and most dense city by a significant margin, so its needs are much greater.
In comparison, Lahore, the second largest city in the country, and the premier city of the affluent province of Punjab hosts far better infrastructure. Consequently, it suffers a mere fraction of the magnitude of such issues as Karachi. In addition to a different geography, which, of course, is a significant factor, Lahore has received much greater investment of political will, civic planning and funds.
In terms of infrastructure, Karachi also seems different as you said, with lots of apartment buildings, where other cities like Lahore is almost exclusively villas, so density will be higher with more strain on infrastructure.
A very interesting development is the premiership of Imran Khan who is politically independent (excluding being beholden to the military as is all political leaders) and genuinely making a big effort in fighting corruption. It will be interesting to see how much he can accomplish.
Curious. Which city is this?
If I were to guess, it is because the political power has long rested with Pakistani Punjabis and Lahore is their capital city. Whilst Karachi has long been relegated as city of migrants.
I don't recall what that was. But it looked like classic central government vs state government fight.
- I am from Karachi.
Most Indian cities receive a ton of rainfall in the span of a few weeks, and hence infrastructure needs to be designed for peak rainfall that is perhaps 5-10x of average rainfall. As with all things, designing a system to handle 5-10x peak utilization is significantly more complex and expensive, especially when it will be in peak use for maybe 1 of 52 weeks of the year.
In some cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore etc., the economic downsides have finally started to outweigh the costs of dealing with this problem - but lack of local funding and executive leadership will probably keep infrastructure playing catch-up with future floods and climate change events. I would argue this applies to all other problems that happen due to scale of Indian urban areas - heat management, air pollution, waste disposal, traffic etc.
Would be happy to be corrected.
I wonder if the entirety of the Indian subcontinent suffers from the same long standing issues of governance, disdain for law, corruption and in general total apathy towards one's surroundings.
As a native Bangalorean. I've seen the city shredded to literal garbage, there are tall housing complexes in places where there were lakes, and there are real estate developments in natural valleys. Existing lakes have been long encroached upon, and turned into cesspools receiving sewage from nearby apartments. These flats sell for premium rates as they are ironically called 'lakeview'.
Every few months a famous lake called Bellandur lake catches fire, due to methane emissions. Also there is just unimaginable amount of dust and pollution, to a point you can feel the dust in your mouth. Dengue outbreaks are common here. What's shocking in all of this people continue to buy these 'lakeview' flats. Continue to buy properties in lands which are encroaching lakes.
I remember during the Chennai floods, some one had posted how the velachery lake had been transformed into a rectangle after years of encroachment, the whole area was flooded.
This is above and beyond the fact that plastic littering, and garbage disposal in general is so bad that it clogs the whatever little drains exist.
Didn't know that Pakistan hasn't changed all that much since partition. May be some one from Pakistan can talk about how it is there.