The world rejoiced hearing about Zohran Mamdani’s incredible mayoral victory in New York. A Muslim, and Democratic Socialist, he was able to secure a massive win because of a campaign that spoke to the vulnerabilities of ordinary people. The ‘cost of living’ crisis, including skyrocketing prices of commodities, housing and public transport, created anger among New Yorkers. Mamdani took on the power of big business that profited from these policies and voiced the concerns of ordinary people who were struggling to survive in the city. New Yorkers responded to his message with mass enthusiasm, propelling him to a historic win against the entrenched elites and their billionaire backers.
Yet, following this campaign while living in Karachi is slightly unsettling. The city’s infrastructure is crumbling, the ecological disaster is intensifying each year, and housing remains an elusive dream for the many. Many urban specialists and engineers have pointed to the glaring crisis faced by the city. But the problems cannot be solved without public education and serious political will.
Take for example the issue of Karachi’s ecological crisis and its relation to real estate and road construction. Many buildings are placed in drainage areas, but due to high housing prices, illegal settlements are built on nullahs and smaller drains. These architectural blunders have caused river outlets to narrow, causing river discharge to back-up, flooding inland neighbourhoods, especially DHA. Moreover, the extreme use of concrete has replaced natural soil, which could have been used for absorption of water but is now an impenetrable surface. Rainwater that used to be absorbed now becomes runoff, overwhelming the drains and creating Karachi dreaded “urban floods”.
Another issue is poor urban planning. GIS mapping from a DHA survey shows that it is built at or below mean sea level. Furthermore, the water from the northern hills (areas near the Karachi northern bypass) drain water towards DHA. Due to these factors, water naturally flows into low-lying urbanised flood plains, causing ponding. Human activity has broken the river-drain-sea chain in Karachi.
The failure to integrate the technical planning with socioeconomic equity and political reform guarantees year after year of urban flooding
The biggest culprit in this destruction has been the real-estate sector, colloquially known as “land mafia.” Encroachment of drains has worsened flooding. Developers and informal builders have built houses, shops, parking lots, and even a supreme court registry on top of nullahs. They have also reduced nullah widths from 20-40 meters to 4-5 meters since the mid-1960s just to fit more infrastructure. This has led to blocked drains physically preventing water from escaping the city. Construction on floodplains and reclaimed land have also led to flooding. DHA phases are mostly built on reclaimed coastlines at natural lowpoints surrounded by the sea on three sides. Reclaimed land has poor soil drainage, resulting in the quick accumulation of water.
These problems have been exacerbated by decades of government inaction. Failure to build and maintain drainage is seen in mismanagement of sewage treatment plants, political conflicts, illegal dumping, lack of affordable housing, and short term fixes favoured over long term ones. Sewage treatment plants planned in the 1958 Greater Karachi Resettlement Plan were never built. Along with this, the stormwater drainage project in DHA was stopped. Unfortunately, the city administration will spend resources on cleaning the nullahs every year but will never address the root cause which is waste, encroachment and housing shortages.
The housing crisis is a central feature of the infrastructural problems plaguing Karachi. Lack of affordable housing leads the urban poor to build informal settlements on top of nullahs.
Encroachment becomes a means for survival, but is treated as a crime. This situation arises because of the government’s failure to provide adequate low-income housing, turning natural drains into living spaces filled with sewage. Yet, short term fixes, such as the Rangers or National Development Management Authority pumping out water, has usually been favoured as it is cheaper than pushing for thorough structural solutions and proper planning.
Engineering and other technical solutions exist to address Karachi’s woes. For example, it is clear that we need to rebuild the drainage system, widen nullahs, reclaim obstructed outfalls, and revitalise wetlands and mangroves to reestablish ecological absorption zones. Moreover, with the growing danger of climate change, tools such as GIS flood modelling, permeable urban designs and infrastructure resilience training would be necessary components of any strategy of climate adaptation.
But these engineering solutions would only work with a supportive administration that can restrict the immense power of the real estate and construction industry. And this is where our true tragedy resides. The city is governed through a nexus of powerful entities such as the military, developers and bureaucrats who control most land distribution, infrastructure contracts and municipal services. The local government is not only helpless in front of them, but is often in cahoots with the schemes of this nexus. Thus, the technical knowledge or engineering solutions are of little use if one cannot confront and dislodge the power of this ruling class.
Eventually, engineering provides the solutions to mitigate flooding but politics and economics determines whether these solutions are deployed effectively. The failure to integrate the technical planning with socioeconomic equity and political reform guarantees the year after year headache of urban flooding, regardless of rainfall intensity. This is where the example of Zohran Mamdani becomes relevant for us in Karachi.
The entrenched power structures can only be challenged if there is a strong grassroots movement that puts the concerns of ordinary, vulnerable Karachiites at the forefront. From housing shortages to poor planning, and from ecological breakdown to law and order problems, the crisis continues to grow in the city. What is needed is a mass, popular movement that can fight back against the elite capture of the city, reflect the demands of the people and combine them with data-driven technical solutions. Politics, economics, and mass movements are an essential element if the future of Karachi is to be saved.
Yet, we do not even have empowered local governments. Perhaps that is where we should begin if we are to produce inspirational leaders like Mamdani for our city.