Comparative Analysis of Urban Development Trends of Beijing and Karachi Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

Urban sustainability has become a significant challenge globally due to rapidly growing urbanization and industrialization. Hence, this study was conducted to examine the existing urban development trends of metropolitan cities (i.e., Beijing and Karachi) of China and Pakistan in the context of urban sustainability. The development progress in both cities was examined through urban sustainability indices individually and compared with each other. An index system considering 36 indicators was developed based on social, economic, and environmental aspects. The six years (2012–2017) of data used in this study, were obtained from various governmental websites. Furthermore, the Urban Sustainability Index (USI) was evaluated using the statistical standard equal-weighted method. Results revealed that Beijing’s developmental progress is much better than Karachi in terms of socio-economic and environmental development, but there is still a need for improvement. While Karachi faces problems in all three sectors, each indicator of these sectors requires considerable improvement for attaining the top level of the Urban Sustainability Index. However, this study recommends that much attention is needed in the case of Karachi city, whereas Beijing also needs quality advancement in urban development.

Geotechnical Property Modeling and Construction Safety Zoning Based on GIS and BIM Integration

“…Furthermore, the results are compared with the previous study conducted for Potohar region, Pakistan [9]. In this study [9], the region area is 23,000 km 2 and total number of borehole test data used was 75, which means one field test is covering average 306 km 2 . In comparison, the total area of our study region is 215 km 2 and one borehole is covering average 10 km 2 , which has less uncertainties.…”

“…Urbanization is considered the growth of the population towards cities or suburbs. In 2018, it was estimated that 55% of the world population is living in urban areas and it was projected that by 2050, 68% of the world's population will be urban dwellers [1,2]. The increase in the population is so rapid; it is becoming a major problem across the world.…”

The Relationship between Neighborhood Characteristics and Homicide in Karachi, Pakistan

“…Population shift from rural to urban areas has been noticed due to job opportunities in this city since the 1980s. The population increased from 5 million to 10 million in the last two decades of the 20th century [32]. About one-third of these new arrivals were forced to take up residence in urban shantytowns, which lacked power, running water, or sanitation.…”

An Effective Framework for Monitoring and Measuring the Progress towards Sustainable Development in the Peri-Urban Areas of the Greater Cairo Region, Egypt

“…Local China Panda et al [24] Local India Zulaica [20] Local Argentina Huang et al [58] Local -Mangi [5] Local China and Pakistan Feng et al [59] Local China Nevertheless, Diaz-Chavez, Zulaica, and Nallathiga emphasized that most of the SDIs at the local level are not working with PUAs, due to the unique characteristics of PUAs as a mixture zone of urban and rural features [20,23,60]. In addition, Klopp, Nagy, and Arha discussed many challenges to applying these indicators in the PUAs [4,7,31,32].…”

“…Sustainable development (SD) has become an urgent topic in contemporary development issues [1]. SD is the organizing principle to meet human development goals [2][3][4][5] and aims to improve the quality of life in both urban and rural areas [6,7]. SD has received extensive care and support from the developed countries since the Brundtland report in 1987, then it was been adopted by developing countries after the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 [8,9].…”