Fading green, fragile lives: Islamabad, Karachi and the story of occupational security

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Dr. Farrukh A. Chishtie / Aleem Chaudhary

For many of us, Islamabad has always been more than a capital city. It has felt like a promise. Neat sectors, cool breezes from the Margalla Hills, tree lined streets and open spaces once suggested that a different kind of urban life was possible in Pakistan. Karachi, in contrast, has long carried the image of a city pushed to its limits: overcrowded, overbuilt and constantly struggling with pollution, water shortages and heat.

Today, that simple contrast no longer holds. Islamabad is still greener and less crowded than Karachi, but the gap is closing. Forest edges are shrinking, seasonal smog is becoming a yearly reality, and unplanned housing is spreading into every available corner. Beneath these environmental changes lies a deeper question. What happens to our daily lives, our safety and our sense of dignity when a city begins to lose its balance with nature?

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This is where the idea of occupational security helps us see Islamabad and Karachi in a new way. In simple terms, occupational security is about protecting the right of humans and non-humans to live safe, peaceful and dignified lives, and to carry out their daily activities in ways that are sustainable, just, compassionate, authentic and accurate. It reminds us that security is not only about armies, borders or police. It is also about whether a child can safely walk to school, whether a street vendor can stand all day without breathing toxic air, and whether birds, trees, rivers and seas can continue their own life sustaining activities without being choked or poisoned.

In this framework, occupations are daily life activities. For humans, this includes earning a living, studying, caring for family, resting, praying, socialising and playing. For non-humans, occupations might include the ways birds forage and nest, how street dogs search for food and shelter, or how mangroves protect coastlines by holding soil and hosting marine life. When environmental decline disrupts these activities, it is not only an ecological problem. It is also a security problem, because it threatens the safety and well being that flow from these occupations.

Seen through this lens, Islamabad’s story is not just about losing trees or breathing more dust. It is about a city that once supported relatively secure occupations, now drifting toward patterns that already harm millions of daily lives in Karachi. Islamabad’s planned sectors were originally designed to give people room to move, breathe and meet. Green belts cooled the air and soaked up rainwater. Hills and streams offered spaces where humans and non-humans could share a cooler, quieter microclimate. These design choices supported occupational security, even if that language was not used at the time.

Karachi, on the other hand, is a powerful example of what happens when this balance collapses. In many neighbourhoods, people wake up, go to work, fetch water, cook and sleep in environments where heat, pollution and unsafe infrastructure constantly attack their physical and mental health. Rivers carry sewage instead of clean water. Coastal mangroves, which once protected fishing communities and marine life, have been cut back or filled for real estate. Here, occupational insecurity is visible in every crowded bus, every flooded street, every child playing beside an open drain.

The question at the heart of this cover story is therefore not only: “Is Islamabad becoming the next Karachi?” A more precise question is: “Will Islamabad protect occupational security for humans and non-humans, or will it follow Karachi into a pattern where daily occupations become increasingly unsafe, unjust and fragile?”

Answering that question requires more than technical data. It requires a values-based conversation. Sustainability asks whether our choices today protect life into the future. Justice asks who bears the heaviest burdens when air, water and land are degraded. Peace asks whether people can carry out their daily lives without constant fear, stress and conflict over resources. Compassion asks if we are willing to notice and respond to suffering, including the suffering of non-humans. Authenticity and accuracy ask whether our policies, media stories and urban plans reflect the real situation on the ground, rather than convenient myths. These values are not abstract. They are already being negotiated every day in both Islamabad and Karachi.

In the pages that follow, we will use the occupational security framework to trace the lived connections between environment and daily life in both cities. We will ask how smog, water stress, heat waves, flooding, waste and disappearing greenery are reshaping the occupations of children, workers, elders, informal settlers, animals and ecosystems. Most importantly, we will explore what it would mean for Islamabad to learn from Karachi’s pain, and to choose a different, more secure path for all who live in and around it, human and non-human alike.

What occupational security really means in a city

Before we look more closely at Islamabad and Karachi, it helps to unpack what occupational security means in practical, city level terms. The formal definition sounds technical at first. Occupational security is the sustainable, just and compassionate protection of the right of humans and non-humans to a safe, peaceful and dignified life, including their daily activities, using measures that are authentic and accurate.

In simpler words, it asks one core question. Can people, animals and ecosystems carry out their everyday occupations in safety and dignity, today and in the future, without being sacrificed for profit or short-term convenience?

Underneath this definition sit five guiding values: sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, and authenticity with accuracy. These are not abstract slogans. Each one has a very concrete face in Islamabad and Karachi.

Sustainability asks whether the occupations that keep a city alive can continue without destroying the foundations that support them. In Islamabad, this includes whether office work, construction, driving, shopping and recreation can go on without exhausting groundwater, stripping the hills of forests or filling streams with solid waste. In Karachi, it raises painful questions about industries that provide jobs while dumping untreated effluent into rivers and the sea, or transport systems that move millions at the cost of constant air pollution and dangerous traffic.

Justice asks who benefits and who pays the price when environmental stress grows. A cooling park in a wealthy Islamabad sector is not only about trees and benches. It is about which children have safe green space after school, and which children play beside drains, construction rubble or busy roads. In Karachi, justice shows up in the long queues at water tankers, the informal settlements that flood first, and the communities that live closest to garbage dumps or industrial smoke. Occupational security insists that we cannot call a city safe if environmental harm is pushed onto those with the least voice.

Peace, within this framework, is more than the absence of armed conflict. It is the possibility of carrying out daily occupations without constant fear, noise and disruption. In Islamabad, this might mean walking or cycling without breathing thick dust and exhaust or sleeping without anxiety about flash floods entering a basement flat. In Karachi, peace is linked to whether a family can sleep during a heatwave night without power failure, or whether a street vendor can work without being forced to stand in traffic and inhale fumes the whole day.

Compassion adds a vital layer. It asks whether we notice and respond to suffering, including the suffering of animals and ecosystems whose occupations are being disrupted. When Islamabad fills its seasonal streams with plastic and rubble, it is not only blocking drainage. It is also crowding out fish, insects and birds that once used those corridors as habitats and travel routes. When Karachi loses mangroves, it is erasing the occupations of crabs, fish and birds, and removing the natural barriers that once protected fishing communities from storms. Compassion invites planners, officials and citizens to ask: if we were in the place of these humans and non-humans, how would we want the city to respond

Authenticity and accuracy may sound like academic terms, but they speak directly to how city stories are told. Authenticity asks whether official narratives and media images reflect the real experience of people, rather than only polished, elite neighbourhoods. Accuracy demands honest data on air quality, heat, water safety and disease. Without accurate information, it becomes easy to deny that there is a problem at all. Occupational security relies on truthful, grounded knowledge, because only then can we design measures that actually protect daily life.

Reading Islamabad through everyday occupations

If we now turn this framework onto Islamabad, a different picture emerges from the usual pride in its green belts and wide roads. Imagine the city as a living map of occupations rather than just plots and sectors.

In the early mornings, office workers prepare to commute, school children wait at bus stops, domestic workers travel from lower income settlements toward wealthier homes, and delivery riders weave through traffic. At the same time, kites and crows circle above garbage spots, stray dogs search for food near markets, and trees at the edge of the Margalla Hills start their daily work of cooling, shading and sheltering countless small creatures.

When air pollution rises, all these occupations are touched at once. The office worker arrives at their desk with a dull headache, the traffic police officer develops a stubborn cough, the child waiting by a busy road breathes particulate matter that may affect their lungs for years, and the dog lying near a smoky roundabout is exposed to the same toxic mix. Islamabad still has better air than Karachi in many seasons, but its trend is moving in the wrong direction. Dirty air is not only an environmental statistic. It is a direct attack on occupational security for every being that must breathe while going about daily life.

Water tells a similar story. As the city spreads outward, new housing schemes drill deeper into the aquifer to feed lawns, car washing and multi storey apartments. At the same time, old drains overflow during heavy rain because natural channels were filled or blocked. In one part of the city, residents may worry about when the next tanker will come. In another, families fear that the next cloudburst will send water rushing into their homes or shops. These are not separate technical issues. They are two sides of the same occupational insecurity. The same poor planning that exhausts groundwater also increases the risk of sudden floods that interrupt work, damage homes and spread disease.

Waste is yet another mirror. In Islamabad’s planned sectors, many residents see regular waste collection and relatively clean streets. On the fringes, overflowing bins, open dumping and trash filled streams are far more common. Here, the occupations affected are very specific: sanitation workers who handle waste without proper equipment, children who play near dumps, small shopkeepers who operate beside open drains, and farmers downstream who receive polluted water on their fields. Birds, dogs and other animals pick through the same trash, often ingesting plastic and toxins. The city may look orderly from a distance, but at ground level the pattern of occupational security and insecurity is very uneven.

Karachi, by comparison, shows what happens when these patterns are allowed to deepen for decades. Its rivers have become carriers of sewage, its informal settlements face repeated flooding, and its summers are marked by extreme heat that interacts with poverty, poor housing and weak services. In such a context, almost every occupation daily travel, schooling, home care, fishing, street vending, factory work starts to carry much higher risk. Occupational security in Karachi has been weakened by a long history of decisions that treated environmental health as secondary.

For Islamabad, the lesson is clear. The city is still in a window of time when it can choose to protect occupational security rather than erode it. The question is whether planners, decision makers and residents are ready to see environment and daily occupations as deeply linked, and to make choices that honour that link.

On the next pages, we will move deeper into specific themes air, water, heat, waste and green space and ask, value by value, what occupational security would look like if Islamabad truly decided not to repeat Karachi’s path.

Karachi as a warning, Islamabad at a crossroads

To understand Islamabad’s future, we have to look honestly at Karachi’s present. Karachi is not only an example of environmental decline. It is an ongoing study in occupational insecurity. Millions of people there carry out their daily activities in conditions that constantly attack their bodies, minds and dignity.

For many residents, a normal day begins with uncertainty about water. Will the tap run at all Will the tanker arrive Will the water be safe to drink A basic occupation like cooking, washing or making tea becomes a daily gamble. In crowded settlements, women and children often spend hours in queues just to fill a few containers. Every minute spent in that queue is time taken away from study, rest, income generation or play. This is occupational insecurity in its purest form.

Heat adds another invisible layer of pressure. Karachi’s concrete and asphalt trap warmth long after sunset. Poorly ventilated homes, informal workplaces and weak electricity supply turn routine tasks into health risks. A factory worker on a hot floor, a street vendor on a traffic island, a child trying to sleep on a rooftop in a heatwave night, all are pushing their bodies to the limit just to keep going. When heat intersects with air pollution and poor nutrition, the cost is paid in fainting spells, chronic illness and reduced ability to work or learn.

Flooding then cuts across all of these occupations. When drains overflow or nullahs burst their banks, it is not simply a matter of water entering streets. It is livelihoods, school days and caregiving routines washed away. Shopkeepers lose stock. Daily wage workers miss earnings. Children fall sick with diarrheal disease. Mosquito breeding surges. Each flood becomes not one disaster, but a chain of smaller, everyday disasters spread over weeks and months.

It is important to remember that Karachi did not arrive here overnight. This is the result of decades of choices that placed short term gain over long term sustainability, that tolerated informal settlements without services, that allowed rivers and coasts to become dumping grounds, and that left public transport, health care and green space underfunded. At every step, occupational security was weakened, especially for those with the least power.

Islamabad can still choose a different path. It can treat Karachi not as a rival to be looked down upon, but as a mirror showing what happens when environmental and social systems are allowed to fray together. In Islamabad, the early signs are already visible. Air quality readings are worsening in winter. Traffic is growing faster than public transport. Housing schemes march outward while groundwater falls. Forest edges are chipped away in the name of development. If these trends continue, the city’s carefully planned image will not protect its residents from the same forms of insecurity that Karachi now struggles with.

An occupational security lens invites Islamabad to ask different questions. Instead of only asking how many new roads or plazas can be built, the city can ask how each decision affects the daily occupations of school children, domestic workers, sanitation staff, shopkeepers, office employees, elders, people with disabilities and non-human life. It is a call to recognise that every flyover, every cut tree, every blocked stream and every ignored settlement is also a decision about whose life will become easier and whose will become more fragile.

Choosing a secure future for both cities

If we accept that environment and daily life are deeply linked, then the way forward for both Islamabad and Karachi become clearer. The first step is to place occupational security at the centre of planning. This means asking, for every major project and policy, a simple but powerful question. Will this increase or decrease the ability of humans and non-humans to live safe, peaceful and dignified lives, today and in the future.

In practical terms, this leads to a few key directions.

For air, it means planning cities where people are not forced to breathe poison to earn a living or to go to school. For Islamabad, this could include protecting and expanding tree cover, investing in reliable public transport, discouraging private vehicle dependence, and strictly controlling brick kilns and other emission sources. For Karachi, it means accelerating cleaner fuels, introducing more efficient public and freight transport, and protecting workers who spend long hours in traffic or near industrial zones.

For water, occupational security means treating safe access as a basic right, not a luxury for the few. Islamabad still has the chance to fix leaks, protect catchments and stop the mixing of sewage and drinking lines before the problem becomes unmanageable. Karachi must focus on cleaning and restoring its rivers and coastal areas, repairing and extending pipelines, and ensuring that informal settlements are not permanently left to tanker economies and contaminated wells.

For heat, it is vital to cool cities with nature and with design, not just with air conditioners that many cannot afford. Both cities need more shade trees, reflective and ventilated building designs, and public cooling spaces where vulnerable people can find relief during heatwaves. Occupational security asks planners to think of the street vendor, the traffic warden, the delivery rider and the child in a tin roof classroom, and to treat their bodies as worthy of protection.

Waste and land use demand similar shifts. Islamabad can still protect seasonal nullahs and green belts as living corridors for both humans and non humans. Karachi can reclaim parts of its rivers and coastlines from waste and encroachment, turning them into cleaner, cooler spaces that support healthier occupations, from fishing to recreation. In both cities, sanitation workers who handle waste every day must be recognised, equipped and protected, not left invisible and at risk.

Behind all these changes lies a deeper cultural choice. Will we continue to think of security only in terms of borders and buildings, or will we widen it to include the daily realities of breathing, drinking, moving, working, caring and resting Occupational security invites Pakistan to tell a richer story about safety. It reminds us that a child walking to school through clean air, a woman collecting water from a safe tap, a fisherman casting a net in unpolluted water, a sanitation worker with proper gear, and a bird nesting in a protected tree are all signs of a truly secure society.

Islamabad still has a window to act before its environmental pressures reach Karachi’s scale. Karachi, despite its hardships, has a wealth of lived experience about what happens when that window is missed. If these two cities can learn from each other, rather than compete, they can chart a path that puts sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, authenticity and accuracy into real urban practice, not just into policy documents.

A shared horizon of hope

If this story has focused on risks and losses, it is because love and concern sit behind every warning. Islamabad and Karachi are not just points on a map. They are home to millions of daily lives, human and non-human, that still carry enormous creativity, resilience and care.

In Karachi, despite heat, flooding and pollution, people constantly rebuild their occupations. Neighbours share water when tankers do not come. Volunteers clean beaches and plant mangroves. Doctors run low-cost clinics in crowded settlements. Artists and youth groups use walls, music and community events to keep hope alive. Every one of these actions is a small act of occupational security, even when the language is not used. They show a determination to protect dignity and life in the middle of hardship.

In Islamabad, there is still time to prevent many of the worst outcomes that Karachi is living with. Students are already organising clean up drives and tree planting. Residents are speaking up against illegal cutting and unplanned schemes. Professionals in planning, health and engineering are starting to link climate, environment and public health more directly. Communities at the city edges quietly protect small streams, fields and habitats that larger plans ignore. These are seeds of a different future.

The most hopeful path is one in which the two cities learn from each other. Karachi’s experience can guide Islamabad away from repeating avoidable mistakes. Islamabad’s remaining green spaces and relatively lower density can offer examples of what to preserve and how to rebuild. Through the occupational security lens, both cities can recognise that their deepest strength lies not only in buildings or roads, but in the ability of people and ecosystems to carry out meaningful daily occupations in safety and dignity.

Imagine a Karachi where rivers run cleaner, where coastal mangroves are restored, where public transport is reliable and shaded, and where sanitation workers are fully protected and respected. Imagine an Islamabad where forests and streams are carefully guarded, where cycling and walking are safe and common, and where informal settlements are upgraded instead of ignored. In both places, imagine schools teaching children that caring for air, water, soil and fellow creatures is not a luxury, but a core part of what it means to be secure.

Occupational security gives a language for this hope. It reminds us that sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, authenticity and accuracy are not distant goals, but guiding stars for daily decisions. Each citizen, each community group, each professional and each decision maker can ask: does this action strengthen or weaken the ability of humans and non-humans to live safely and meaningfully

If enough of us choose the first path, then the story of Islamabad and Karachi does not have to be one of decline. It can become a story of two cities that faced the realities of climate and environmental stress, and then chose, deliberately and together, to protect life. That choice, renewed day after day in countless small occupations, is where real security begins.

In the end, this is not only a story about two cities. It is a question for all of us. What kind of daily life do we want to protect For ourselves, for our children, and for the non human companions who share our streets, skies, seas and soils The answer will be written not only in speeches and plans, but in every tree preserved, every drain cleared, every school shaded, every worker protected and every river allowed to breathe again.

If Islamabad and Karachi can move in that direction, then the green that once symbolised hope in the capital, and the sea that once symbolised opportunity in the port city, can both become anchors for a more secure, humane and compassionate future for all.