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Differential community and the perception of urban green spaces and their contents in the megacity of Karachi, Pakistan

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Abstract

Urban green spaces (UGS) denote the chief representative of biodiversity and provider of ecosystem services (especially social and cultural) in urban landscapes. Socio-economic circumstances of individuals are significantly derived from their psychometric settings–which ultimately affect their preferences in urban landscapes–more so for multicultural and multifaceted social environments. This paper investigates the coupling of distinct socio-economic (life quality) standards and urban natural spaces (and their content) in the megacity of Karachi, Pakistan. The main research question was how the socio-economic conditions of the differentiated and multicultural community influence their preferences of urban green spaces. It was tested at three systematically selected research sites of distinct structural and functional characteristics but the results and discussion are presented in an integrative form. The study sites were selected using Karachi’s urban-rural gradient to deduce representative samples from different land use and urbanization zones. Public interviews of 340 respondents were conducted with a structured questionnaire. The findings contradict generalizations made in other international studies. Results show that the presumption of tightly coupled social settings and nature space preferences could not be validated empirically for varying types of cities in the world. This is because people perceive their heterogeneous natural and artificial environment differently in different regional settings. The multicultural environment dissembles the choices of people and vice versa. This is true regardless of the sampling strategy for such studies that had been the focus in the past. Community revitalization is deemed necessary for better design, facilities and functions of UGS to foster social wellbeing of residents as well as sustainable urban development.

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Notes

  1. In perception studies, environmental psychologists take the pluralistic approach by considering the physical, biological, cultural and aesthetic components of an area in a single frame; it is generally regarded as broad base knowledge and interpretation of an individual’s surrounding. The sociologists and demographers, on the other hand, consider it more as world view about life and society, not necessarily including the physical/biological components into consideration simultaneously.

  2. Due to the spatial extent of the city, many people have to start commuting to their work places early in the morning, and therefore do not have much time to use UGS in the morning. Furthermore, there is a strong cultural reason; people in the city do not prefer to go out for entertainment or leisure activities early in the morning. Even on weekends, people wake up late in the morning and start their leisure/weekend activities later in the afternoon.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support of graduate students from the Department of Geography, University of Karachi, Pakistan, for their assistance in field data collection and questionnaire survey. Survey participants though anonymous are thanked for their participation. Principal author is indebted to Prof. Dr. Jamil Kazmi (University of Karachi) for his support during field work and access to datasets available in his remote sensing/GIS labs. The constructive comments of two anonymous reviewers are appreciated which lead to the substantial improvement in the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Humboldt University of Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 16, 12489, Berlin, Germany

    Salman Qureshi

  2. School of Architecture, Birmingham City University, Gosta Green, Birmingham, B4 7DX, UK

    Salman Qureshi

  3. Department of Geography and Geology, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstrasse 34, Salzburg, 5020, Austria

    Jürgen H. Breuste

  4. Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China

    C. Y. Jim

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  1. Salman Qureshi
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Qureshi, S., Breuste, J.H. & Jim, C.Y. Differential community and the perception of urban green spaces and their contents in the megacity of Karachi, Pakistan. Urban Ecosyst 16, 853–870 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-012-0285-9

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