Fast disappearing gardens and roadside trees in Karachi - threat to environment

Karachi has grown from a fishing village to a cosmopolitan city in about sixty years. It had only 300,000 people each having a modest house, small stock of livestock and lush green huge pepal, neem, guava and mango and badam trees.
Henna bushes were the usual hedges to earmark boundaries of a house. Water was in abundance and washing the city roads was a daily ritual.
The suburb of the city was rich in vegetable, fruit and fodder production. The local agricultural produce was enough to cater to the needs of the people of Karachi and there used to be sufficient surplus for export to nearby towns.
Malir, Gadap and Kathore were the main areas in the suburb and Gutter Baghicha within the city that were famous for vegetable and fruits. As the rat race to become rich overnight was yet to begin, prices were competitive and people having low income were able to purchase fresh vegetable and seasonal fruits with ease.
The general trend in the city was that despite availability of sufficient fresh vegetable and fruit people would go for kitchen garden in the front of their houses. Those who had backyards would use it for both keeping livestock and growing trees. The love for trees was immense.
This love for trees was evident from the various gardens that were planned in and around the city. Gandhi Garden was a tiny zoo but its popularity was due to its variety of trees, flowers and shrubs. People would visit its nursery and purchase quality plants and sapling of trees upon which birds could nest comfortably.
Frere garden near the US Consulate was famous for its lawn and rows of flowerbeds, fountain, statues reminding the colonial past and because of the outstanding architectural beauty of its museum. It was a place where still the white coarse cloth saris clad Ayahs could be seen pushing pram from one end to the other of the lawn. Children attired in their best, mostly of Parse community, would come to this garden for fresh air.
Burns Garden, near Sindh Secretariat, was famous for its fresh coconut juice. The garden was lined with quality coconut trees and at places there were guava trees to break the monotony that the coconut tree had created. Wild badam (almond) trees were also there. This garden had plenty of water to keep plants alive and fresh.
Fruit, specially mango, guava, papaya and banana from Malir, Gadap and Kathore used to be of the finest quality and sought after possession during the season for the Karachiits.
All city roads, popularly known as Bunder Road, from one end to another, had huge trees all along on both sides. The public transport, including tramcars, would run in the middle of Bunder Road beginning from Kemari would terminate in Saddar or Soldier Bazar but none would spoil the green foliage. There was no danger to the environment. Karachi had a salubrious environment. It has now turned poisonous.
Where these gardens have now disappeared? Where are Malir, Gadap and Kathore? Where is Gutter Baghicha? Where are those henna hedges and where are those huge pepal trees that would host songbirds?
The commercialisation of the city, population explosion and the indifference of the city administrators and politicians have destroyed the entire city environment. Trees have been cut, gardens have been reduced in size and suburban agricultural lands have been converted into residential areas.
Since the greed to posses more wealth has no limit therefore Karachi was put on auction from time to time and its beauty was sold to avaricious speculators.
These people in total disregards to the protesting civil society have deprived the city of its rich heritage of cleanliness, brightness and light. They have chopped lines of huge trees from thoroughfares and left these roads naked to be dug and left uncovered. From those places where there were trees now either a gutter line passes or a big-size dustbin has been kept for collecting city garbage.
Those places from where people of the city were getting mango, banana and guava only jungle of concrete has grown and people have been caged in pigeonholes. They have no fresh air and no sunlight in their surroundings. One can legitimately ask would it be possible in the near future to grow trees and make the city once again that it used to be?