KARACHI’S UNSOLVED HOUSING CRISIS

KARACHI'S UNSOLVED HOUSING CRISIS.

Key points

• Arif HasanHamna Syed Published August 23, 2026 Updated August 24, 2026 12: 28pm.
• When Pakistan came into existence in August 1947, Karachi was a city of roughly 435, 000 individuals.
• Recognising that Karachi needed long-term planning, the administration commissioned the Greater Karachi Plan, prepared by the Swedish consulting firm Merz Rendel Vatten (MRV) and published in 1951.
• During the late 1950s, the administration attempted another major intervention through the Landhi-Korangi Township Scheme as part of the greater Karachi resettlement plan.
• By the 1960s, it had become evident that Karachi's housing difficulty could not be solved through conventional planning alone.

More than 60 per cent of Karachi's population now lives in informal neighbourhoods since of the scarcity of affordable planned housing.

When Pakistan came into existence in August 1947, Karachi was a city of roughly 435, 000 individuals. Within months, its population changed dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees arrived from India after Partition, seeking shelter, employment and security in the new country's capital.

In practice, the city's infrastructure, housing stock and public services had never been designed to absorb such numbers in such a short time. The shortage of housing that Karachi experiences today has its roots in those first years after Independence.

In practice, the newly established administration faced an emergency unlike any it had encountered before. Refugees were accommodated in schools, military barracks, public buildings and temporary camps. Plenty of forcibly occupied abandoned properties left behind by Hindus and Sikhs who had migrated to India. Others erected makeshift shelters on vacant land. These arrangements were intended to be temporary, but plenty of became permanent as the demand for affordable housing continued to grow.

Karachi's population more than doubled within a few years. By the 1951 Census, the city's population had reached over one million individuals. As residents arrived not only from India but additionally from Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or KP) and Balochistan in search of work, migration continued throughout the after decade. The city was becoming Pakistan's major commercial and administrative hub, but its housing policy failed to keep pace with its population expansion.

INITIAL ATTEMPTS AT HOUSING.

Meanwhile, the government's first response focused on building formal housing. Pakistan Quarters, Martin Quarters, Federal B Area, Paposh Nagar and a number of other residential schemes were developed during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

These projects demonstrated that the state recognised the housing shortage, but they were never designed to meet the needs of the majority. Most units were built for administration officers and public servants rather than low-income households or newly arrived migrants. The individuals facing the greatest housing insecurity remained largely outside the formal system.

Recognising that Karachi needed long-term planning, the administration commissioned the Greater Karachi Plan, prepared by the Swedish consulting firm Merz Rendel Vatten (MRV) and published in 1951. It was the city's first comprehensive master plan. The plan proposed a structured expansion of Karachi through satellite towns, industrial areas, improved transport links and planned residential neighbourhoods. It attempted to guide future expansion rather than simply respond to immediate crises.

Meanwhile, the plan reflected plenty of of the planning ideas popular at the time. It assumed that urban expansion could be managed through comprehensive planning, zoning regulations and large-scale public investment. While new infrastructure would accommodate future population expansion, satellite settlements were projected to reduce pressure on the city centre.

Notably, the proposals were technically ambitious, but they additionally depended on financial resources and administrative capacity that Pakistan simply did not possess during its early years. Consequently, much of the master plan remained on paper. Karachi continued to grow, but it grew largely outside the framework envisioned by the planners. THE RISE OF KATCHI ABADIS.

This gap between planning and reality has become a defining feature of Karachi's development. Population expansion was immediate. Planning operated gradually. Families in need of shelter could not wait for housing schemes that required years of surveys, land acquisition, financing and construction. They solved the difficulty themselves.

Throughout the 1950s, informal settlements began to appear throughout the city. As they are often described, these settlements, afterwards known as katchi abadis, were not simply the result of illegal occupation. They reflected the absence of affordable alternatives. For plenty of low-income households, the choice was never between formal housing and informal housing. It was between informal housing and no housing at all.

Plenty of policymakers viewed these settlements as planning failures or illegal encroachments. Residents viewed them differently.

Over time, they provided access to employment, schools, transport and social networks that distant administration housing often failed to offer. Location mattered as much as shelter. A family earning daily wages could not afford to live plenty of kilometres away from its workplace simply as housing happened to be available there.

During the late 1950s, the administration attempted another major intervention through the Landhi-Korangi Township Scheme as part of the greater Karachi resettlement plan. This was initiated under the military administration of Gen Ayub Khan and developed with backing from the Ford Foundation and planned by Doxiadis, an internationally acclaimed planner.

In practice, the plan aimed to resettle tens of thousands of refugee families living in informal settlements close to the city centre. It was one of the largest resettlement programmes undertaken in Pakistan. The Landhi-Korangi Township Scheme proposed the construction of around 40, 000 houses in two satellite towns for refugees and low-income families. Nevertheless, only concerning 10, 000 houses were completed before the project was discontinued.

For context, the settlements were located on the outskirts of Karachi, with the expectation being that nearby planned industrial zones would develop to provide employment. This did not happen, forcing most residents to continue travelling to the city for work. The long commute rose transport costs, wasted valuable time and reduced employment opportunities, particularly for women.

It additionally placed further pressure on Karachi's transport network, with Saddar – where most jobs were located at that time – becoming the main transport hub, leading to overcrowded bus terminals and the expansion of informal markets that served daily commuters.

Residents were projected to pay for their one-room houses through monthly instalments. It would finance a revolving fund for future housing. Nevertheless, residents were unable to keep up with the payments as of poor employment opportunities and the cost of commuting. Without a functioning revolving fund, the program became financially unsustainable and was eventually abandoned, achieving only a fraction of its original target.

There is another aspect to this project. The settlements created are uni-ethnic, and the residents are all working class. As evident in the violence in Karachi in the 1990s, this creates homogenous settlements that have similar political views and affiliations, and enhances the development of stronger political conflicts.

Meanwhile, the commute that created the informal markets of Saddar additionally led to the displacements of those markets when the courts declared them to be illegal and passed orders that they should be demolished, adversely affecting Karachi's street economy and increasing poverty and alienation among its various protagonists.

Notably, the Landhi-Korangi scheme reflected a different planning philosophy. Instead of allowing informal settlements to expand, the state would relocate residents to planned townships equipped with roads, schools and basic services. On paper, the approach appeared rational. In practice, it exposed a difficulty that continues to shape urban policy today.

This experience challenged a common assumption in urban planning: that housing could be treated as an isolated difficulty. In reality, housing is closely linked with employment, transport, education and social networks. Individuals choose where to live not only as of the quality of a house but additionally as of its relationship to the rest of their lives.

These early experiences have shaped the direction of Karachi's housing debate for decades. Governments continue to produce master intends and housing schemes. Yet the city expands primarily through the efforts of its own residents. Where formal housing remains unaffordable or inaccessible, individuals acquire land informally, build incrementally and create communities with limited or no state assistance.

By the 1960s, it had become evident that Karachi's housing difficulty could not be solved through conventional planning alone. While thousands of new migrants continued to arrive each month, every new housing scheme addressed only a fraction of the demand.

This forced planners to reconsider a basic assumption. For years, governments had been led to believe by international finance institutions (IFIs) and the United Nations (UN) that complete houses could be built and allocated to low-income families. The experience of Karachi suggested otherwise.

Constructing houses required sizeable financial resources, lengthy administrative procedures and substantial public investment. The state simply lacked the capacity to provide homes, even unfinished ones, or with only basic infrastructure, for everyone who needed them.

Around the same time, a different way of thinking regarding housing was beginning to emerge internationally. Among its strongest advocates was the British architect and planner John F.C. Turner, whose work in Peru challenged conventional housing policy.

Turner argued that governments should not try to build houses for the poor. Instead, they should provide serviced land, secure tenure and basic infrastructure. Once individuals had access to land, they were generally capable of building and improving their own homes over time.

Turner's ideas represented a significant shift in formal urban planning. Housing was no longer viewed simply as a product supplied by the state. It was understood as a process in which families invested gradually, according to their income. Instead of waiting years for a completed house, households could commence with a single room, expand it when finances allowed and improve the structure over a number of years.

International agencies, including the World Bank and the UN, afterwards incorporated numerous of these principles into what became known as 'Sites and Services' programmes. Sites, meaning land plots, and services, meaning water, sewerage and electricity, were developed and handed over to low-income residents.

As they had to be paid for and were unaffordable to the target group, and the administrative process of acquiring them was long, cumbersome and particularly time-consuming, in Karachi too, hundreds of units in sites and services schemes were developed, but they did not reach the poor. As such, plenty of of the schemes lay empty for years and were subsequently purchased by middle-income groups. So the informal housing process continued.

For context, the self-built informal housing process additionally backed the local economy. It created continuous employment for masons, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, transporters, suppliers of construction materials and countless daily-wage labourers. Unlike sizeable administration projects, where construction concluded once the scheme was completed, self-built neighbourhoods generate economic activity for years. Housing not only provides shelter, it additionally creates livelihoods. UPGRADING INSTEAD OF DEMOLISHING.

Despite this evidence, official policy continues to regard informal settlements primarily as planning violations. Settlements are described as encroachments on public land rather than as evidence of an unmet demand for affordable housing and commercial development.

Demolition remains a common response. Yet, removing settlements does not remove the need for housing. Families displaced from one location usually settle in an informal settlement elsewhere. This does not reduce the population of informal settlements or of housing units in informal areas.

By the 1970s, informal settlements had become an established part of Karachi's urban landscape. The city could no longer be understood only through its planned neighbourhoods. Sizeable sections of its workforce lived in older katchi abadis. It are comparatively nearer to work areas.

For now, KARACHI'S UNSOLVED HOUSING CRISIS remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.