Demography
Community Initiatives: Four Case Studies from Karachi
The population of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, was 450,000 in 1947. Today it is over 11 million, and about 500,000 people are added to it every year. The state and formal sector agencies have failed...
Karachi Demographics
This presentation is available for download: P07 – Karachi Demographics [PDF, 70KB]
Planning for High Density in Low Income Settlements: Introduction to Four Case-Studies from Karachi
In many large Asian cities, planners have begun to clear informal inner-city settlements and replace them with commercial and middle-class neighbourhoods, seeking to project an image of modernity and prosperity to foreign investors. Low-income residents...
Losing Their Census
In the absence of a fresh census, the projection of earlier trends into the nineties points towards a major shift in urban-rural demographic ratios, leading to significant political repercussions… Articles in the national press, letters...
Karachi and the Global Nature of Urban Violence
In 1991, according to official figures, 466 murders were committed in Karachi; there were 802 attempted murders; 421 cases of rioting, many of them against civic agencies; 103 rapes; 140 kidnappings for ransom; 12 of...
Housing and Physical Planning
In 1985, 30.1 percent of the country’s population lived in urban areas. In 1991, 35 percent will be living in the urban areas. This means that during this period approximately 250,000 new houses will be required per year in the urban sector and approximately 275,000 in the rural sector, if the average household size is taken as 6. Almost 65 percent of this requirement is for the lower income groups.
A Decade of Urban Decay
During the 1980s, Pakistan’s urban population increased from 28.3 to 31.2 percent of its total population. Expressed in these terms, the increase does not seem excessive. However, what these figures mean is that in the...
Environmental Profile of Coastal Communities
The coastal talukas for the most part form part of the Indus delta. This area consists fo the Indus distributaries which discharge into numerous creeks that criss-cross the shore. All settlements are on the mud...
The Profits of Doom
“Let us not complicate things. It is really very simple. If you control the poppy fields,Karachi, and the road that links the two you will be so rich that you will control Pakistan,army or no...
How to Shelter Urban Poor
The dimensions of the urban crisis in Pakistan are well known, and as such need no elaboration. The most important aspect of this crisis is related to the provision of land and shelter for lower...
