Human Settlements
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...
The Housing Crisis in Central Asia
Background to the Mission Dutch Inter church Aid (DIA) has been working with problems related to homelessness and informal settlements in Almaty and Bishkek. In early 1995 it felt that it required professional advise on...
Participation By Whom?
Residents of informal settlements in Pakistan invest large sums of money in acquiring water and sanitation through community efforts. Where de-facto or de-jure tenure security exists, this investment is much larger. In the initial stages,...
The Role of the Informal Sector in Provision of Urban Housing and Facilities
The formal sector in housing in Pakistan caters to less than 20 percent of the housing demand. Seventy two percent of this demand is for low and lower middle income housing. The major reason for...
Contribution for ACHR Newsletter – Habitat Issue
Twenty years ago the Habitat Conference accepted that the major problem in Asian cities was shelter for the poor who constitute over sixty five per cent of the population in urban Third World Asia. It...
The Future of the Award
Since its first cycle, ending with the Award ceremony in Lahore in 1980, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture has travelled a long way. The distance it has covered is best illustrated by the difference...
Grand Seminar on Mega-Cities
My topic is an Asian overview of patterns of violence with special focus on Karachi. I am not a social scientist nor have I ever done any research on violence. However, I have in the...
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...
A Case study of the Urban Basic Services Programme in Sukkur, Sindh Province, Pakistan
Executive Summary The large demand-supply gap in the housing sector in Pakistan has led the creation or unserviced or under-services squatter settlements or katchi abadis. It is estimated that over 40 percent of Pakistan’s urban...
What is Karachi Really Fighting For?
The fundamental cause of the alienation among Karachi’s lower middle and working class population does not lie simply in the ‘deprivation’ suffered by the mohajirs and the absence of an effective local government for the...
Report on a Visit to the Shahjalal Housing Trust Project, Sylhet, Bangladesh
1. Introduction The Shahjalal Housing Trust (SHT) has been trying to set up a rental housing scheme in Sylhet with the support of Homeless International (HI). In this connection, SHT and HI have been in...
Report for the ODA (UK) on Four Participatory Development Projects in Pakistan
The Urban Scene in Pakistan Pakistan’s urban population is 37.6 million out of a total population of 115.4 million. Which makes it 32.6 percent of the total population. It is growing at a rate of...
