Apartment Square Karachi Gulshan e Iqbal

Housing in Pakistan generally consists of three classes: '' pakka'' houses (/ ''pakkā'', ), which are made of strong materials like brick and cement; ''katchi'' houses ( ''kachē'', ), which are made of less-permanent materials such as

thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

and

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

; and semi-''pakka'' houses (these make up, which are a sort of mix of the ''pakka'' and ''katchi'' houses. Housing in Pakistan has always been insufficient due to a growing population (which reached 224.7 million in May 2011) and accelerated by urbanisation combined with the housing problem being low-priority in the eyes of the government.

Housing shortage and deficit

Urban areas were facing a shortage of 4.4 million housing units in 2010, while the population is expected to grow by 40 million in 2030. Furthermore, this shortage is expected to grow due to a shortfall of 270,000 housing units per year. In Pakistan, past trends indicate that the increase in housing stock (146 percent increase) lagged far behind the population growth (209 percent increase) during 1960-1998, leading to overcrowding in housing units. The growth of housing in urban areas was far more rapid as compared to rural areas; 253 percent and 115 percent respectively. The habitation density level equals more than three people per room, which is significantly higher than the tolerable crowding level proposed by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

; 1.4 to 2.0 individuals per room. Urban crowding, specifically, has been accelerated by people from less-developed rural areas moving to cities to achieve better qualities of life.

References

POETIC LICENCE: Low-cost cities: an innovative new concept for urban development
Daily Times (Sunday, November 24, 2002)
Low-cost housing facility for poors top priority: Governor
© 2007 Associated Press of Pakistan
Proposal for the Construction of Low Cost Housing at Ibrahim Hydery, Karachi
by Nadir Mansoor et al. {{Economy of Pakistan topics Real estate in Pakistan

Housing shortage and deficit

See also

References