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Karachi

Greater Karachi?

There are grave concerns, which, if not considered, will result in the Karachi Master Plan 2047 becoming yet another document.

By Suneela Ahmed | April 2025


With the release of the Karachi Master Plan 2047, the city of Karachi seems to have made a significant advancement towards the future. Over the next two decades, Karachi’s development will be steered through this comprehensive plan, which addresses many issues the city is currently facing, ranging from land use to transportation, housing, economic, social, and cultural development, and environmental protection.

It remains to be seen whether the master plan has the potential to positively impact the city and its development. However, to be successful, the master plan needs to tick off a few prerequisites. One prerequisite is connecting with the local sense of place, which often depends on the correct intervention scale. Towards this end, some of Karachi’s previous master plans give us some cues from which the designers of tomorrow can learn.

Under colonialism in the 19th century, Karachi experienced the introduction of ‘modern,’ ‘planned’ environments based on Western notions of ‘civilization’ that modified far more than just the social environment. The colonialists dictated the placement and layouts of military cantonments, infrastructure development for easy transportation of goods, and the location of commercial zones. The colonialists chose locations away from the Old Town, and strict planning and zoning bylaws were implemented with detached houses, which was in total disregard to the religious, social, symbolic, and political meanings previously existing within the context.

Thus, Karachi was divided between the native town, which had meandering streets, high density, and mixed-use development, and the British cantonment, which had a rigid geometry, separated residential and commercial zones, and was low in density with larger plot sizes.

The British prepared the first plan for Karachi in 1922, known as the A.E. Mirams Plan. The need for this Plan arose because of a dispute over the land transfer of Artillery Lines and Depot Lines from the Cantonment to the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC). The entire city was divided into Quarters—a unit demarcating each neighbourhood. This was the first major attempt to survey and project land use and infrastructure development for the city. The plan was submitted in 1923 and became the first master plan for the city.

The concept of cooperative societies was introduced as part of this plan. The housing schemes of these cooperative societies were taken up by the government, municipal corporation, and port trust in their areas. According to the plan, these colonies were laid out on modern lines, with aesthetic effects being aimed at, and nearly all containing sites for recreation or social intercourse. They were generally within accessible suburban areas, strongly contrasting the city’s congestion. Thus, the concept of a suburban garden city was imposed on these new areas, and the objective was to provide relief to the common person from the congested locality of the inner city. The unit of the plan here was the ‘quarter,’ with the old city being one of the quarters in the proposal.

The second master plan for Karachi was prepared by Lt. Col. Swain Thomas in 1945. This plan identified growth corridors for the city based on prevailing trends. Marshy land on the city’s periphery was proposed to be developed into housing schemes. This concept of garden city development was opposed by a local Parsi philanthropist, Jamshed Nasserwanjee because he did not believe this kind of development stems from the local way of living. The local way of living centered on high density, ground plus four-storey structures arranged around narrow meandering lanes, whereas Lt. Col. Swain Thomas proposed a garden city in a suburb of the city planned on a grid. The plan was never implemented because of strong opposition from many other local philanthropists.

After Pakistan was created in 1947, Karachi became the capital of the country. The first holistic master planning exercise was undertaken for Karachi in 1952 through the Greater Karachi Plan (GKP). The growth corridors identified in GKP 1952 have continued to form the basis of the city’s expansion and are a basis for the proposals for the city’s development in the Karachi Strategic Development Plan 2020.


(Figure 1) The Greater Karachi Plan- 1952 identifying the growth corridors
Source: The Greater Karachi Plan- 1952

In GKP 1952, the residential areas were divided into Residential Units (2,500 to 5,000 inhabitants), Neighbourhood Units (40,000 inhabitants), and District Units (2,00,000 to 3,00,000 inhabitants). Eight to nine residential units comprised a neighbourhood unit, and six to eight neighbourhood units comprised a district unit. It was proposed that 70% of the population live in bungalows and terrace houses, and the remaining 30% live in apartments. Thus, the conceptual seed for a newly built form typology was planted.

Strict segregation of land use was also proposed. High-density development linked by fast-moving transport in the form of railway links and express roads was part of the plan. The population in each unit was based on the proposed school system to create walkable connections between different parts of the city. The plan also mentioned that the ‘well-developed community sense in the Muslim world and among the population of Pakistan is also a reason for choosing such large units, and these will constitute a good basis for community life.’

Although the conceptual undertakings of the Plan were relevant to the context of Karachi, due to political changes (the capital shifting to Islamabad in 1960), an inappropriate database, and a lack of political will, GKP could not be implemented. A major contribution of this plan, however, was the identification of the city’s growth corridors.

The GKP was followed by the Greater Karachi Resettlement Housing Programme (GKRP) in Jan 1961, for which Dioxides Associates of Athens, Greece, was appointed as a consultant. GKRP (Figure 2) proposed resettlement schemes to the East and North of the city, 20 km from the city center, to accommodate the inner city’s evicted population and house the rural migrants working in the adjoining industrial areas. The concept behind the development of GKRP was to shift the urban poor to the suburban fringes of the city and connect them to their employment centres through rapid transit. The failure of the government to develop infrastructure in these satellite towns led to encroachment on government property nearer to the city centre and informal subdivision of land around planned townships. According to Arif Hasan, a renowned architect and planner, this was the beginning of Karachi’s peri-urban or fringe lower-income settlements.

In the Karachi Master Plan (KMP) 1974-85, there was a shift in paradigm and a new way of thinking was initiated where the government went from provision of built units to site and services schemes. The 1973 Plan had four units on which the city was planned. One was called ‘Karachi Proper,’ describing the city at the scale of the whole city. The second unit was ‘Karachi Planned,’ which was the city’s boundaries to be planned until 1965. The third unit was the ‘Karachi Division,’ which was the administrative boundary of that time. The fourth unit was the ‘Karachi Planning Region’ (Figure 3), which incorporated all the areas which had an impact on Karachi. This was a vast region going up to the province of Balochistan and parts of Sindh. The plan mentioned that certain goods enter Karachi from these regions. These links were meant to show that these regions had a daily impact on Karachi. The city’s division into these four units and the study of the relationships between them showed that no matter how small a unit of the plan is within a city, its relationship with the larger whole cannot be overlooked. A conceptual analysis of this plan was that the larger vision for the city and its linkages with the surrounding areas affect its local perception of space and impact a sense of place.

In this plan, mixed land use was encouraged for development, and high-rise construction was proposed for areas that have the infrastructure.

(Figure 2) The Greater Karachi Resettlement Plan- 1961 identifying the location of satellite towns
Source: The Greater Karachi Resettlement Plan- 1961

The putting together of KSDP 2020 was done differently from the previous master planning exercises. For this particular plan, planners and architects were consulted, and their comments were incorporated into its development. It was believed that the plan could be converted into a document that guided the city’s development. Still, many technical errors (inadequate survey sample, incomplete mapping exercise) needed to be addressed. The KSDP 2020 was, however, a way forward for planners and government agencies, but to make the entire exercise beneficial, the establishment of a planning agency monitoring the implementation of the plan was required.

The aspects recognized in the KSDP 2020 that addressed a local sense of place were:

• Sustainable growth that is economically feasible, environmentally viable, socially and culturally acceptable
• Creating an inclusive city, social justice, and poverty reduction
• Safeguarding quality of life, people are at the centre of the vision
The KSDP 2020 emphasized the need to employ strategies that could steer Karachi towards a global presence while addressing the city’s economic, environmental, and social priorities.
The strategies highlighted in the KSDP 2020 for achieving these objectives were:
• Strengthening the identity of the heart of the city and its high amenity environs
• Decongesting the area within the inner ring by more efficient land use
• Promoting development towards the Town Centres, increasing access to employment by disbursing economic activity to the new economic centres
• Providing infrastructure to overcome key constraints to industry and employment growth and to provide the poor and middle class with access to the employment generated.

Along with the KSDP 2020, the Building and Town Planning Regulations needed to be fixed, too. These regulations were based on the premise that by fixing individual units, the whole of the current built environment can be taken care of. That is how the building bylaws, building regulations, and other frameworks regulating the local climate are structured. There is no sense of collectiveness, and bylaws or any frame of reference for urban design practice is missing. The bylaws are structured around the belief that the overall outcome will be appropriate and related if one house or an individual building is designed well.

(Figure 3) The Karachi Development Plan- 1974-85
Source: The Karachi Development Plan- 1974-85

Historically, master plans have failed to be implemented in Karachi either because the planners could not obtain legal status for the implementation of the plans, because they were based on an inadequate database, or because they lacked the technical ability to execute the master plans. For instance, according to policy, no development can happen without obtaining a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the relevant Master Plan Department.

However, because of corruption, unplanned construction takes place within the city, which does not always comply with the policies and regulations outlined in the master plans. Thus, even if communities are consulted in the design process, non-compliance with the strategies outlined in master plans results in ad-hoc developments, which may impact social and economic livelihoods. These are some grave concerns, which, if not considered, will result in the 2047 plan being a document yet again, with no far-reaching impacts and not providing a solution to any of the issues the city faces.

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