A shanty town, squatter area or squatter settlement is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood. A typical shanty town is squatted and in the beginning lacks adequate infrastructure, including proper sanitation, safe water supply, electricity and street drainage. Over time, shanty towns can develop their infrastructure and even change into middle class neighbourhoods. They can be small informal settlements or they can house millions of people.
Orangi is a municipality approximately 57 square kilometres (22 sq mi) in an area that forms much of the northwestern part of Karachi in Sindh, Pakistan. It has often been considered one of the world's largest slums. When grouped with the neighboring municipality of Baldia Town, the Orangi-Baldia population is estimated to be over 2.4 million.
Baldia Colony is one of the neighborhoods of Baldia Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Sultanabad is a multiethnic katchi abadi, or unplanned settlement, in central Karachi, Pakistan.
New Karachi Town lies in the northern part of the city Gulberg Town. It was formed when katchi abadis were resettled following the 1958 coup d'état. In 2001 it was subdivided into 13 union councils. The town system was disbanded in 2011, and New Karachi Town was re-organized as part of Karachi Central District in 2015.
Akhter Hameed Khan was a Pakistani development practitioner and social scientist. He promoted participatory rural development in Pakistan and other developing countries, and widely advocated community participation in development. His particular contribution was the establishment of a comprehensive project for rural development, the Comilla Model (1959). It earned him the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines and an honorary Doctorate of law from Michigan State University.
The Orangi Pilot Project collectively designates three Pakistani non-governmental organisations working together, having emerged from a socially innovative project carried out in 1980s in the squatter areas of Orangi, Karachi, Pakistan. It was initiated by Akhtar Hameed Khan and implemented by Perween Rahman. Innovative methods were used to provide adequate low cost sanitation, health, housing and microfinance facilities.
Urbanisation in Pakistan has increased since the time of independence and has several different causes. The majority of southern Pakistan's population lives along the Indus River. Karachi is its most populous city. In the northern half of the country, most of the population lives in an arc formed by the cities of Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujrat, Jhelum, Sargodha, Sheikhupura, Nowshera, Mardan and Peshawar. During 1990–2008, city dwellers made up 36% of Pakistan's population, making it the most urbanised nation in South Asia. Furthermore, 50% of Pakistanis live in towns of 5,000 people or more. Pakistan is one of south Asia's most rapidly urbanising countries, as of at least early 2024.
Perween Rahman was a Pakistani social activist, director of the Orangi Pilot Project Research and Training Institute. She was murdered on 13 March 2013.
The Qasba–Aligarh massacre was an ethnic massacre that took place when recently settled armed tribals from KPK, Pakistan and Afghanistan attacked densely populated civilized locals in Qasba Colony, Aligarh Colony and Sector 1-D of Orangi in Karachi in the early hours of the morning on 14 December 1986. According to official reports, around 49 people were killed and several hundred were injured in what was perceived as a "revenge killing" following an unsuccessful raid on a Afghan heroin processing and distribution center in Sohrab Goth by the security forces. Most of the residents of the two colonies happened to be Muhajirs like Biharis who had been freshly repatriated from Bangladesh.
Khuda Ki Basti Incremental Development Scheme (KKB-IDS) is an internationally recognized innovation in affordable housing for the urban poor. It addresses the weaknesses and improves upon the World Bank-administered Site and Services approach which had been initiated in Madras, India to address the urban shelter crisis, but had faced mounting criticism for its failure to reach the lowest income strata of the urban population.
I-11 is a sector of Islamabad, Pakistan. It is a lightly built area, located on the southwestern edge of the city. I-11 borders Rawalpindi to the south and neighbors I-10 and I-12, while sectors H-10, H-11 and H-12 are located adjacent. CDA has taken the possession of land from illegal encroachers and land grabbers and development work has started to hand over the possession to original owners of the plots.
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar is a teacher, left wing politician and columnist based in Pakistan. Akhtar is associate professor of political economy at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He served as the president of the Awami Workers Party's Punjab executive committee from March 16, 2014 to January 17, 2020. He is deputy general secretary of Awami Workers Party.
Squatting in Peru is the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. From the 1940s onwards, land invasions created shanty towns which were first called barriadas and later pueblos jóvenes. They were initially repressed, then the government decided upon toleration and by 1998 it was estimated 2.5 million inhabitants were living in this way in the capital Lima. There are also slum tenements in the centre known as solares or tugurios, and a "Wall of Shame" has been built to separate rich and poor areas of the city. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in the occupation of UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as Caral and the Nazca Lines was reported.
Squatting in Sudan is defined as the "acquisition and construction of land, within the city boundaries for the purpose of housing in contradiction to Urban Planning and Land laws and building regulations." These informal settlements arose in Khartoum from the 1920s onwards, swelling in the 1960s. By the 1980s, the government was clearing settlements in Khartoum and regularizing them elsewhere. It was estimated that in 2015 that were 200,000 squatters in Khartoum, 180,000 in Nyala, 60,000 in Kassala, 70,000 in Port Sudan and 170,000 in Wad Madani.
Squatting in Venezuela is the occupation of derelict buildings or unused land without the permission of the owner. Informal settlements, known first as "ranchos" and then "barrios", are common. In the capital Caracas notable squats have included the 23 de Enero housing estate, Centro Financiero Confinanzas and El Helicoide, a former shopping centre which is now a notorious prison.
Urban areas in the Philippines such as Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao have large informal settlements. The Philippine Statistics Authority defines a squatter, or alternatively "informal dwellers", as "One who settles on the land of another without title or right or without the owner's consent whether in urban or rural areas". Squatting is criminalized by the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992, also known as the Lina Law. There have been various attempts to regularize squatter settlements, such as the Zonal Improvement Program and the Community Mortgage Program. In 2018, the Philippine Statistics Authority estimated that out of the country's population of about 106 million, 4.5 million were homeless.
Squatting in Bangladesh occurs when squatters make informal settlements known as "bastees" on the periphery of cities such as Chittagong, Dhaka and Khulna. As of 2013, almost 35 per cent of Bangladesh's urban population lived in informal settlements.
Squatting in Nepal occurs when people live on land or in buildings without the valid land ownership certificate. The number of squatters has increased rapidly since the 1980s, as a result of factors such as internal migration to Kathmandu and two decades of civil war in Nepal. In March 2021, the chairperson of the Commission on Landless Squatters stated that all landless squatters would receive ownership certificates within the following eighteen months.
Squatting in Angola occurs when displaced peoples occupy informal settlements in coastal cities such as the capital Luanda. The Government of Angola has been criticized by human rights groups for forcibly evicting squatters and not resettling them.
