“Our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever... As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be here to give life to men and animals.”

— Crowfoot, chief of the Native American Blackfoot peoples

Beneath Karachi’s relentless neon pulse and armoured luxury lies a stark, shadowed reality — that of the city’s more than 1,414 katchi abadis or informal settlements. Beyond the glass towers, millions inhabit a sprawling network of goths [villages] and settlements that have been rendered invisible by successive regimes yet remain fiercely alive.

These are dynamic cauldrons where human survival is relentlessly forged. Here, the very essence of human existence — intricate sociological dealings, shifting gender equations, deep-seated attitudes towards the built environment — is locked in a perpetual, high-stakes negotiation.

Every decision is a direct response to the brutal realities of land tenure security, the unforgiving dictates of location, the glaring absence of fundamental services, anti-poor governance, decrepit or neglected infrastructure and the history of the locality. This ceaseless negotiation, this raw, defiant act of living, is what perpetually shapes and reshapes these settlements.

In the high-stakes land-use circuits of Karachi, a home is rarely just four walls — it is a strategic manoeuvre in a lifelong battle for legitimacy. From the shadow of elevated expressways in District South to the edges of railway tracks in District Malir, and to the corners of the city along the M9 Highway, the ground beneath the feet of the residents of three settlements — Hasan Aulia Village, Moria Khan Goth and Ghulam Zakarya Goth — dictates their relationship with the state, their capacity for development and their very sense of belonging.

By examining these three informal settlements — their history, evolution and current status — this article explores the healthcare, social, political and economic challenges facing these three localities and the broader questions they raise about the manner in which Karachi functions as a city.

While it is convenient to lump all three of these informal settlements under the large umbrella of katchi abadis, a closer look at their evolving demographics reveals distinct patterns and trends.

Karachi’s 1,414 informal settlements are not urban accidents and instead function as dynamic systems of survival. Examining three low-income informal settlements in Karachi — Hasan Aulia Village, Moria Khan Goth and Ghulam Zakarya Goth — reveals the historical and contemporary challenges present in these overlooked localities and, more importantly, how their residents negotiate daily life and shape the way Karachi functions as a city…

HOW LAND TENURE SHAPES KARACHI’S URBAN SOUL

Hasan Aulia Village, which sits beneath the Lyari Expressway, is a living chronicle of local resistance. Founded in the late 19th century by the Hauts — migrants fleeing famine in Iran — the settlement’s 15,000-20,000 residents are anchored by a stone masonry mosque. Unlike many informal clusters, this is leased land — a rare shield of security.

However, this stability was forged in fire. During the late Gen Pervez Musharraf’s era, the Lyari Expressway project threatened mass evictions. The community refused to yield, mobilising intellectuals and political allies to save their 11-acre home. Today, the village is a marvel of resourcefulness. Residents even repurpose the void beneath the expressway for communal Eid prayers and parking, turning a symbol of displacement into a pillar of neighbourhood life.

In Malir District, the 150,000 residents of Moria Khan Goth, living alongside the railway track, occupy a bustling landscape of banks, schools and chai khanas [tea shops]. Yet, a decades-old dispute with Pakistan Railways has reportedly left 250 of the 20,000 plus households, spread across 27 acres, in a state of existential limbo. While the Sindh High Court granted ownership rights to residents on a major piece of land in 1985, claims linked to the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) keep the threat of eviction alive.

The community’s struggle is further complicated by a one kilometre-plus wall erected by city administrators. Despite this, the area’s prime location near the airport ensures a thriving rental market, where landlords — often original settlers — carefully manage migrant renters in multi-storey structures that frequently defy building bye-laws restrictions.

Further out in Gadap Town, Ghulam Zakarya Goth serves as a masterclass in adaptation. Home to 25,000 households (non-leased settlements), this working-class enclave thrives despite systemic infrastructural neglect. The architecture here is defined largely by single-storey reinforced cement concrete (RCC) structures, many of which have been repurposed into grocery storefronts.

Because the land is non-leased, property prices remain low, fuelling a boom in both first generation migration and land speculation. It is a unique socio-economic frontier, where a transient population and speculative land use define a new, albeit precarious, urban contour.

Whether secured through legal battles, protests or informal sub division (ISD) of land, land tenure and housing is central to identity and stability, serving as both a source of profound insecurity and a catalyst for collective action.

The daily rhythm in these settlements is a perennial negotiation with scarcity. In Hasan Aulia Village, the struggle for water has become a communal ritual. While an 1,800-foot pipeline promises relief, it ironically snakes through the toxic Lyari River, risking contamination. To manage this precious flow, the community employs local youth to perform a 24-hour vigil, meticulously opening valves for different streets.

This local management is mirrored in Ghulam Zakarya Goth, where approximately 25,000 households on unleased land respond to intermittent power through a combination of the kunda system (an unregulated, direct-to-pole connection) and the formal Karachi Electric (KE) supply. Electricity and gas follow a similar pattern of ‘fleeting luxury.’

In Moria Khan Goth, power cuts strike four times a day, while cooking gas is a low-pressure commodity available only in specific windows. In Zakarya Goth, the absence of gas forces a regression to wood-burning stoves and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders.

A HEALTHCARE CRISIS

In the informal settlements of Karachi, health is not a matter of biological luck — it is a direct consequence of the dirt, the wind and the water in these localities. The residents of the goths are caught in a trinity of neglect — infrastructure failure, environmental decay and the predatory economics of informal care.

The source of illness is often visible from the front door.

In Hasan Aulia Village, the air is thick with the scent of the Lyari Naddi [Stream, as the river is locally known], a stench so permanent it has become ‘unnoticeable’ to locals, yet it fuels a cycle of ear, nose and throat (ENT) infections and respiratory distress. In Moria Khan Goth, the environmental threat is more airborne and insect-borne. In the recent past, stagnant waste dumping has triggered severe chikungunya and dengue outbreaks. Meanwhile, in Ghulam Zakarya Goth, the enemy is pervasive dust and poorly ventilated kitchens, where wood-burning stoves fill homes with acrid smoke, leaving women with chronic lung issues and widespread ocular infections.

While chronic ‘silent killers’ such as hypertension, diabetes and arthritis are endemic to all three locations, specific habits and trades create unique scars. Hasan Aulia battles a high incidence of mouth cancer, a cruel by-product of the widespread use of paan [betel] and gutka.Moria Khan sees a startling prevalence of cataracts among males, likely linked to environmental exposure. Zakarya Goth faces a hidden zoonotic threat, as livestock rearing — a vital livelihood — exists in close quarters with human life.

In all three settlements, healthcare remains a personal battle fought in small private clinics. From the toxic river of Lyari to the dust of Gadap, these communities don’t just live with disease, they have been forced to incorporate it into the very fabric of their existence.

Additionally, a stark commonality across these settlements is the physical vulnerability of women. In both Moria Khan and Zakarya Goth, women exhibit visibly higher rates of malnutrition compared to men. The collapse of the traditional birth attendant (dai) system has created a crisis in maternal health and this has led to the caesarians trend — an anxious local term for the suspected over-performance of C-sections in distant hospitals, where profit often outweighs medical necessity.

OLD ROOTS, NEW ROUTES: THE SHIFTING SOCIAL FABRIC

However, despite the hardships, these settlements are vibrant social ecosystems, characterised by complex ethnic mixes, evolving gender dynamics and robust informal networks that underpin daily life.

Block B of Hasan Aulia Village is predominantly Baloch, claiming original inhabitant status, while Blocks A and C have seen an influx from Attock and Southern Punjab. It’s a predominantly Muslim community, with a notable absence of Christian residents, though a few Hindu families quietly reside here.

While youth represents the demographic majority, a quiet migration trend is emerging, with many young people, navigating societal pressures of higher education or security or seeking enhanced economic opportunities, relocating to Oman, the Gulf region, Iran and Europe. Yet, for many young women, education culminates in marriage, with only a handful entering the workforce, predominantly favouring teaching or becoming dedicated polio workers. Self-selected marriages within the clan are not uncommon and, in arranged unions, parents increasingly inquire about their daughters’ preferences.

Moria Khan Goth is a vibrant mix of ethnicities: Punjabi, Seraiki, Sindhi, Pakhtun, Baloch and Mohajir residents, alongside smaller numbers of Gujarati-speaking Memons, Ismailis and Bohris. Religiously, it’s predominantly Muslim, with a few Hindus present, though Christians are not reported. Education is on an upward trajectory, with literacy levels improving. Within marriages, a desire for independent living and a preference for outside food over home-cooked meals reportedly cause serious conflicts, sometimes leading to separation. Marriage rituals themselves are becoming more elaborate, extending in terms of time, expenditure and display.

The social fabric of Ghulam Zakarya Goth is notably heterogeneous, predominantly inhabited by Sindhi-speaking populations, yet significantly enriched by the presence of Punjabi, Seraiki, Pakhtun and Baloch communities. This ethnic array contributes to a vibrant, albeit occasionally stratified, social environment, where distinct cultural practices coexist. The settlement is overwhelmingly Muslim, but also home to a discernible Christian population whose Sunday morning choirs, emanating from home’-based churches, punctuate the urban soundscape, underscoring a degree of religious pluralism.

The socio-economic fabric is distinctly gendered. Women of Zakarya Goth predominantly engage in domestic labour, often contributing crucial income through informal work, and are frequently exposed to environmental health hazards from cooking fuels in poorly ventilated spaces. Men typically occupy diverse trades such as gardening, carpentry and driving. First generation migrants largely exhibit low literacy but their progeny show marked improvement, with the majority completing education up to the 10th grade.

Family structures in Hasan Aulia Village largely conform to the joint family model, fostering strong intergenerational bonds. Nevertheless, the emergence of nuclear families in Moria Khan and Zakarya Goth, particularly those formed through self-selected marriages, indicates a gradual shift.

Informal social structures play a pivotal role, with after-dusk, male-only gatherings serving as crucial venues for social networking and information exchange, instrumental in facilitating access to essential, often irregular, services such as electricity connections and sewage disposal. In these settlements, conflict resolution within families is typically mediated by the grey-haired men but, in cases of violent conflict, the community resorts to seeking assistance from the formal police system.

Mobile phone technology is rampant, yet its use is profoundly stratified by gender. Highly socially acceptable for boys, it enables wider communication. But for girls it is met with suspicion and often stigmatisation, reflecting prevailing conservative cultural norms. Only a very small number of girls reported forming ‘love equations’ through their mobile phones. Familial attitudes towards unmarried girls’ mobile phone use vary ethnically, from a complete bar to supervised connectivity.

A striking commonality across all three goths is the ‘feminisation of education.’ In Hasan Aulia, girls are described as more academically inclined than boys, often crossing the Lyari Naddi to attend schools in Garden West. This trend is mirrored in Moria Khan and Zakarya Goth, where girls demonstrate higher aspirations and a greater eagerness for learning.

However, this progress creates a new social tension: an ‘upward shift’ in marriageable age and a perceived incompatibility between educated girls and boys, due to the latter’s lack of ambitions. In Zakarya Goth, while daughters of first generation migrants now reach prestigious universities, the societal pull of marriage frequently truncates their professional trajectories.

THE SHADOW ECONOMY: MIGRATION AND MONOPOLIES

In all three settlements, unemployment is far more than a lack of income — it functions as a silent force that dictates the very geometry of daily life. It is one of the most important factors in determining the location of a dwelling, often forcing families into hazardous, non-leased peripheries, where the rent matches their dwindling means.

Additionally, employment status dictates social capital, the attire one wears to maintain a semblance of dignity and even the nuptial decisions that bind families together. In many cases, the inability of a young man to secure a stable job results in a sub-strata sink. To endure this systemic vacuum, residents are forced into a survivalist mode of existence. This phenomenon drives a massive portion of the population into the precarious world of daily wage labour and the informal economy.

Hasan Aulia Village is defined by a culture of precariousness. The majority are daily wagers, with only a few securing stable contracts within the corporate sector. There is a palpable sense of stagnant hope, where residents feel their political loyalty to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has not translated into the promised sanctuary of government jobs.

Moria Khan Goth benefits from its proximity to major institutional hubs, such as the Karachi International Airport, the Security Printing Press and the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority Headquarters. However, the roles remain largely low-skilled. Unlike the static labour of Hasan Aulia, this settlement sees significant commuting to distant industrial zones, such as Port Qasim and the Steel Mills. Ghulam Zakarya Goth presents a more vibrant, decentralised economy.

Even when accounting for individual exceptions, ethnic background significantly shapes the socio-economic expectations of men and women across two of the three locations. In Ghulam Zakarya Goth, the market is ethnically stratified: Sindhis dominate the grocery trade, Punjabis control the milk shops, and Pakhtuns manage the fruit and vegetable supply.

In Moria Khan Goth, this stratification extends to gender — while Pakhtun women are generally restricted to the domestic sphere, Sindhi and Seraiki women find work as domestic help, and Hindu women occupy vital roles as sweepers at the airport.

Comparatively, Hasan Aulia is a community looking backward at a golden era of migration, while Moria Khan Goth is a community struggling with its own social fabric and gendered restrictions. Meanwhile, Ghulam Zakarya Goth stands as a microcosm of the modern informal city — commercially successful yet socially precarious.

THE ‘SURVIVAL BALLOT’

Here, politics isn’t a spectacle watched on television — it is a visceral tool for survival. While Hasan Aulia Village, Moria Khan Goth and Ghulam Zakarya Goth share a history of services’ deficit, their residents have mastered a sophisticated political agency that defies traditional party lines.

The PPP remains the historic, emotional anchor in Hasan Aulia Village, yet this loyalty is surprisingly pragmatic. In Hasan Aulia, a ‘die hard’ PPP base coexists with savvy local civil society activists who treat local governance like diplomacy, such as when negotiating with rivals to secure every inch of a sewage line.

This pragmatism peaks in Moria Khan Goth, where the fight for land leases — an existential struggle — is led by a welfare association chief with roots in the rival Jamaat-e-Islami. In these narrow lanes, the need for a land title far outweighs the colour of a party flag.

Further out, in Ghulam Zakarya Goth, a new political pluralism is erupting. The traditional PPP stronghold is being squeezed by the digital-first, young fervour of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the potent religious identity politics of right-wingers. As traditional tribal hierarchies collide with modern populism and ideological fervour, the goth has evolved into a laboratory of social transformation for further academic investigations.

These communities are not merely ‘vote banks’ — they are shrewd political actors perpetually rewriting the rules of engagement with successive governments.

FROM PRINT TO PIXELS

The old world of information dissemination is rapidly receding across all three settlements, fundamentally altering how residents perceive their place in the city.

In Hasan Aulia, the tradition of the morning newspaper — once the heartbeat of local discourse — is now a relic, confined to shrinking circles of the elderly at chai khanas. It has been decisively replaced by the sharp, incessant clamour of 24-hour TV news anchors and the absolute, undisputed reign of the smartphone.

This digital shift is mirrored in Moria Khan Goth, where the hum of the landline has been replaced by the glow of mobile screens and the ubiquity of cable TV. These platforms serve as the primary windows to the world, yet they also create new social divides.

However, Zakarya Goth presents a more complex, stratified information landscape. While social media is the primary engine for male mobilisation and information exchange, a lingering preference for right-wing Urdu newspapers among older generations suggests a conservative ideological undercurrent. This signals a hybrid information ecosystem, where traditional narratives and modern digital speed coexist, shaping community perceptions.

EQUITY BY DESIGN: THE PATH TO INTEGRATED URBAN PLANNING

To secure Karachi’s future, one must move beyond traditional elitist urban planning toward a paradigm of integrated, participatory urban planning. This shift begins with a nuanced redefinition of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ within Karachi’s fluid urbanism, followed by a rigorous audit of land tenure, architectural shifts and the real cost of basic civic amenities.

The path forward hinges on the implementation of the following three pillars:

1. Legal Empowerment: Regularising land tenure to transform ‘squatters’ into invested homeowners.

2. Infrastructural Dignity: Replacing precarious kunda lines, open sewers and other dysfunctional service with formal, government-provided utilities.

3. Holistic Connectivity: Implementing mobility and health strategies that dismantle the physical and environmental isolation of the goths.

For decades, Karachi has been subjected to fragmented, project-based development interventions that favour donor-driven cosmetic engineering over the city’s human ecosystem — an approach that has fuelled deep-seated spatial injustices. The case of these three settlements showcases that true transformation requires the adoption of integrated urban planning, moving beyond the ‘silo’ mentality that treats land tenure security, services’ provision, mobility and gendered human existence as separate entities.

The current model of ad-hoc, short-term interventions must be abandoned in favour of pro-people development, where the primary metric of success is the dignity of the resident, not the efficiency of the infrastructure. By transitioning from a state of mere informal survival to one of equitable, holistic development, Karachi can finally reclaim the legendary resilience of its citizens.

This is not merely an urban necessity — it is a moral imperative that must come true.

This article is based on ongoing research by the Urban Resource Centre and the International Society for Urban Health

The writer is a lecturer at NED University of Engineering and Technology and is a board member of the Urban Resource Centre, Karachi.

He can be reached at mansooraza@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 8th, 2026