Urbanization: The role the poor play in urban development

Rapid urbanization is happening across Asia, with more and more people in need of housing. Providing adequate housing to everyone in our cities is not an impossible goal. It’s possible to solve the serious housing problems, if we can begin to see urban poor settlements not as problems, but as sources of energy and important contributions to the production of housing. And it’s possible if we can look at the poor not as beneficiaries of someone else’s ideas, but as the primary actors at the centre of their own development.

There are many factors that are responsible for the shortage of adequate housing for many people in urban areas. This guide looks at some of the current trends in urbanization, including rural-urban migration, past efforts to contain rural-urban migration and the links between urbanization and poverty. The guide then looks at the state of low-income housing — both formal and informal — in this urbanizing context. Finally, some housing and land policies and programmes are examined — both those which have made problems worse, and those which show a new direction and new opportunities to make them better.

This guide is not aimed at specialists, but instead aims to help build the capacities of national and local government officials and policy makers who need to quickly enhance their understanding of low-income housing issues.