A People-Centred Social Totality Approach to Low-Income Housing in the Developing World (original) (raw)
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2004
This paper is based on an analysis of the World Bank co-sponsored low-income housing projects in an African country, Zimbabwe over a ten-year period. The project is utilised as an instrumental case study to draw key themes of the housing dilemma in developing countries. The paper applies the theory of social construction to explain how the housing crisis in developing countries continues to persist despite the active involvement of such international agencies as the World Bank, the State, the Private Sector Building Societies and the households themselves. Using the theory of social construction, the paper traces how the key themes on low-income housing perceived as a risk to financial mortgage business, the problem of the affordability phenomena and the ineffectiveness of partnership arrangements in housing delivery are all socially constructed in so many ways that work against the alleviation of the housing dilemma for the poor. The development of the understanding and interpretat...
A Review of Housing Policies and Their Relevance to Vulnerable Households in Sub Saharan Africa
International Journal of Social Science Research and Review
This study reviews critical social science and policy documents on human settlement research to assess the practicality and relevance of the existing housing policy frameworks to urban households headed by vulnerable persons. Specifically, this study intends to justify the significance of vulnerable households’ classification and segmentation when in policymaking. Furthermore, the paper investigates the different omissions and stereotypes in the policymaking that have hindered adequate housing provision for the vulnerable households in sub-Saharan Africa. Several catchy strategies adopted by the various housing policies have been reviewed in this paper. These include; empowerment of the rental housing tenure, particular emphasis on low-income groups/households like the case in Tanzania, proposals for tenant-to purchase housing schemes, densification of the urban areas (Zimbabwe), delegation of house development to the private sector and the governments taking a back seat and assumin...
THE INVISIBLE HOUSES: Rethinking and Designing Low-Cost Housing in Developing Countries
THE INVISIBLE HOUSES: Rethinking and Designing Low-Cost Housing in Developing Countries, 2014
There is an increased interest among architects, urban specialists and design professionals to contribute to solve "the housing problem" in developing countries. The Invisible Houses takes us on a journey through the slums and informal settlements of South Africa, India, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti and many other countries of the Global South, revealing the challenges of, and opportunities for, improving the fate of millions of poor families. Stressing the limitations of current approaches to housing development, Gonzalo Lizarralde examines the short-, mid-and long-term consequences of housing intervention. The book covers-among others-the issues of planning, design, infrastructure and project management. It explains the different variables that need to be addressed and the causes of common failures and mistakes, while outlining successful strategies based on embracing a sustained engagement with the complexity of processes that are generally invisible. Gonzalo Lizarralde is a professor at the School of Architecture, Université de Montréal. He has more than 15 years' experience in the field of housing and project management in developing countries. He has authored more than 50 articles on the subjects of housing, post-disaster reconstruction and project management. He is a founding member of i-Rec, an international network for improving post-disaster reconstruction.
plaNext – next generation planning, 2021
This paper addresses the problem of accessing decent and affordable housing in the Global South, where the housing need is, in general, more problematic than in the Global North. The paper first identifies five distinctive characteristics of housing systems in the Global South as compared to those in the Global North. These include: (a) the diverse facets of global financialization; (b) the role of the developmentalist state; (c) the importance of informality; (d) the decisive role of the family; and (e) the rudimentary welfare systems. Given these features, the paper reflects on the concept and practices of social housing, particularly their appropriateness to deal with the housing problem in the Global South. The paper then addresses the question of whether the social housing approach is relevant for solving the contemporary housing needs in the Global South. It argues that social housing, redefined to better encompass the distinctive characteristics of housing systems in the Global South, is indeed a useful policy approach and can play a decisive role in satisfying unmet housing needs. Such an approach needs to take into account the great role of informality and family support systems and develop appropriate funding instruments and modes of institutionalization protecting housing rights and the quality of life.
Refocusing the housing debate in developing countries from a pluralist perspective
Habitat International, 2001
The debate on housing policy in developing countries since the late 1980s has been dominated by the World Bank led strategy of developing the housing sector as a whole by enabling primarily formal private markets to work more e$ciently. Yet, the emphasis on private markets has led to the exclusion of complementary and alternative public, co-operative/community based and informal modes of housing provision from serious policy consideration. This paper argues for the adoption of a more integrated housing policy that is based on the recognition and better co-ordination of plurality of provision. Thereby, not only allowing further development of speci"c modes in appropriate socio-economic settings but also enabling the creation of synergies through combining complementary modes in order to overcome their relative weaknesses, we can boost supply to speci"c target groups.
Civil and Environmental Research, 2014
One of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020. Nigeria's commitment to this Declaration has led to a plethora of economic reforms that address housing inadequacy and other development challenges. Among these is a policy shift from direct government participation to private sector participation in housing delivery. Several studies have, however, shown that, despite all these reforms, a great proportion of its population still lives in substandard and poor houses and in deplorable, unsanitary residential environments. The objective of this paper is to review some of these strategies vis-à-vis the socioeconomic context of the nation's polity with a view to finding the reasons they have not delivered as expected. The incompatibility of the market-driven reforms with the social and cultural needs and aspirations of Nigeria society was identified as a major impediment to housing delivery in the country. The paper contends that housing problem as a social good or service will remain intractable if its production is still controlled by the market forces. It then concludes by advocating cooperative approach to housing delivery and the management, maintenance and revitalization of the existing housing stocks.
2014
Housing is more about attitude than purse size. Since time immemorial, humans have always provided solutions to their habitat problems with minimum assistance from outsiders. However, aided self-help housing provision approaches became popular for solving the housing problems of the urban poor during the last half of the twentieth century. Since then, there have been constant efforts to position the urban poor at the centre of the housing development process, where they can exercise greater control and make investment decisions as funds allow. It has been proved, however, that the fundamental ingredient in home-ownership schemes for the urban poor is the smooth facilitation and provision of adequate and appropriate land in terms of occupation rights, size, location in relation to distance from city centres, planning ideals and costs. Allocating secure and affordable housing plots encourages incremental development of housing structures, on-site infrastructure and improvements of com...
Environment and Urbanization, 2011
This paper considers why the housing subsidy programme in South Africa has had so little impact on poverty reduction despite its scale and generous funding. It discusses how this was linked to the government’s conception of housing, the institutions involved and who controlled funding flows for housing. Most government funding went to contractors to build new units “for the poor”; it was assumed that these would replace homes in informal settlements that the poor developed themselves. Despite statements about the government’s commitment to the People’s Housing Process (PHP), informal settlements were only seen in negative terms and there was no support for incremental upgrading and very little support for low-income households to build their own homes. Meanwhile, the contractor-built houses were usually too small, of poor quality and in locations far from livelihoods and services. The paper ends with suggestions for how the formal institutions of government can learn to support and work with the poor. The incremental approaches of the poor to their own housing and livelihoods can serve as an alternative first principle for conceiving of the challenge of human settlements policy and practice. Furthermore, funding flows and their associated institutions should support people-centred development and institutionalize systems that make the informed participation of residents of informal settlements a pre-condition for state support.