Conference Proceedings : “JANASEVANA” National ... - UN HABITAT

Urban Housing
In commonwealth economies, public housing dates from 1921 ‐‐ when the first British Housing Minister built a small
number of homes for the poorest of the urban workforce. Since then, the issue of urban housing has expanded
significantly and includes more than mere house planning and architectural design. It also includes solutions for the
local economy such as livelihoods and infrastructure development as well as environmental concerns. The key issue
for developing countries is to generate their own integrated national design. Hence, countries should plan for the
development of local firms and their role as partners and entrepreneurs of the affected communities. The digital
divide and solutions to urban administration also need to be considered.
Private Sector Participation
The key to urban housing and urban development depends on how well the local economy can harness the private
sector. However, this cannot be solved by creating a sheltered, monopolistic private sector. Instead, it should be
competitive and also include communities and social entrepreneurship from low‐income levels. The private sector
perception of the urban challenge is different to that of the Government. For the private and social entrepreneur
sector, the challenge is in harnessing the bottom of the pyramid (BOP population) into development and the property
and financial holdings ladder. This means that a variety of real estate and infrastructure professionals and business
firms must be developed.
OBSERVATIONS ON CURRENT TRENDS
• The “Haussmann” type of planning method is no longer used. People are no longer forced to adapt to plans
developed by the planners.
• In the developed countries, an increase in development by subdivision has been observed.
• There is an apparent divide in directions in the major developed or developing country activities and these may
be termed as a tendency to a central concept as in the “Renaissance” or “Sustainable” model on the one hand
and the “Subdivisions” model on the other. The latter seems to be more practical and is the main model used
today.
Economics
The • world In most has developing not completely countries recovered there seems from to the be Global a furtherance Financial of Crisis the International of 2008. Although style and certain concepts countries have
returned to pre‐crisis levels of house‐building, some problems still remain. In developed economies, a new
In developed economies, a further phenomenon has been observed – namely, the rise of de‐population of some cities
and urban areas while others thrive. While this has been a feature of mature industrialization, the permanence and
effective declines are now becoming more numerous. On the other hand, in developing countries, impoverishment
and implosion of cities has been observed while there has been corresponding throttling of growth and explosion of
the poor population of other cities. This economics must be seen in tandem with the globalization effects on urban
areas. This is the rapid and continued rise of urbanization,
with more than half the world’s population now living in
dense urban areas. Due to the rise of poverty, the rise of
slums or shanties is increasing at an even greater rate.
The Case Study of India
With globalization, the problem of inner city breakdown has
worsened in India. When the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) became operational, India had 34 million workers in
the textile industry, with almost all workers living in city
centres. This meant that the city centres had large
unemployed but skilled pools of labour. India has solved this
problem using two key features. Firstly, the Indian
Constitution requires planning to be at the Local Government
level – which is the highest permissible level of planning. The
The REEL concept
The REEL concept was formulated as an alternative to
‘supply driven social housing’. The concept is based on
land sharing and trading with new housing units
between the government and the slum dwellers. This
process enables the government to use prime lands
which are occupied by the slum dwellers for urban
development while providing decent housing as an
alternative to slums. The key is the mobilization of the
capitalization of the wealth of the city in the form of
the land value of slums.
Conference Proceedings – National Housing Symposium 20