Publisher's Synopsis
For the past two decades and more, low cost housing has been a major preoccupation with planners and policy makers in most third world countries.;Progress towards affordable, demand-based housing for the urban poor must necessarily pass through various stages before it can crystallize into a national policy that will effectively cover all aspects of this very essential basic human need.;The lessons that can be drawn from this collection of essays and housing management in France perhaps break new ground as they help us to understand the trends in housing management in a totally different context.;The aim of this book is to explain how management methods for low-cost housing have changed in France over the last 40 years; to highlight the methods which are used today; and outline the prospects for future development.;The 40 year period from 1945 to 1985, is chosen because this was a period of reconstruction, of major growth and rapid economic and social change. Many countries now face the same type of change but with greater brutality and on a larger scale. The initial work deals with water policy, land-use policy and the management of welfare housing resources. This is not a random selection; these policies have played an important role over the last forty years in the fields of urban growth; they deal with daily life; they closely combine technical, institutional and political questions; moreover, the French experience is unique in some aspects and covers essential questions for most countries undergoing rapid urban growth.;This book is a series of short texts by people who have been directly involved in the definition or implementation of policy in their field or who have had cause to observe or analyse it in detail, and who have agreed to take this opportunity to carry out a work of synthesis within the framework of a collective approach.
