The provision of domestic shelter is an important basic need to be met in any country. However this provision is a complex process involving issues not only of providing physical shelter in adequate quantities to house the population, but also of providing appropriate shelter types within a total urban environment i.e. shelters which are capable of meeting diverse physical, social and even psychological needs of households, bearing in mind that these needs change over time as a particular household’s composition changes (as it forms, grows and then dissolves). Compounding these multiple concerns is the additional problem of how to provide sufficient, appropriate shelter types at levels which are affordable by all, particularly the urban poor who typically constitute fifty per cent or more of Third World city populations.