Development Planning Unit Record in Housing Policy 1971-2021

Housing constitutes some 60-80 percent of the developed land of urban areas and in the order of 50-70 percent of the value of the fixed capital formation of towns and cities (UN-Habitat 2003). It is fundamental to alleviating the impacts of urban poverty and to poverty reduction, social change, and cultural conservation.

Thus the production, maintenance, and management of housing play fundamental roles in developing cities. Nevertheless, it is useful to examine housing policy and its implementation as a discrete component of the economic, social, and environmental development of cities, as the DPU has done for half a century.

This paper is in two parts. The first (Section 1&2) is an analytical overview of the development of the DPU’s conceptual and operational approaches to urban housing. The second (Sections 3-6) outlines the Unit’s housing programs and projects from 1971-2021.

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