Half the world’s population lives in urban areas. Future population growth (more than 80 per cent of it in urban areas) will be concentrated in developing countries. Yet the growth of urbanization in the developing world has not been matched by a commensurate growth in the supply of decent housing. The shortcomings of policy, lack of political will, limitations of housing finance, poor land management in urban areas, lack of security of tenure, and lack of infrastructure and services are just some of the issues that confront citizens and policy-makers in developing countries, and provide a strong theme for research, analysis and action. These issues require the integration of resources of the government and private sector; efforts of various disciplines to work together on the possible ways of integrating the conflicting demands on urban land in LDCs for housing and international commercial development to become a world city; and joint research of the scholars, intellectuals and practitioners of housing projects in the housing market constantly providing feedback to each other.