Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses

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    An approach to improved housing delivery in large cities of less developed countries
    Sivam, Alpana ( 1999)
    The world population is increasing very rapidly, overwhelming all efforts to provide adequate housing. The urban population is growing at a much faster rate than the population as a whole. A staggering 93 percent of this increase between 1995 and 2020 is expected to occur in the developing countries. This poses a major challenge to those responsible for the provision of housing and related services. It is reasonably clear that housing delivery systems are deficient in almost all the large cities of less developed countries. The deficiencies are not the same in all cities, but they generally relate to land assembly, development and disposal of developed land, provision of infrastructure, and co-ordination among different implementation agencies. The aim of this research is to suggest an approach to improve housing delivery systems for large cities in developing countries. The heart of the method developed to achieve this aim was to break down the housing delivery system into its various stages: planning; land assembly; implementation; and final disposal of the finished houses. This permitted examination of the problems related to four various stages individually, rather than trying to view a system in toto. A variety of cities from both developed and developing countries were examined to generate sets of alternatives for each of these stages. These alternatives were then tested for the city of Delhi, India, through individual interviews with different actors in the housing delivery system, to observe how different sets of those actors see the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative for each stage. The method used to analyse the responses was both quantitative and qualitative. This produced suggestions for each of the stages of the housing delivery system, appropriate for Delhi. Although the systems in different cities of less developed countries might differ from each other, there are overriding defects that are common to most. Reflection on the alternatives derived for Delhi suggested that for the most part they would be applicable to other cities of less developed countries. However, for some of the stages the political, social or cultural situation in particular cities would require individual selection from the range of possible alternatives. In such cases, the research method developed in this research project can be applied to make an appropriate selection.