SELF-HELP HOUSING FOR THE POOR - A CROSS-CULTURAL-STUDY

A study of the strengths and weaknesses of housing action in one local ity should help shed light on the problem in a totally different conte xt. This paper shows what New York city's housing dilemma tells us abo ut relevant policies for Third World cities and what New York can lear n from the Third World. The inability of New York City to provide dece nt housing and neighbourhoods, or any housing at all, for the low-inco me population indicates that good housing is not an automatic feature of 'development'. Because of the lack of low-income housing in New Yor k, a large number of innovative self-help programmes have been experim ented with. Although they are totally insufficient in quantity, they d o suggest workable 'enabling strategies' that could be applied elsewhe re. Studies from several Third World cities are used to suggest that i f self-help has not become a major policy for most governments it is n ot because this process is inappropriate but because it is not given s ufficient support.