[Excerpt: I. Background: Mona Serageldin]

“The involvement of architects and planners with housing for lower income groups began in the 50’s and 60’s when national governments in the post colonial era embarked on slum eradication programs. Slum dwellers were to be rehoused in public housing estates. To the designers of these first projects, the overriding concern was decent shelter and sanitary conditions and not affordability. That their vision was influenced by prevailing international norms was the natural outcome of their professional training. Their failure to foresee the implications of demographic and economic trends over the next 2 decades invalidated their approach. Their efforts were overwhelmed by population growth, surplus labor, and an influx of rural migrants which could not be checked.

“Throughout the 60’s housing shortages increased and slums proliferated. Frustrated authorities turned to legislative controls, a politically expedient short-term remedy. The longer term impacts were devastating. Stringent controls accelerated the deterioration of the regulated stock, distorted private production, undermined the tax base, hampered residential mobility and warped occupancy patterns.

“The low cost shelter solutions advocated in the 60’s and 70’s produced a variety of expandable core housing prototypes to meet the needs of the urban poor. They were valid models in parts of Africa and Asia where the process happened to coincide with local practices as in Khartoum and Dakar. Elsewhere, the lack of enthusiasm among housing authorities for these approaches stemmed from an accurate perception of their unsuitability as a housing solution for the middle classes, the only client group of political consequence. Leverage and funding from international agencies launched projects in many countries which otherwise might have never experimented with minimal shelter programs. The improvements provided were on a scale too small to be meaningful in relation to the magnitude of the problem or noticeable in the midst of sprawling chaotic cities. By the mid 70’s their demonstration effect had lost its significance.”

“The shock waves in world economics and the resultant movements of labor and capital transformed the character of urban growth throughout the third world. By 1981, 15 million expatriate workers funneled between 25 and 35 billion dollars of foreign exchange back to their home countries. As the bulk of these remittances found their way into real estate, the urbanized area of cities doubled or tripled in extent shaped by uncontrolled housing construction on an unprecedented scale. Functionally defective and aesthetically chaotic environments became the dominant feature of cities, those annual rate of expansion of 4% to 7% outstripped the capacities of municipalities to provide urban services. As a result, their efficiency was impaired and there has been a sharp deterioration in the quality of life.”