ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the important contribution that organized low-income communities can make in achieving inclusive urban development, and particularly so when their efforts are supported by partnership with government and other actors. As governments around the world face up to the Sustainable Development Goals in the face of rapid and often unplanned urbanization, the benefits that can be drawn from harnessing community-led processes should be supported and sustained. The chapter highlights urban poverty in Southeast Asia. It outlines some of the key principles underpinning the approaches of organized low-income communities that have arisen in response to this, before outlining their initiatives with regard to investment in housing and infrastructure, establishing alternative financial mechanisms, and taking action to reduce disaster risk. The chapter concludes with the implications of this growing movement to engender structural changes in social, economic and political structures that reinforce marginalization and inequity in urban areas.
