ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the debate about trade-offs between welfare and development which underlies much of the policy debate about shelter for the poor in developing countries. It presents an overview of the facts: what we know about the development of shelter for the poor in the cities of developing countries. Probably we ought to take the provision of rental stock within the informal sector far more seriously than we have. A study of landlord-tenant relations and their housing policy implications in Canada makes a point which may be quite transferable to the developing countries. The chapter also presents a framework for thinking about shelter which should be more useful in program design, as well as in evaluating and learning from the programs already in existence. The way of thinking about shelter policy suggests a different strategy of research from that usually favored by housing and planning agencies.
