Conclusions

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses the most important aspects and problems of urban basic needs satisfaction. It refers specifically to bureaucratic obstacles to the more efficient management of education programmes, especially the centralisation of all authority for the towns both of Bangkok and Bombay in one administrator. The book then discusses a role for all the possible forms of government intervention in low income housing, for direct construction, for sites and services programmes and for slum and squatter area improvement. It also explores that while the urban poor often do not travel so far or as regularly as the less poor they nevertheless spend a large share of their income on transport. The book explores an approach which has often been successful in improving urban environment: the mobilisation of community and household effort often through non-official channels supported by a modicum of outside financing.