ABSTRACT
Affordable housing has become a major policy challenge in urban India over the past few decades. Private developers fashion affordable housing in the templates used for middle-income (MIG) and high-income group (HIG) housing. By the late 1980s, following the international trend and Global Shelter Strategy, in particular, a National Housing Policy was announced in 1987 with government's role firmly established as provider for the poorest group and facilitator for other income groups. Interestingly, housing and property prices remained stable, despite the global financial crisis, attributed largely to the culture of home purchases through personal savings and other sources of capital outside the banking and mortgage system. The residential skyscrapers such as the pair of Imperial Towers in Mumbai or Kolkata's Urbana, Burj Al Hind in Calicut, Kerala, or Gurgaon's DLF Tower have become today's urban housing spectaculars that evoke both the technological and architectural sublime although they sit uncomfortably with affordable housing principles.
