ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, rising real household incomes have made affordable housing a huge new market opportunity for the private sector more than a public-sector responsibility. The global shift to markets of the early 1980s convinced donors and governments to shift from building housing projects directly to enabling housing markets mainly through providing mortgage finance and subsidies to private developers. Housing the base of the income pyramid (BOP) on a sustainable basis requires establishing a strong multi-pronged urban land policy that balances the interests of stakeholders Sprawl and high energy/carbon construction greatly increase the cost of housing and urban development. As urbanization and slum formation accelerated, the public sector turned to building less expensive slum-upgrading, sites-and-services, and core-expandable-unit projects. The Chilean architectural firm Elemental has designed two-storey row-houses sharing exterior walls that achieve densities comparable to multi-storey condominiums that households can build progressively, and these are now common throughout the country.
