Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/250

 main factors contributing to 'illegal' settlements and chaotic urban sprawl. When half or more of a city's workforce has no chance of obtaining a legal plot of which a house can be built, let alone of affording to buy or rent a house legally, the balance between private landownership rights and the public good must be quickly rethought.

50. Given urbanization trends in most developing countries, there is no time to wait for slow and uncertain programmes. Government intervention must be reoriented so that limited resources are put to maximum effect in improving housing conditions for the poor. The options for intervention are many (see Box 9–3), but governments should be guided by these seven priorities:
 * provide legal tenure to those living in 'illegal' settlements. with secure titles and basic services provided by public authorities:
 * ensure that the land and other resources people need to build or improve their housing are available:
 * supply existing and new housing areas infrastructure and services:
 * set up neighbourhood offices to provide advice and technical assistance on how housing can be built better and cheaper, and on how health and hygiene can be improved:
 * plan and guide the city's physical expansion to anticipate and encompass needed land for new housing, agricultural land, parks, and children's play areas:
 * consider how public intervention could improve conditions for tenants and those living in cheap rooming or boarding–houses: and
 * change housing finance systems to make cheap loans available to lower-income and community groups.

51. Most cities urgently need a large and continuous increase in the availability of cheap housing plots convenient to the main centres of employment. Only government intervention can achieve this, but no general prescriptions are possible. Societies differ too much in how they view private landownership and land use rights, in how they use different instruments such as direct grants, tax write-offs, or deduction of mortgage interest, and in how they treat land speculation, corruption, and other undesirable activities that often accompany processes of this kind. Although the means are particular to each nation, the end must be the same: governments ensuring that there are cheaper, better-serviced, better-located, legal alternatives to illegal plots. If this need is not met, the uncontrolled growth of cities – and its accompanying high costs – will not be stopped.

52. Besides land, building materials are another major cost for people putting up their own houses. Government support for the production of materials and of certain structural components, fixtures. and fittings could reduce housing costs and create many jobs. Small neighbourhood workshops often have cost advantages because of the low cost of transport from the workshop to the building site. /…