Affordable Housing - by Vinayak Bharne & Shyam Khandekar (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In a time when an estimated 1.2 billion people across the world lack access to secure housing, how are cities working to empower and promote the inclusion of all, irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, disability and economic status? How is affordable housing bridging economic gaps across different social, political and cultural geographies, particularly for the 900 million individuals who live in slums? This volume explores the interface of social justice and city making through comparative discussions from Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe, as well as North, Central and South America. The thirty-six essays in this collection include conversations with influential administrators and civic leaders such as Somsook Boonyabancha and Jaime Lerner, with commentaries on transformative initiatives such as "Child Friendly Cities," and "Women for the World," and case studies of exemplary projects by globally known architects and planners such as Alejandro Aravena and MVRDV. The multifaceted narrative of this volume is a call for expanding the narrow focus on urban equitability towards a more integral outlook on the myriad ways through which affordable housing and inclusive cites are being generated globally.

Review Quotes

"As a practitioner working with residents of informal settlements where lack of housing and basic service delivery remains formidable hurdles to accessing opportunities for betterment of life, this multi-layered book has helped generate significant strategic thinking." --Anita Patil-Deshmukh, Executive Director, PUKAR, India

"This book is a must-read for architects, planners, and policy makers, who should use their powers of imagination to create social added value." --Floris Alkemade, Chief Government Architect of The Netherlands

"This volume is a comprehensive collection of essays revolving around two of the most important challenges in the contemporary city: housing affordability and socio-political inclusiveness. The editors and authors of this extraordinary assemblage do not stop their scholarly work just there; the text and its beautiful illustrations provide the clarity of content that a present-day reader requires for a preliminary understanding of housing design principles, informal and formal cities, mobility and infrastructure, socio-economic and gender segregation, public participation, community led-development, new technologies, climate resiliency, urban policies, and the future of urban form and dwelling opportunities in a variety of geographic and political conditions around the world." --Jaime Correa, Associate Professor in Urban Design Practice, University of Miami, USA

"This volume illustrates cutting-edge progressive efforts aimed at understanding what works and why." --Sanjeev Vidyarthi, Director, City Design Program, University of Illinois at Chicago

"This volume offers a deeply informative range of insights and experiences on housing and urbanism." --Jagan Shah, Director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs, India