Incremental Housing – The New Site & Services

Informal builders provide the bulk of affordable housing and define large areas of our cities. Originally created for those long considered as poor and unable to house themselves, over time the resultant informal housing generally matches higher income standards. This incremental process has been adopted by governments into programmes called ‘site and services’, focusing on housing and land development, and embracing process as the key. A methodology to capture this process has been developed which offers a base for developing effective policies in supporting the incremental builders.The rapid urban population surge of the 60s driven largely from migration with resultant massive unauthorized city expansion provided challenges in finding effective housing interventions. Upgrading programs became widespread despite high monetary and spatial costs. This lecture focuses on a mimic of the informal housing process which offered a direction for policy, adopted in the 70s by development agencies worldwide and known as ‘site and services’. Difficulties and unresolved challenges in these projects ended their attraction and they fell out of widespread use by the mid 80’s. However, as credible studies indicated that urban population growth was expected to double in the next 20 years, a ‘site and services’ approach has again recently become the option of choice for housing intervention as one of the few proactive options available. After-the-fact ‘catchup’ policy of upgrading communities as the policy choice was no longer seen as sufficient.Dr. ReinhardGoethert teaches at MIT, champions the informal building energy which is defining city growth, and stresses innovative participatory approaches. He directs SIGUS – the Special Interest Group in Urban Settlements, and is the secretarial for the Global University Consortium Exploring Incremental Housing.