1 Building Urban Poor Community in Isaan: Design, Planning and Empowerment

The paper illustrates the shift of urban poor housing policy and implementation in Thailand. During the last couple of years, its movement has boosted by community-driven process supported by Community Organization Development Institute (CODI), public organization, initiating the program so called “Baan Man Kong”. The program emphasizes on community, considered as the core mechanism, to work at the very fundamental level in order to improve the living condition as well as secure tenure and conduct to formulate the myriad of local partnerships at the end. The objectives of the paper are twofold. The former is to summarize the experience on the community development process in planning and design regarding urban poor housing through four case studies in Isaan, the northeastern region, where the urban poor generate the lowest average income in Thailand. And the latter is to depict lesson learning from experience and knowledge which has been exchanging among communities, academic institutes and local administrative bodies. This lesson learning could shed the further light on urban poor housing movement from pilot community to the others