Poverty and progress? Re ections on housing and urban policies in developing countries

Summary. The Habitat II con ference in June 1996 was more determ ined by retrosp ect and prospect than by the discussions during the several days in Istanbul. The policy outcomes were fashioned by reform s and research in the mid 1980s leading to the `new urban agenda ’ , the Global Strategy for Shelter, and the environmentalism from the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. At Istanbul, much of this was endorsed and converted into `action plans ’. To the exten t that `action plans ’ are compatible with national political and institutional conditions, they may in ¯ uence a prospective future. Policy has become much more comprehensive and complex than in the Habitat I forerunner at Vancouver in 1976. The complexities were not fully acknowledged in Istanbul. They range from the inheren t political con ¯ icts in policy-based advice and ® nancial support to the uncertain ties of markets and macroecon omic events in a liberalised international economy. This paper evaluates widely in retrosp ect, in prospect and in the circumstances of post-1986 reform s. It is written from the perspectives of political science, econom ics (both orthodox and heterodox), and the social science of institutions. On-locatio n work in east Asia, south-east Asia, south Asia, east Africa and Mexico have also in ¯ uenced ways of thinking