Estimation of the Affordability, of Land for Housing Purposes in

Centre for kvelupment Studies, T r i v d m t n (India) lntrodnction It is in the early 1990s that we come across studies on some Third World cities that have begun to address the question of land affordability for housing purposes in greater details than what have been documented in the past (Tym, 1984; Strassmann and Blunt, 19%.Ward et al, 1993),1 The focus on the affordability question was partly generated by the World Bank's urban development strategy in the 1980s (Linn, 1983) and later by the mid 19808 it became more pronounced by the promotion of the World Bank's New Urban Management Policy (NUMP) (World Bank, 1989; Dowall, 1991). Some stimulus also came from urban land market and land price studies of the late 1980s and the early l9Xk2 In the early 197Os, the World Bank's (1972) paper 'Urbanization Sector Working Paper' lucidly outlined urban crisis in developing countries and the important roles of self-help housing. But, as Pugh (1989) remarks, this paper remained very cautious on the discussion of land policy and i t mlegated it to the back-seat by placing it into the appendix of the paper. However, with the progress in time World Bank's strategy towards urban crisis in developing countries changed and in 198.6 the 'New Urban Management I In!hc nmlsxt of thc 14Cvclr,pJ World, ~iudic.\e on housing nl.li,rul;~bilily;~ntl/r,r mci~sllrinp thc cthvi or ' crlch ormllucnl ol ' housing have kc11 Jonc ill llrc ~cvcr ~ l~cs (Ercwcll. 1'373) arrd in Ll~c airv l~cs Im (L ia l iaru