Getting land for housing; what strategies work for low-income groups?

Most papers in this issue of Environment and Urbanization are about the urban poor themselves as active agents in getting land for housing – either negotiating tenure for land they occupy or negotiating for new sites on which they can build. As Somsook Boonyabancha notes in her paper, the urban poor’s drive for change, their energy and their capacity were never factored into offi cial housing policies. When the potential contribution of the urban poor in resolving their land and housing issues is taken seriously, a great deal can be achieved, as the papers in this volume indicate.