JENNIFER YONG
NOV. 19th, 2010
A task that the UN puts a lot of its efforts, and therefore money, towards is implementing state finance systems that will allow people with low income to have shelter/housing.
A task that the UN puts a lot of its efforts, and therefore money, towards is implementing state finance systems that will allow people with low income to have shelter/housing.
The main activities of the Housing Finance Systems are:
- Review and analysis of housing finance systems and mechanisms;
- Conducting studies on important housing finance issues such as market infrastructure – legal and regulatory frameworks, property rights, land rights and registration, law enforcement; relationship of housing finance systems to the wide national economy and financial sector;
- Government intervention and subsidies/incentives in housing finance systems;
- Strategies and instruments for financial resources mobilization for housing and infrastructure;
- Project Finance
- Mortgage finance and credit enhancements
- Community-based finance institutions and instruments;
- Links between formal housing finance and informal housing finance;
- Provide advisory and technical assistance in capacity building, financial instruments, policy development and reforms.
This almost hits me as an overanalysis. Places like Dignity Village and Kowloon Walled City were able to survive (maybe thrive?) without any outside funding by simply creating shelters out of materials available to them. These shelters can be seen as innovative because of their very practicality.
Maybe in our keynote we might state that while the UN uses time and money to try to implement government systems to improve situations of poverty (a lot of resources are wasted in this struggle, as the attempts are not always successful in improving low-income housing ex. in Ciudad Bolivar in Bogota), it is actually possible for people in poverty to create their own means of survival--shelter, water, agriculture. As problem-solvers and architects we should realize how successful simple solutions and simple materials can be (ex. even like those plastic bottle houses) and apply that to our own buildings. Maybe the strategies used to cram a whole lot of people in a very small space (Kowloon Walled City, any rooftop housing) can be applied to urban design in developed countries. I realize that space-efficient and economic housing is already a big thing in large metropolises and is the only kind of thing in places like Japan and China. But what we need to address is that in North America we also need to be thinking about making the most of our space. While most architects are interested in this issue, our society as a whole is not there quite yet. It is important that this quickly becomes a concern of people and the government. Has anyone watched The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream? Basically it discusses how after peak oil (which has occurred) it is impossible for North Americans to continue supporting the lifestyle we have enjoyed since WWI when oil was dirt cheap. Even with any combination of alternative energy sources, we cannot continue living in suburbs with several hours of commute every day.
What does everyone think about these ideas as a part of our "standpoint" for our keynote?
Sources
Zhang, Xing Quan. UN-HABITAT. “Urban Economy and Financing Shelter: Housing Finance.” Accessed November 19, 2010. http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=292&cid=5957
I think this is totally on the money. I like what you said about applying these strategies to North America and how this links to what Kyle said about being proactive rather than being reactive.
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ReplyDeleteI really like this standpoint. I think we could even start our presentation by addressing why these settlements' solutions to shelter, water and agriculture needs are important to all countries. As mentioned before, these urban survival solutions become significant in cases of natural (or rather unnatural) disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes; because of the earth's limited resources; and to deal with population increases etc.. These sort of issues also require us question our city's infrastructures and to think about changes in settlement types and patterns. Perhaps cities should be less of a network of dependent systems and more clusters of self sustaining settlements. Don talks about this in his essay. What do you all think?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if we should talk about how the UN wastes time and money in trying to implement govt systems to improve situations of poverty. I prefer to focus on what people in informal settlements do to survive in situations of limited resources (space, water, food.)
-Cynthia Eng