Housing, Urban Vulnerability and Sustainability in Rapidly-Developing Cities

This paper looks at housing in the context of reducing vulnerability and increasing sustainability at several levels within the context of daily life and of mitigating the effects of crises and disasters on housing and its occupants. It begins by setting the context of housing in the early years of the third millennium. This is followed by an examination of the benefits which housing provision can bring to the need to reduce economic vulnerability, through how and by whom it is constructed and the opportunities it provides for income earning both in its provision and its use. This is followed by a discussion of how housing can reduce vulnerability to disasters. The paper concludes with policy recommendations on how vulnerability can be reduced and sustainability increased through housing policy.