LSE Festival 2018 | Getting Ahead of the Curve: addressing housing needs in rapidly growing cities [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Paul Collier, Rubbina Karruna, Paida Hlambelo | Across the developing world, the pace of urbanisation has outstripped the ability of governments to facilitate decent, affordable housing for citizens. With the price of private housing developments making them out of reach to middle income households, urban growth in these rapidly growing cities has largely occurred through unplanned, low density, and low-quality housing. As a result, citizens are unable to access basic services and amenities that affect their quality of life. At the same time, cities are missing a key ingredient for the effective clustering of individuals and firms that make cities engines for growth. In this context, many city governments are asking: how can policy help to address the growing gap between housing supply and rising demands? Can public housing schemes address the need of low income residents? How can policy be used to unleash private housing markets equipped for the demands of these cities? The International Growth Centre (IGC) and LSE Cities explore these questions in examining the future of housing policy in developing cities. Speakers will be presenting and defending their views on viable options for policy – the audience will have to decide who presents the most compelling case for reform. Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford and Director of IGC. Rubbina Karruna is DFID Cities Adviser. Paida Hlambelo is an architect for Vavaki Architects. Priya Manwaring is Cities Economist for the International Growth Centre.