Operationalizing community-led housing in practice: Lessons from Bangkok, Thailand and Mumbai, India

In developing countries, cities are experiencing rapid urbanization with increasing informality affecting urban poor to live in slums and squatters subject to eviction. Abating the issue, current participatory planning and collaborative actions are becoming popular. The major challenge in contemporary pro-poor housing practices is to explore the best practices of community participation, is well-discussed after the withdrawal of government intervention in housing and relying heavily on housing market. This study attempted to explore different forms of community participation to identify options introducing community-led housing in Bangkok and Mumbai for urban poor. The SWOT analyses of the ongoing projects in Bangkok and Mumbai identified scope and operational methodology of community-led housing. Results revealed that different forms of participatory practices are still considering urban poor as beneficiaries in expert-designed pre-determined projects and programmes. Community-led housing process has emerged as a different thought of action which is impulsive, inclusive and initiated by the community. We identified the elements of community-led housing are noticeable through representative networking, collective savings and blended financing, participatory designing, collective ownership, and participatory monitoring and evaluation. Although the community-led housing practice is becoming successful by enabling urban poor in five aspects, yet issue of scaling-up and institutionalization remains unsolved.