| dc.description.abstract | The conventional approach to the housing problem, the
country's housing policies and the binding minimum acceptable
housing in urban areas in Kenya do not necessarily work for
the betterment of all households standards of living - small
households in particular. Furthermore, the determination of
housing demand and target housing groups purely on the basis
of income, hence, affordability, with little or no reference
to other qualitative measures such as household size and
composition, individual preferences, space requirements,
suitability and convenience to the user is detrimental to
the achievement of the government's prime object of adequately
housing everybody. Households' housing needs and aspirations
are not similar as it is assumed by the grouping of such
households in income groups. The present urban housing
policies and programme have very little link between
demography, sociological factors and housing provision in the
formulation of the housing programme.
This work sets out to discuss explicitly the
underlying social implications of Kenya's urban housing
policies on small households and the fate of such small
households in the face of the government's housing
priorities and pattern of housing development in the urban
areas. The study covers Nairobi city.
In the study, attempts are made to establish the
inter-relationships between the country's political economic
set up as they shape the housing policies and the influence
of such policies on the overall performance and distribution
of public housing in urban Kenya. The main focus of the
study is on the need to house small households in urban Kenya.
A thorough analysis of Kenya's urban housing policies and
programme and their impact on the housing needs of small
households is done with a view of subsequently intermarrying
the housing needs of small households with the overall
housing programme in urban Kenya. | en_US |
