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A recent article by Corburn et al. lays out the policies that would help slum communities in the global south deal with COVID-19. That article notes the vulnerabilities of people in these informal settlements and argues that any assistance program must recognize these realities so that the policies do not further jeopardize the survival of large segments of the population of these communities. This note extends the arguments in that

This article discusses housing policy in developing economies. It examines recent research findings in light of earlier arguments as to the benefits of more market-oriented approaches. It also looks at whether the recommendations of earlier work have been refuted or developed in subsequent analyses and policy measures. In particular, it reviews the empirical analysis of the effects of policy on housing supply, the richer understanding of the effects that land market regulations have on housing affordability and the functioning of urban areas, and the alleged mysterious effects that researchers claim effective property rights have on housing policy and on development more generally. It also examines the effects of the increased emphasis on community participation, showing how it helps to more fully reconcile the incentives faced by beneficiaries of housing policy and donors. Finally, it examines recent literature on the welfare effects of rent control. The article shows that some of the conjectures as to the likely benefits of more market-based policy have been refuted, but large welfare gains for poor people can still be realized by adapting this approach. Furthermore, this approach appears to be gaining ground as the consensus approach to effective housing policy.In a 1986 article Mayo and others summarized research on housing economics in developing countries. At that time empirical work on housing was a relatively new field, with the first cross-country econometric study by Burns and Grebler (1977) less than a decade old. 1 Since then, research has grown rapidly, and the policy framework that governs the approach to providing shelter has evolved considerably. This article is an attempt to give shape to the changing consensus on housing policy in light of the research findings and broader changes in perspectives on public policy. The first section captures the broad changes in the world over the past 20 years that have significantly affected public policy and traces the implications of these changes for housing policy. The second section provides a brief overview of the research consensus on developing country housing problems in the 1980s. The

For 18 months in 2009-2010, the Rockefeller Foundation provided support to establish the Roundtable on Urban Living Environment Research (RULER). Composed of leading experts in population health measurement from a variety of disciplines, sectors, and continents, RULER met for the purpose of reviewing existing methods of measurement for urban health in the context of recent reports from UN agencies on health inequities in urban settings. The audience for this report was identified as international, national, and local governing bodies; civil society; and donor agencies. The goal of the report was to identify gaps in measurement that must be filled in order to assess and evaluate population health in urban settings, especially in informal settlements (or slums) in low- and middle-income countries. Care must be taken to integrate recommendations with existing platforms (e.g., Health Metrics Network, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) that could incorporate, mature, and sustain efforts to address these gaps and promote effective data for healthy urban management. RULER noted that these existing platforms focus primarily on health outcomes and systems, mainly at the national level. Although substantial reviews of health outcomes and health service measures had been conducted elsewhere, such reviews covered these in an aggregate and perhaps misleading way. For example, some spatial aspects of health inequities, such as those pointed to in the 2008 report from the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, received limited attention. If RULER were to focus on health inequities in the urban environment, access to disaggregated data was a priority. RULER observed that some urban health metrics were already available, if not always appreciated and utilized in ongoing efforts (e.g., census data with granular data on households, water, and sanitation but with little attention paid to the spatial dimensions of these data). Other less obvious elements had not exploited the gains realized in spatial measurement technology and techniques (e.g., defining geographic and social urban informal settlement boundaries, classification of population-based amenities and hazards, and innovative spatial measurement of local governance for health). In summary, the RULER team identified three major areas for enhancing measurement to motivate action for urban health-namely, disaggregation of geographic areas for intra-urban risk assessment and action, measures for both social environment and governance, and measures for a better understanding of the implications of the physical (e.g., climate) and built environment for health. The challenge of addressing these elements in resource-poor settings was acknowledged, as was the intensely political nature of urban health metrics. The RULER team went further to identify existing global health metrics structures that could serve as platforms for more granular metrics specific for urban settings.

Over the past decade, housing policy in developing countries has witnessed an important shift. After decades of limited and in some cases decreasing investments in housing, there has been a sudden, extraordinarily large, and simultaneous expansion of multi-billion-dollar housing programmes. These new investments reveal a radical policy change, one that signals the serious and welcomed effort of tackling the looming affordability concerns that have been plaguing cities across the world. Yet this paper raises concerns over the direction of current housing policies and programmes. It argues that the new emphasis on addressing the problem through the production of industrial-scale new housing on the outskirts of cities, or through the development of new cities requiring extraordinarily expensive infrastructure, does not necessarily address the affordability concerns. For this reason, the paper raises a series of questions and offers recommendations that address some of the most important elements of decision-making that should be taken into account when planning affordable housing. These are meant to help identify why housing challenges arise, in order to avoid Thomas Pynchon's well-known aphorism: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."