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Through a case study of a private developer of housing in India, this paper critically examines the policy advice of enabling markets and market-based actors to provide affordable housing in developing countries. In this case, after receiving public sector help, the developer stopped constructing housing for low-income groups. The paper argues for a more cautious, circumspect and varied approach because enabling strategies focused on market actors can produce highly uncertain outcomes. In addition, it emphasises that policy-makers need a better understanding of how the informal and formal sectors can overlap. Enabling informal developers can be even trickier because public support can reduce their flexibility and incentives, as well as impacting on the expectations and opportunities of the home-buyers.

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Most local off-street parking requirements emphasize quantity over quality. Local governments often have minimum parking requirements that overwhelm the physical landscape with an excessive supply of unattractive parking, 1 but relatively few impose design requirements on parking lots and parking structures. Off-street parking requirements focus on the ratio of parking spaces to floor area, usually neglecting the consequences for urban design. As a result, most parking lots are asphalt breaks in the urban fabric, and most parking structures present blank walls to the street. Parking lots and garages tend to interrupt the streetscape, expand the distances between destinations, and undermine walkability (see Figures 1 and 2). We argue that planners should worry less about the quantity of parking provided and should pay more attention to its quality.Off-street parking requirements also reduce architectural quality. Architects often complain that they must shoehorn a building into the space remaining after the parking requirement has been satisfied, compromising the design. Thus reducing or removing parking requirements can make better design possible, and cities can use quality-based parking requirements within an urban design framework to reinforce the desired character of each neighborhood.The market gives developers a strong incentive to provide adequate parking because lenders are unwilling to finance projects with inadequate parking and tenants are unwilling to rent space in them. But the market provides less incentive to improve parking design because many of the benefits of better parking design accrue to the community rather than to the property owner. Developers are more likely to spend money on a marble-veneered lobby (which will increase the value of the building) than on landscaping the parking lot (which will increase the value of the whole neighborhood).In this article we show how planners can use the following five strategies to improve urban design.1. Deregulate or limit the number of parking spaces. 2. Improve the location of parking. 3. Improve the design of surface parking. 4. Improve the design of parking structures. 5. Improve the design of residential garages.Most local governments' off-street parking requirements promote quantity over quality, focusing on ensuring an ample supply of parking. This has undesirable consequences for the built environment. Parking lots and parking structures routinely overwhelm the architecture and urban design of even the best buildings and neighborhoods. We argue that planners should worry less about the quantity of parking, and pay more attention to its quality. Through examples of zoning reforms adopted by some cities, we show how regulating the quality of parking has the potential to improve urban design.