Many of the squatter communities of Latin America offer uniquely satisfactory opportunities for low income settlers. They are characterized by “progressive development,” by which families build their housing and their community in stages as their resources permit, the more important elements first. The procedures followed by these self-selecting occupant-builder communities, free to act in accordance with their own needs, enable them to synchronize investment in buildings and community facilities with the rhythm of social and economic change. Official housing policies and projects, on the other hand, attempt to telescope the development process by requiring minimum modern standard structures and installations prior to settlement. Such “instant development” procedures aggravate the housing problem by disregarding the economic and social needs of the mass of urban settlers in modernizing countries.
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