The need for adequate shelter and increased employment opportunities worldwide has been intensified by rapid growth in population, poverty and unemployment, especially in the urban areas of developing countries. Yet, investment in housing has declined significantly. It is therefore essential, as emphasized by the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000 and by Agenda 21 of the United Nations' conference on Environment and Development, for governments to adopt realistic and flexible housing policies, and to encourage the development of an efficient and sustainable construction industry.; Th.

This is an account of a conference sponsored by the Intermediate Technology Development Group and aimed at small and large planners of housing and settlements worldwide, which discusses appropriate technical responses to human settlement issues and to bring about beneficial policy environments.

"As England's Industrial Revolution started the process of urbanization that has since characterized development throughout the world, a poet worried about the ""dark satanic mills"" that were such a fundamental part of this revolution. However, despite his misgivings, he also suggested that it was necessary for societies to arm themselves with ""chariots of fire"" and other weapons so that they could master this process. In a somewhat more prosaic poetic vein World Bank President Robert McNamara launched the bank's shelter assistance programs saying that 'If cities do not begin to deal more constructively with poverty, poverty may begin to deal more destructively with cities.' These concerns would appear to have even more resonance today as the population of cities in developing countries increasing by unprecedented levels of more than 1 billion people per year for the next 15 years. This magnitude suggests the scale of the increase in the investment in shelter needed to meet the needs of this growing population."