Books – Housing and planning in urbanizing countries

	Affordable Housing in the Urban Global South: Seeking Sustainable Solutions. By Jan Bredenoord, Paul van Lindert, and Peer Smets. (Editors and co-authors) London: Earthscan/Routledge.The book highlights sustainable solutions concerning physical, financial and social elements of the building process in which stakeholders from the public and private sector join hands with organized citizens. In the Global South, there is a population crisis as well as a housing crisis. But these should be viewed as part of the poverty crisis, which is still prevalent on a very large scale in many undeveloped countries. The fight against poverty is related to the economic development of a country, the employment opportunities for the households, and the development of good education and health care. Adequate housing is a next step and the population is the most important actor in the self-help housing processes.
	Special Issue: ‘Equal Access to Housing’; Habitat International, Volume 34, Issue 3, July 2010. Bredenoord, J., Van Lindert, P. and Smets, P. (Editors). The special issue contains two general articles, namely on 1) the revaluation of the potential of (assisted) self-help housing for the urban poor, and 2) housing finance for incremental construction and improvement of houses. The Special Issue presents a series of othe contributions on self-help housing and institutional housing in eight countries, specifically South Africa, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. All contributions focus on the occurrence of self-help housing and/or institutional housing.
	The Challenge of Social Innovation in Urban Revitalization, 2008. Paul Drewe, Juan-Luis Klein and Edward Hulsbergen (eds). Jan Bredenoord’s chapter (9) examines the ongoing participation of inhabitants and entrepreneurs, with their skills in self-help construction and self-organization. This issue is mainly investigated in the municipality of León, Nicaragua, namely the urban expansion project of León South-East, a urban district of 6,000 residential plots. The book seraches for bottom-up actions, where residents and local organizations took charge. Case studies are: the revitalized industrial areas of Montreal, those of Mondragon in the Basque country, the Eldonian projects in Liverpool, the search for urban scenarios in Jerusalem, as well as cases in Nicaragua, Peru, France, the Netherlands and EU-wide projects.
	Shifting Sense in Spatial Planning (2006). Edward Hulsbergen, Ina Klaasen, Iwan Kriens (Eds) About Challenges in Urban Planning. Delft University of Technology and Techne Press Amsterdam, 2006. Delft/Amsterdam. Chapter 9. Municipal Planning and the Strategies for Carrying it out. Author: Jan Bredenoord. Pages 317-330. In Shifting Sense in Spatial Planning, various contributors from different universities (Barcelona, Delft, Gent, Liverpool, Paris, San Antonio, and Utrecht). The initiators belong to the Chair of Spatial Planning in Delft University of Technology. Jan Bredenoord’s chapter (24) focuses on master planning and how it is practiced within some municipalities in the Netherlands. This is compared with similar municipalities in Latin America.
	Urban Development Strategies in León Nicaragua (2005) Estrategias de desarrollo urbano en León, Nicaragua (2005) Bi-lingual book. Author: Jan Bredenoord. Utrecht University and Dutch University Press, Amsterdam. The author describes in this book the important role of the municipality of León regarding housing and urban planning. One of the most important developments in Nicaragua is the self-sufficiency of municipalities in relation to ‘Managua’, which in this respect the national government as well as the heads of the two main political parties, the F.S.L.N. and the P.L.C. Municipalities in Nicaragua are rather young institutions which were developed severely since the 1990s. The housing and planning practice in León, Nicaragua is presented from 1990 to 2005.
	Sustainable Urban Design – The Next Step (2010) Editors committee: Martin Dubbeling, Femke Adriaans, Jan Bredenoord. Stichting Beurslage Projecten Amsterdam, Michael Meijer, et al. (Amsterdam). Uitgeverij Blauwdruk, Wageningen. Co-author and co-editor: Bredenoord, J. 2009-2010. Urban planning and design faces the enormous challenge of creating and maintaining livable towns and cities. ‘Sustainable Urban Design – the Next Step’ reviews the situation in the development of sustainable urban design. This book is a fully revised edition of ‘Sustainable Urban Design – Examples and Perspectives’ (2005). The book contains five examples of sustainable urban planning, and one of them is De Hutten, a former industrial site in Ulft, heart of the Municipality of Oude IJsselstreek in the east of The Netherlands.