The question of housing at the center of urban health inequities

If environmental factors are important determinants of health, then universal access to adequate housing is key to tackle urban health inequities. Yet, with over one billion urban dwellers having no other choice than living in so-called slums, the provision of sufficient housing units that are both adequate and affordable remains a global challenge. In fact, we argue that the inability to access adequate housing is at the root of inequitable urbanization processes, and constitutes a global health challenge for it is structurally linked to urban health inequities. Despite large public investments, numerous housing programs in the global South have failed to address local socio-spatial dynamics, often ignoring the flexible and incremental nature of the building typologies that shelter the majority of urban dwellers in these regions. Despite several radical housing experiences realized since the 1950’s that explored incremental housing typologies, public housing programs have mostly opted for schemes relying on subsidized credit to access housing as a finished product. Such schemes require constant revenue and savings capacity to ensure mortgage payment – two things that exclude, from the beginning, the urban poor. In order to tackle urban health inequities, housing and land-use policies must be socially inclusive. Based on recent experiences in different countries of the South, we argue that public housing schemes should offer more varied building typologies and tenure conditions. In addition, pro-poor land-use policies are key to ensure universal rights to the city and to health, by securing adequate locations to affordable housing and equalizing spatial development.