the decision-making process in improving living conditions Dasgupta, Indira creator Sheng, Yap Kioe Chairperson Amin, A.T.M. Nurul Examination Committee Robinson, Ira. M. Examination Committee The Government of Norway Scholarship Donor text th Bangkok Asian Institute of Technology 1991 monographic eng

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190 p. Both the government and the urban poor living in various substandard areas are in search of ways and means to better the living conditions in the dwelling environments of the urban poor . Strategies are based on resources within their control. The government aspires to order the city structures through a process of resource control, viz . land, finance, materials, know-how (technology, information). The settlements are thus categorised in terms of land conditions and the individual projects are decided on the basis of the costs required for improvement. The squatter is a unique decision-maker who makes his decision through trade-offs at the household level . The resources in their control are those of household income, motivation, satisfaction, innovativeness, adaptability. The present study applied an innovative participatory method, known as the "tradeoff game" to determine the needs of the people in a squatter settlement located in Delhi. The game required that the participants assign values according to strength of their perceived need in a constrained-choice situation, giving up something to gain something else. The priorities of the people within a settlement were found to be heterogeneous as has been noted even in earlier research '' .. within a particular city the low-income population does not form a homogeneous group, but has a wide variety of housing needs and priorities ... " (Hardoy and Satterwaite, 1986 cit Yap,1989:27) The aspirations and actions that they make are on decisions made on the basis of categorisation but rather on the basis of integration of all the influencing factors. Thus it is realised that any scheme that the government proposes to address at the settlement level will not be comprehensive . It is imperative, therefore to understand the needs and aspirations of the people to develop an effective human settlements planning mechanism. We observed that the participatory method applied was effective and useful as that generated sufficient quantitative and qualitative data for basic needs and simultaneously eliciting people's participation in decision-making. We also conclude that city planning needs to be integrated and alternatives have to be opened even at the settlement level that would involve (though massive by itself) an agenda for action and a mobilization of all the latent non-economic resources of participation including social awareness, organizational knowhow, innovativeness commitment and popular knowledge. A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Science, School of Engineering and Technology Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1991 Squatters India Delhi Asian Institute of Technology. http://203.159.5.9/ait-thesis/detail.php?q=B17589 http://203.159.5.9/ait-thesis/detail.php?q=B17589 210898 20260818224320.0