Housing extensions as sustainable development

A recent study sponsored by the UK Overseas Development Administration of housing extensions in government-built housing has demonstrated that there is considerable advantage arising from extension activity (transformation) for the sustainability of cities in developing countries. This paper briefly describes the phenomenon as studied in a total of 1224 extended and 221 non-extended houses in Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana and Zimbabwe, in which occupants initiate increases in accommodation in neighbourhoods which are often approaching the end of their economic life. It shows how the activity of transformers is congruent with many of the precepts of sustainable development and recommends that they could be enabled through policy to provide housing goods more efficiently.