The present trend towards government and private sector cooperation in an effort to resolve the housing problem of the country is an offshoot of the importance now being accorded to issues of equity and walfare. For while a vigorous housing program will ultimately benefit the economy at large, this is hardly obvious except perhaps to the trained analyticel eyes of government planners and experienced entrepreneurs.
Certainly the goal of improving the country's economic peformance is a much less ostensive motive than that of ensuring a better standard of life for workingmen, who, if not for such a trend, would have little hope of evar living in, much less owning, adequate homes. But while the motivations and pressures for housing programs for low-income groups mey start from normative pronouncements--whether based on ethics or aesthetics--the transformation of the policy into reality calls for a deeper understanding of the economics of the problem and an analysisof the potentials of the government and the private sector to forge an effective partnership in responding to the challenge.