摘要：Urbanization is a generally positive factor in overall poverty reduction but it needs careful urban planning and innovative housing design that makes better use of local resources and practices. Efforts to do so have largely failed in the fast growing cities of Africa. Rather than enhancing the value of existing local resources and practices by combining them with innovative new designs and technologies, governments tend to prefer foreign contractors that import most of their materials to construct energy-intensive and expensive high-rise buildings. This paper uses the case of the SUDU (Sustainable Urban Dwelling Unit) to illustrate how things could be done differently in the case of Addis Ababa.
