The focus of my research is affordable housing in cities. The objective of my research is to find the factors that contributed towards making housing less affordable for urban population. This proposed study recognizes that it is important to study the forces involved, which make the communities lose their low-income status. At the same time, strive to understand the factors which make communities more resilient, and they succeed as affordable housing communities. I propose to study city of Lahore, Pakistan for this purpose. The driving force behind my planned research is the belief that a family should have access to affordable housing as well as to the basic amenities such as clean streets, sewer system, and a reasonable commuting distance to work. The success of neighborhoods as low-income communities should not be a myth for millions of people in the developing as well as developed world.

This research project will collect data from housing communities built in metropolis, Lahore, Pakistan over the last forty years. This proposed study will identify the low-income housing in relatively new communities and study to what extent their status as low-income housing is maintained, or these communities have lost this status over the years.

The phase 1 of this study will use survey questionnaires to collect existing data about the housing schemes (housing communities). This study will involve limited door-to-door surveys in five newly developed housing communities of Lahore. The Phase 2 of this research will analyze the collected data. This phase will include the analysis of existing policies and the procedures of allocation and distribution of housing units within these housing schemes.