A balanced approach to urban land use ensures success. A “bottom-up” approach to urban land use could help avoid a potential overload of infrastructure and service networks due to overcrowding, pollution, increased poverty, and environmental degradation. Building on the success of the village area improvement initiative, in particular (but also community participation initiatives in earlier ADB-supported urban projects), support for community planning could complement and support higher level urban and regional plans. This would facilitate the involvement of underserved communities in determining their priorities. Such community planning may be acknowledged within the development planning and management system.
Vientiane Urban Infrastructure and Services Project