YEMENI EXPERIENCE OF BUILDING RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS FOR LOW INCOME INDIVIDUALS IN THE METROPOLITAN OUTSKIRTS (MUKALLA AND ADEN: CASE STUDY)

The increase in population in the past few decades all over a large number of underdeveloped world lead to the augmentation of population crisis, especially among the low income population categories. This urged many governments of such countries including the governments of our Arabian area to adopt special residential policies for those categories to alleviate the strain of this problem. Ever since the beginning of twentieth century, Yemen (especially its southern part) had gone through many experiences in erecting residential units for the low income individuals throughout metropolitan outskirts around its principal cities making best use of the universal expertise in this field. Despite the serious attempt to control the aggravation of the population problem through such residential units, yet, due to its failure to be based upon authentic accurate studies on the one hand, and due to the lack of participation of the popular classes in the decision making process at any stage at all on the other hand, it transformed these residential units into forming an element of expulsion for the population for many long years for the unavailability of a great number of services around them and also due to the random construction that spread throughout its streets and buildings later on because they were neither culturally nor socially suitable for the inhabitants. The research aims at introducing some of these experiences, discussing them, analyzing them, and assessing them, along with trying to derive the main features by comparing them with selected styles of conventional construction. The study will concentrate upon such residential unites at the cities of Aden and Mukalla by the discussing the various advantages and disadvantages of those projects and the extent of the cultural and the social effects of such projects upon the inhabitants in order to set a future criteria for certain residential units that may satisfy the requirements for the population and delimit the random building phenomenon and the visual pollution.