This paper examines the first 10 years (1979—89) of the implementation of the Urban Land Act in Iran in order to revisit the debate on the capacity of market-enabling policies to improve low-income housing provision in developing countries. The outcome of the Iranian experience during the study period shows that, at the very least, governments can play an important and effective role in low- and middle-income housing provision through direct provision of urban land in parallel with markets. This suggests that the best way forward may be a combination of market-enabling approaches that develop basic institutional functions plus proactive government intervention for developing public land banks to provide better access to cheap land for a range of housing providers including individual households, co-operatives and private developers.
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