Housing in Bangkok is quite mixed. There are no large areas of all high income housing within the city, although there are several large slums. Apartments and townhouses are popular types of high income residences. Single family detached housing is more common only on the fringes of the city. Only a few very rich Thais will have a home near the center of the city. Suburbanization has not yet taken off, probably because of the many traffic problems that make commuting into the city difficult.
There is a pattern of how housing is organized throughout the city, although not of housing zones within the city. Generally, shop houses line a main road where middle income families live and often use their street front as a shop of some sort or to advertise a service. Lanes from this main road lead to individual homes, compounds and high-rise apartment buildings for the more affluent. Most of the tall buildings in the city are apartments or hotels.
Low-income housing
Low-income housing is usually on unused land near places of 
employment. Homes are often built out of whatever materials people could
find and are tightly squeezed together with other homes, leaving little
room for roads. Housing is often build out over water on pillars (see photo
to the right) because land is too expensive to build on. This type of housing
is most likely hidden from sight and mind and the people may or may not
pay rent.
There are several well known slums in Bangkok. Klong Toey is the largest, located in the southeast of the city. Klong Toey consists of poorly constructed one-story scrap metal or wood buildings. There are no drainage services, no separation of space and very little sanitation in this area. In the past, the government has tried to help families living in Klong Toey, and has even successfully pulled some families out of poverty. Unfortunately, too many rural families have migrated to the city looking for something better than they had before and the city and its housing is unable to keep up. With no adequate housing available for low income people, because of the high price of land, the lower classes have no choice but to live in a slum.
Public Housing
There are a few small government housing programs although they have not been all that successful. Land is too expensive in Bangkok to build buildings at a low cost. Also, in Thai culture, there is a tradition of self-reliance within families. People do not want or expect the government to take care of them and they see the option of public housing as a failure of the family to take care of their own.
Return to Previous Page