The under-estimation and misrepresentation of urban poverty

IT IS CLEAR that the scale of urban poverty is greatly under-estimated, its nature misunderstood or, for political reasons, misrepresented and the best means for reducing it rarely acted on. It is also clear that a consideration of “urban” poverty in isolation misses structural causes of both urban and rural poverty and misses the connections between the two. These are among the key messages that come from the papers presented in this issue. The papers go from the micro-case studies that provide great insight into the scale and nature of poverty, the people within the household who are most affected (usually women and children), the processes that underlie impoverishment in particular settlements and the responses of the inhabitants to papers that consider poverty or urban poverty at a national or global level. But the more general papers also draw heavily on micro-studies to warn against generalizing about urban poverty because its scale and nature differs so much from place to place and within any place, over time. The first paper by Ellen Wratten provides the overview of the subject. This is followed by six papers that consider urban poverty within particular settlements, regions or nations and then two that consider particular aspects the relationship between urban poverty and labour markets and the very different perspective that urban social policy brings to understanding and acting on urban poverty, compared to conventional economic policy. The final paper, by Robert Chambers, conThe under-estimation and misrepresentation of urban poverty