poverty in urban areas essay

Poverty in Urban Areas Report

Introduction, drawbacks to urban poverty alleviation, solutions for urban poverty, works cited.

In developing countries, the alarming levels of urban poverty call for prompt action. Continuous development of urban areas and growth of urban population in these countries has led to a myriad of problems that has made urban poverty a cyclic phenomenon.

Today, urban population is facing poverty-related problems like lack of sanitation and clean water, poor drainage, inadequate management of waste, etc (Stephen, 2008, p. 1). Living in this kind of an environment which is also characterized with high unemployment rates and overpopulation, the poor are forced to engage in activities that sink them deeper in poverty and guarantee the poverty of their children.

This problem is magnified by the fact that government agencies have been unable to develop a sustainable solution through planning. This paper is a report addressing the problem of urban poverty and suggesting possible solutions to the problem for presentation to an aid agency (“Analyzing urban poverty”, 2006, pp. 1 – 12).

The main reason for escalation of the problem of poverty is urban areas is because the intricate problems of urban poverty are considered too small to attract big policies. However, their cumulative effect on urban life is tremendous. First of all, poverty in urban areas implies poor quality of urban neighbourhoods.

This is due to the fact that most of these areas have council housing that fails to meet minimal decency standards (Stephen, 2008, p. 1). Other urban areas are characterized with a high number of squatter settlements that have equally poor living conditions.

These settlements are also characterized with dense population, land scarcity and topological limitations that make it difficult for them to gain access to urban services like electricity, water and sometimes transport infrastructure. They, therefore act as a catalyst for aggressive and disruptive behaviour. Residents of these areas, therefore, engage in graffiti, rubbish dumping, vandalism and minor crime.

These are made hard to detect by the environment these people live in. On the contrary, well-kept environments are self regulatory with reference to unacceptable societal behaviour. Thus, these environments draw people to leisure spaces that create common purpose and security. As stated earlier, poverty in urban areas prompt for actions by the poor that make the poverty cyclical. For instance, in most urban areas, the poor are forced to use alternative energy like charcoal that lead to environmental degradation.

This leads to weather and climate problems that affect economies and thus plunges the poor into more poverty. They are also forced to indulge their children in child labour and therefore, the children miss education. This makes their children lead the poor lives their parents led (Perlman, Hopkins & Jonsson, 1998, pp. 1 – 13).

Good development programs

The efforts of government agencies in combating urban poverty have not achieved remarkable success in poverty stricken urban areas due to poor planning. Aid agencies should, therefore, intervene and conceive holistic improvement programs that take the key issues related to urban poverty into consideration.

These issues include housing, education, environmental degradation, crime, unemployment etc. Aid agencies and philanthropists need to gather dweller information such as religious icons, small meeting places, posted bills etc. This information may seem insignificant at a glance but it enables planners to avoid future problems that may derail poverty alleviation efforts (Ravallion, 2007, p. 1).

Combating environmental degradation

Urban poverty and environmental degradations are highly inter-related and they are regarded to stem from poor development plans. The interrelation is evidenced by the fact that environmental degradation leads to more poverty and the fact that the poor are regarded as the chief agents of environmental degradation.

Poverty alleviation plans should therefore incorporate environmental conservation plans in order to prevent negative effects of environmental degradation from affecting poverty alleviation efforts (Douglass, 1998, p. 1).

Dealing with Overpopulation

Overpopulation is one of the major contributors of urban poverty. Low-class urban settlements are characterized with congestion that has adverse effects on the economic welfare of the inhabitants of these areas. Poverty alleviation plans must therefore address the issue of overpopulations.

Strategies and plans should be devised to ease out congestion in these areas and reduce the negative effects of overpopulation such as pollution, crime, unemployment, environmental degradation etc. Therefore, aid agencies should develop proper plans for urban settlement management in their efforts to reduce urban poverty (Srinivas, 2010, p. 1).

Community involvement

To successfully implement the suggested solutions, there is need to involve the community in the development efforts. The community holds the potential to contribute to development plans and therefore, aid agencies should attract community initiative with innovative planning and management.

The community should also be consulted before implementation of development plans to make sure that the plans are in agreement with acceptable community standards. The communities are also characterized with valuable innovations that are instrumental to development plans and therefore their involvement will be very valuable (Douglass, 1998, p. 1).

Proper resource allocation

There is also the need to devolve significant budgetary allocation to bigger areas in order to impact the cities substantially. Thus, such strategies which increase the impact of urban poverty alleviation should be appropriately set out. There is also the need to harness resources that are prerequisite to development (Masika, 2010, p. 11). Examples of these resources include creativity and innovation, and energy.

Circular cities are also known to be better than linear cities in terms of utilization and recapturing of resources (“Urban poverty”, 2008, p. 1). Therefore, aid agencies should advocate for construction of circular cities if their poverty alleviation plans involve reconstruction.

Poverty has been a major challenge in the urban areas of developing countries, especially those that have problems of overpopulation. The effects of urban poverty have extensively affected urban life in these countries by acting as a catalyst for vices in the societies.

Government agencies in these countries have failed miserably in their efforts to combat this problem. It is, therefore, essential for aid agencies to implement the suggested strategic and precautionary measures before investing in the alleviation of the poverty in these areas.

This will ensure that their efforts are productive. However, the implementation of these strategies and plans may also be faced with problems. One of the problems facing implementation of strategies is the fact that the residents in these areas normally have benchmarks for infrastructure and other facilities from the neighbouring and well-off areas.

This problem is conspicuous in government development projects in which the residents of these areas expect equal treatment and thus expect construction of wide roads, construction of extravagant buildings etc (“Analyzing urban poverty”, 2006, p. 1). The aid agencies, therefore, need to address this problem adequately.

The inhabitants of these areas may also fear relocation by the planning agencies. With reference to the aforementioned challenges, aid agencies and philanthropists should devise proper plans to ensure that their alleviation efforts are appreciated and backed by the poor population (Perlman, Hopkins & Jonsson, 1998, pp. 13 – 17).

Analyzing Urban Poverty. (2006). A Sustainable Approach to Problems in Urban Squatter Developments . Web.

Douglass, M. (1998). Britain’s Cities of Yesterday and Tomorrow . Web.

Masika, R. (2010). Urbanization and Urban Poverty: A Gender Analysis . Web.

Perlman. J, Hopkins, E & Jonsson, A. (1998). Urban Solutions at the Poverty/Environment Intersection. Web.

Ravallion, M. (2007). Urban Poverty . Web.

Srinivas, H. (2010). Urban Development and Urban Poverty . Web.

Stephen, D. (2008). Breaking the Cycle of Urban Poverty . Web.

Practical Action. (2008). Urban poverty . Web.

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Has extreme poverty been urbanized?

Shohei nakamura, mark roberts, benjamin stewart.

As we highlighted last week in a companion blog , countries vary considerably in how they define urban areas, which makes comparison of urbanization patterns across countries difficult.

However, that’s not the only problem— the lack of standard urban definitions also throws up challenges for poverty measurement and analysis, such as the disaggregation of poverty statistics between urban and rural areas in a comparable manner.   This becomes a critical hindrance, both to policy research (for example, to examine how urbanization facilitates poverty reduction) and design (for example, to determine how to allocate resources spatially).

To overcome this challenge, a recent policy research working paper integrates two recently developed approaches to the consistent delineation of urban areas—the Degree of Urbanization (DOU) and the Dartboard (DB) method  —into the World Bank’s framework for international poverty comparisons. In this blog, we highlight some key findings from this working paper, based on a sample of 16 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

We find that the cost of living is higher in high-density urban areas.

It is not evident whether monetary poverty is always lower in more densely populated urban areas than in rural areas, even though the cost of urban living tends to be higher. Using household budget surveys, we measured the subnational-level cost of living for 16 SSA countries.

Using the DOU and DB approaches to define urban areas, we noticed a distinct gradient with the cost of living being higher in more densely populated urban areas than in less densely populated urban areas, which, in turn, have a higher cost-of-living than rural areas  (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Cost of living index across 16 SSA countries, circa 2015.

Source: Nakamura et al. (2023).                                                                                                                                                                        Note: The boxplots show the range of 16 spatial deflator values for each geographic category. The spatial deflators indicate cost of living (normalized to 1 at the national level in each country) and are used to deflate household consumption expenditures for poverty measurement. Urban areas are defined by the official definitions (A), the Degree of Urbanization (B), and the Dartboard method (C).

Poverty incidence is lower in higher-density urban areas..

However, even after purchasing power is discounted for the higher cost of living, urban poverty incidence is found to be lower than rural poverty incidence in the 16 Sub-Saharan African countries  (Figure 2). Poverty incidence is particularly low in higher-density urban areas (that is, urban centers in the case of the DOU and urban cores in the case of the DB approach).

However, it is important to not automatically conclude from this that cities support people to escape poverty, as it is also possible that poverty rates in urban areas are lower because of selective migration of relatively wealthy people from rural areas.

Figure 2. Poverty incidence across 16 SSA countries, circa 2015.

Source: Nakamura et al. (2023).                                                                                                                                                                          Note: Poverty is measured with the extreme poverty line ($2.15 in 2017 PPP terms). Urban areas are defined by the Degree of Urbanization (A) and the Dartboard method (B).

More poor people live in urban areas than previously thought..

Despite the low poverty incidence, urban areas account for a larger share of the poor population than previously thought.  When the official urban definitions are used, 80 percent of poor populations live in rural areas in most countries. When we apply the DOU classification, most countries' urban share of poor populations––represented by the green bars in the figures ––increases while the median urban share of the poor in the 16 SSA countries increases from 13 to 21 percent. Urban shares reach nearly 40 percent in Angola and Gabon and in a few other countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. Urban shares of the poor population are even higher when the DB approach is used to define urban areas––high-density urban cores accommodate a large share of poor populations in many countries.

Figure 3. The geographic composition of the poor population across 16 SSA countries, circa 2015.

Source: Nakamura et al. (2023).                                                                                                                                                                        Note: Poverty is measured with the extreme poverty line ($2.15 in 2017 PPP terms). Urban areas are defined by the official definitions (A), the Degree of Urbanization (B), and the Dartboard method (C).

How many of the world’s poor live in urban areas.

As the above results demonstrate, moving from the use of official definitions of urban areas, which vary widely across countries, to definitions that are consistent across countries and, therefore, allow for apples-to-apples comparisons, can have profound implications for our understanding of the distribution of poverty across urban and rural areas.

The next step is to expand our analysis to additional countries and gradually move toward a full global analysis of the distribution of poverty across urban and rural areas. This will allow us to answer the fundamental, but currently unanswered, question: how many of the world’s poor live in urban areas?

Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice

Lead Urban Economist, World Bank

Geographer, Geospatial Operational Support Team, World Bank

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Tackling the legacy of persistent urban inequality and concentrated poverty

Subscribe to the economic studies bulletin, stuart m. butler and stuart m. butler senior fellow - economic studies @stuartmbutler jonathan grabinsky jonathan grabinsky consultant - world bank.

November 16, 2020

The death of George Floyd and other Black Americans and the uneven impact of COVID-19 have highlighted deep-rooted concerns about racial and urban inequality and segregation in America and the consequences of inequality for families living in persistent poverty.

Over the past several years, the research literature pointing to the relationship between racial segregation, enduring concentrated poverty, and long-term socioeconomic inequalities in the United States has been rapidly growing. Work by such scholars as Patrick Sharkey , Robert Sampson , and others, and novel experimental evidence produced by Raj Chetty has greatly increased our understanding of the detrimental – and multigenerational – consequences of being born and raised in an under-resourced neighborhood.

Long-Term Damage

Over the past forty years, the country has experienced sharp increases in urban poverty. The number of metropolitan neighborhoods in which 30 percent or more of residents live in poverty doubled between 1980 and 2010 . Moreover, almost two-thirds of the high-poverty neighborhoods in 1980 were still very poor almost forty years later.

Being born and raised in grinding, persistent poverty damages children’s long-term outcomes . Moreover, when families live for long periods in such conditions it is not only deleterious to the family, but the impact on the family differs significantly by race. As Sharkey notes, Black Americans are far more likely than whites to be “ stuck in place .” He found that two-thirds of Black Americans brought up in the poorest neighborhoods remain in the poorest quarter of neighborhoods after a generation; meanwhile only 40 percent of whites brought up in the poorest neighborhoods remain there. The long-term effects of being born and raised in a high-poverty neighborhood are thus far more persistent and damaging for Blacks than for whites.

The proportion of Blacks encountering that pattern is also greater than for other groups. Today, one in four Black Americans are stuck in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared with one in six Hispanics and just one in thirteen white Americans, according to a report by Paul A. Jargowsky for the New Century Foundation. Adding to the generational barriers facing young Black Americans, a 2018 study by Chetty finds that, after controlling for parental income, Black boys have lower incomes in adulthood than white boys in 99 percent of census tracts.

Example: Washington, D.C. and COVID-19

Washington, D.C. is a case study of how race and poverty closely overlap and how damaging racial segregation and poverty persists even in the nation’s capital. In a previous blog , we showed how the District of Columbia remained mostly segregated along east-west lines between 1990 and 2010. Moreover this “two cities” segregation was reflected in significant inequalities in urban poverty: some 94 percent of D.C. neighborhoods with a majority white population had less than 10 percent of their families living below the poverty line, while that was true of just 22 percent of majority Black neighborhoods.

This segregation in D.C. and other cities is linked not only to economic outcomes. It also shows up in susceptibility to many illnesses, such as COVID-19. The COVID-19 vulnerability index , released by the nonprofit Social Progress Imperative, harmonized a broad range of datasets to create a Census-tract-level, weighted-index of vulnerability of contracting COVID. The index is built out of sixteen indicators that map onto the following three themes: population demographics, underlying population health issues, and health infrastructure [1] .

Mapping the vulnerability index to D.C. underscores the east-west divide (Figure 2) and closely mirrors the sharp racial Black-white split in the city (Figure 1). The mapped vulnerability index indicates that Black Americans are at greater risk of infection, underscoring the pernicious effects of urban segregation and poverty. This is particularly worrying, given the rapid spread of the virus across the nation’s capital. Moreover, Black Americans are also more likely to face severe housing cost burdens and housing insecurity related to COVID-19.

Figure 1. White-Black racial divisions in Washington, D.C.

Figure 2. COVID-19 vulnerability index in Washington, DC

Taking Steps to Reduce Persistent Neighborhood Poverty

In addition to addressing structural racism and segregation in America, there needs to be a two-pronged strategy to tackle the problem of people stuck in persistently poor neighborhoods.

Strengthening communities . The first prong is to take steps to address the factors that make it likely that poverty and segregation will persist in neighborhoods by strengthening the economic and social fabric of the community. This means community-led strategies to spur economic improvement . Crucial for that objective are such actions as improving public schools and transportation, reducing crime, providing better health care, increasing access to healthy food options, and encouraging local entrepreneurship .

To be sure, that strategy poses a dilemma. Making a neighborhood more attractive as a place to live, work, and do business will lead to the benefits of more diversity and opportunity; but it also could lead to higher housing costs and the potential displacement of some existing lower-income residents. That pattern – a feature of “gentrification” – is seen in many Washington, D.C. neighborhoods as well as many other U.S. cities. Thus, tackling the roots of persistent poverty must be combined with actions to help make sure existing residents and local business owners can remain and share in an improving neighborhood . This requires government actions such as rental assistance for families, inclusionary zoning, and encouragements for developers to construct affordable multi-family housing. In addition, local governments need to promote employment training, apprenticeship programs, incentives for local hiring, and other steps to make it more likely that long-time residents can acquire new jobs in an improving community. And governments need to help build a foundation of homeowners among modest-income renters, such as through versions of Washington D.C.’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) program. This program enables groups renters to purchase their building as a co-op, but it prevents the new owners from selling their shares at market rates, thereby helping to retain a continued supply of affordable units for purchase.

Moving out . While strengthening the assets and opportunities within a persistently poor neighborhood is the preferred approach, in some neighborhoods that is extremely difficult. Thus a second important prong is to also to make it easier for families to move to areas with more resources and employment opportunities. In a 2015 study, Chetty examined a dataset of over five million families who moved across counties in the United States. He found that every additional year of childhood spent in a better environment significantly improves a child’s long-term outcomes. Strikingly, the study found that at least 50 percent of the variation in intergenerational economic mobility across the nation can be linked to the causal effects of neighborhood exposure during childhood. (Intergenerational mobility is a measure of the change in economic circumstances from one generation to the next.)

For some time, the research community was uncertain about the impact on earnings and educational success from encouraging families to move to better neighborhoods. To explore this, Chetty examined the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program – a 1990s social experiment that examined the consequences of enabling low-income families with children in high-poverty neighborhoods to move to other communities. Chetty found that the positive effects on low-income households are strongest for pre-adolescent children, especially younger children (i.e. the group most harmed by living in persistent poverty). Moreover, the most noticeable impacts show up when these children reach college and working age , including increased college attendance and earnings, and reduced rates of single-parenthood.

Chetty concluded that policy should make it easier for low-income families to move from persistently poor neighborhoods to areas of greater opportunity through such policies as expanding housing vouchers and other rental assistance programs. To expand the supply of reasonably affordable housing available to such families in other neighborhoods, rental assistance needs to be combined with steps to increase the supply of affordable housing in more upscale communities through inclusionary zoning and other land-use reforms. And to make affordable housing more available to lower-income families moving to neighborhoods with more resources, this is the time to strengthen fair housing requirements. It is not the time to undermine them, as the Trump administration sought to do with its July 2020 rule change, which gives communities greater latitude to weaken the requirements .

An emphasis on access to opportunities. In parallel with these two approaches is the need to increase access to opportunities by better integrating cities. Promoting regional initiatives aimed at increasing the connectivity and mobility of urban residents, and connecting communities to regional assets and opportunities, making it easier for people in different communities to interact. This typically requires the expansion of an affordable transportation infrastructure. It also means attention to the heavy burden that urban sprawl and traffic congestion imposes on the poor, by encouraging greater urban density and building affordable housing closer to the city centers – creating greater proximity to jobs and services.

Mounting research underscores the damaging long-term effects for families of living in a segregated, under-resourced neighborhood. The research also indicates the benefits of enabling such families to move to areas of greater opportunity, especially for younger children; it also shows the importance of increasing diversity and resources within persistently poor communities. Growing evidence points to a series of public policy tools which can help obtain these results. What is needed now is a much greater determination to use them.

The authors did not receive financial support from any firm or person for this article or from any firm or person with a financial or political interest in this article. They are currently not an officer, director, or board member of any organization with an interest in this article. The views presented here are those of the authors and do not represent the views of The World Bank or The Members of the Executive Board of Directors. 

Shapefiles and geographic boundaries for graphs obtained from: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry/ Geospatial Research, Analysis, and Services Program. 

[1] The full set of factors that were included in the analysis are included here: http://us-covid19-risk.socialprogress.org/

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Understanding trends and drivers of urban poverty in American cities

• Published: 14 January 2022
• Volume 63 , pages 1663–1705, ( 2022 )

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• Francesco Andreoli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0751-5520 1 , 2 ,
• Arnaud Mertens   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2148-1427 2 ,
• Mauro Mussini   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0770-8450 3 &
• Vincenzo Prete   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3990-0105 1  

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Urban poverty arises from the uneven distribution of poor populations across neighborhoods of a city. We study the trend and drivers of urban poverty across American cities over the last 40 years. To do so, we resort to a family of urban poverty indices that account for features of incidence, distribution, and segregation of poverty across census tracts. Compared to the universally-adopted concentrated poverty index, these measures have a solid normative background. We use tract-level data to assess the extent to which demographics, housing, education, employment, and income distribution affect levels and changes in urban poverty. A decomposition study allows to single out the effect of changes in the distribution of these variables across cities from changes in their correlation with urban poverty. We find that demographics and income distribution have a substantial role in explaining urban poverty patterns, whereas the same effects remarkably differ when using the concentrated poverty indices.

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Income segregation refers to the extent at which different income groups (poor, middle class, rich, for instance) are under- or over-represented in some neighborhoods compared to the city as whole. Measures of income segregation are conceptually different from concentrated poverty measures.

There are various criteria to establish whether two spatial units are close or not; among them, a main distinction can be made between the contiguity-based criteria (e.g., two spatial units are close if they share a common border) and the distance-based ones (e.g., two spatial units are close if the distance between their centroids is less than or equal to a chosen distance).

The relative weight of the difference in poverty incidence for the pair of tracts i and j in t , \(N_{i}^{{\mathcal {A}}_{t}}N_{j}^{{\mathcal {A}}_{t}}/\left( N^{{\mathcal {A}}_{t}}\right) ^{2}\) , may differ from that in \(t+1\) , \(N_{i}^{{\mathcal {A}}_{t+1}}N_{j}^{{\mathcal {A}}_{t+1}}/\left( N^{{\mathcal {A}}_{t+1}}\right) ^{2}\) , for effect of changes in the relative distribution of population across census tracts.

The interpretation of D is consistent with the approach suggested by O’Neill and Van Kerm ( 2008 ) to examine income convergence across countries. O’Neill and Van Kerm ( 2008 ) broke down the change in the Gini index, obtaining a two-term decomposition where a component assesses to what extent the incomes of poorer countries, initially at the bottom of the distribution, have grown proportionally more than those of richer countries at the top of the initial distribution. Such a component is therefore considered as a measure of \(\beta \) -convergence in income across countries O’Neill and Van Kerm ( 2008 ).

The overall poverty incidence, P / N , changes also when all tract poverty incidences vary in the same proportion, while both D and R are equal to 0 in that case.

c being the relative variation in overall poverty incidence, C is equal to \(1/\left( 1+c\right) \) and ranges between 0 and \(+\infty \) .

Both Census 1990 and 2000 and ACS determine a family poverty threshold by multiplying the base-year poverty thresholds (1982) by the average of the monthly inflation factors for the 12 months preceding the data collection. The poverty thresholds in 1982, by size of family and number of related children under 18 years can be found on the Census Bureau web-site: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-thresholds.html . For a four persons household with two underage children, the 1982 threshold is $9,783. Using the inflation factor of 2.35795 gives a poverty threshold for this family in 2013 of $23,067. If the disposable household income is below this threshold, then all four members of the household are recorded as poor in the census tract of residence, and included in the 2014 wave of ACS.

\(\beta \) here indicates the type of convergence and should not be confused with parameter \(\beta \) in Eq.  1 .

For a detailed description of the variables used to construct our indicators, see Chetty et al. ( 2017 ) and Tables 6 and 10 at https://opportunityinsights.org/data/ .

The unevenness dimension is captured by the dissimilarity index, measuring the proportion of poor individuals that should move to restore proportionality across the MSA tracts (about 30% on average across all MSAs), see Andreoli and Zoli ( 2014 ).

See Christafore and Leguizamon ( 2019 ) for alternative definitions of gentrification.

A spatial weights matrix representing the spatial relationships between census tracts in a MSA is needed to obtain the spatial decomposition. We specify a binary spatial weights matrix, the ij -th element of which equals 1 if tracts i and j are neighboring and 0 otherwise. A distance-based criterion is used to establish whether two tracts are neighboring Andreoli et al. ( 2021 ). More specifically, two tracts are considered close if the distance between their centroids is less than or equal to a cut-off distance, which is set equal to the minimum distance for which every tract in a MSA has at least one neighbor.

We do not report the fixed effects, which explains why the reported overall difference due to coefficients is not entirely explained by the variables shown in Table  9 .

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers and to conference participants at RES 2018 meeting (Sussex), LAGV 2018 (Aix en Provence) and ECINEQ 2019 (Paris) for commenting on an earlier draft of the paper. The usual disclaimer applies. Replication code for this article is accessible from the authors’ web-pages. This work was supported by the Luxembourg Fonds National de la Recherche (IMCHILD grant INTER/NORFACE/16/11333934/IMCHILD and PREFER-ME CORE grant C17/SC/11715898) and by the University of Verona (Ricerca di Base grants MOBILIFE-2017-RBVR17KFHX and PREOPP-2019-RBVR19FSFA).

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Andreoli, F., Mertens, A., Mussini, M. et al. Understanding trends and drivers of urban poverty in American cities. Empir Econ 63 , 1663–1705 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-021-02174-5

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Urban Poverty

Introduction, definition of urban poverty.

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• The Structural Approach
• The Social Exclusion Approach
• Urban Poverty and the Neighborhood: The Neighborhood Effect
• The Effects of Poverty Concentration on Life Chances
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Urban Poverty by Ana Belén Cano-Hila LAST REVIEWED: 15 October 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 15 October 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922481-0037

Eradicating poverty in all its forms remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. For this reason, it was the primary sustainable development goal set for the United Nations Development Programme. While the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped by more than half between 1990 and 2015, too many are still struggling to meet the most basic human needs, and in particular 10 percent of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty; one person in every ten is extremely poor. As of 2015, about 736 million people still lived on less than US $1.90 a day; many lack food, clean drinking water, and proper sanitation. Rapid growth in countries such as China and India have lifted millions out of poverty, but progress has been uneven. Women are more likely to be poor than men as they have less paid work and education and own less property. Consequently, child poverty also is significant high; half of all people living in poverty are under eighteen. In fact, child poverty is one of the most important concerns and priorities for national and international organizations. Progress has also been limited in other regions, such as South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which account for 80 percent of those living in extreme poverty. New threats brought on by climate change, conflict, and food insecurity mean that even more work is needed to lift people out of poverty. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a bold commitment to finish what we have started and end poverty in all its forms and dimensions by 2030. This involves targeting the most vulnerable, increasing basic resources and services, and supporting communities affected by conflict and climate-related disasters. In fact, urban poverty in megalopolises in the Global South is a relevant issue in international research on poverty. However, this entry is focused on urban poverty, understood as a set of economic and social difficulties that are found in advanced industrial cities. Sociology has always shown an interest in poverty, for example in the early Chicago school’s studies on urbanization, industrialization, immigration, and neighborhoods. While classic figures of sociology such as Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, Georg Simmel, and Auguste Comte did not write a great deal about poverty, a strong concern with it exists in the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In recent decades, there has been growing interest in unifying the sociologies of poverty and paying more attention to poverty in the developing world, where the overwhelming majority of poor people live. Hence, this bibliography attempts to address the twofold goals of reviewing the main literature in the field as it exists today and seeking to identify frontier directions for emerging research.

Urban poverty refers to the set of economic and social difficulties that are found in industrialized cities and that are the result of a combination of processes such as: the establishment of comfortable living standards, the increase of individualism, processes of social fragmentation, and the dualization of the labor market, which translates into social dualization. Urban poverty is seen as a type of poverty with the primary characteristic that it occurs in industrialized societies, according to Rowntree 1901 , but also in the Global South, in accordance with Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2012 . Social researchers and scientists have traditionally addressed the definition of poverty using two concepts: absolute poverty and relative poverty. The concept of absolute poverty is based on the notion of subsistence, i.e., the basic conditions that need to be met for a person to live a healthy life from the physical point of view. The concept of relative poverty is based on the idea that the criteria of human subsistence are the same for everyone, in any context and under any circumstances. Therefore, it is understood that people below this established universal threshold are in a situation of poverty, regardless of their country’s level of human, technological, and economic development or its culture. Townsend 1979 understands that poverty is less about shortage of income and more about the inability of people on low incomes to participate actively in society. His thesis was criticized on the grounds that his measures of participation related to matters of choice rather than to need in which consumerism abounds and identity is often defined in terms of specific form of consumption. Among these critics, it is important to highlight Sen 1993 and Sen 2002 . Sen defines poverty as a deprivation of basic capabilities, particularly well-being/welfare and freedom. For him, poverty is a redistributive justice problem, which includes absolute and relative conditions of poverty. From the capabilities approach, Sen focuses the poverty analyses on purposes—understood as a necessary freedom for people to be who they want to be—not just only focused on income or the satisfaction of basic needs. More recent works on urban poverty like Mingione 1996 , Saraceno 2002 , Murie 2004 , and Cano 2019 suggest that in order to understand this situation today it is important to widen the focus of analysis, not merely paying attention to chronic poverty areas, but analyzing the living conditions of groups in disadvantaged contexts and placing special emphasis on the dynamics of impoverishment (unemployment, eviction, dependency on social aid, lack of social networks, stigma effect, and so on). Therefore, poverty not only means having insufficient resources for physical survival, but is also the set of circumstances that prevent full integration into a community, bearing in mind its living standards, as Marshall 1950 observes. New analyses of urban poverty need to understand it as a long-term, heterogeneous, and multidimensional phenomenon, and to focus attention on the processes that generate urban poverty.

Cano, Ana Belén. “Urban Poverty.” In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies . Edited by A. M. Orum, 1–7. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.

DOI: 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0388

The author analyzes the conceptual and methodological framework of the concept of urban poverty, understanding it as a set of economic and social difficulties that are found in industrialized cities and that are the result of a combination of processes such as: the establishment of comfortable living standards, the rise of individualism, processes of social fragmentation, and the dualization of the labor market, which translates into social dualization.

Marshall, T. H. Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1950.

The author develops the concept of social citizenship, understood as the set of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights and duties of a member of a community. He argues that the notion of citizenship cannot be independent of the social and economic dimensions, since they decisively affect the capacities for political deliberation and social cohesion.

Mingione, Enzo. Urban Poverty and the Underclass . Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

DOI: 10.1002/9780470712900

This book brings together the main debates on poverty and the responses, analyzing the transformations in the various welfare systems and sociopolitical systems. It points out how the weakening of welfare programs reinforces the role of the community and the family as providers of welfare and social stability, which limits the mechanisms of social mobility.

Mitlin, Diana, and David Satterthwaite. Urban Poverty in the Global South: Scale and Nature . London: Routledge, 2012.

DOI: 10.4324/9780203104316

This book presents a much-needed systematic overview about the state of urban poverty in the Global South, from a historical and contemporary perspective.

Murie, Alan. “The Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Neighborhood Decline: Welfare Regimes, Decommodification, Housing, and Urban Inequality.” In Cities of Europe: Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge to Urban Cohesion . Edited by Yuri Kazepov, 151–169. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.

DOI: 10.1002/9780470694046.ch7

This book develops a comparison between European cities, focusing on the interrelationship between social exclusion, segregation, and governance.

Rowntree, B. Seebohm. Poverty: A Study of Town Life London: Macmillan, 1901.

This work is one of the main classics and reference works in the study of urban poverty. One of his main contributions was to understand poverty as a consequence of certain social processes, and not as a cause of them. Coherently with this, he contributed proposals toward new policies and social aid programs.

Saraceno, Chiara. Social Assistance Dynamics in Europe: International and Local Poverty Regimes . Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2002.

This book analyzes different models of social assistance in various European countries. It focuses its analysis on the interaction between personal biographies and political contexts.

Sen, Amartya K. “Capacidad y bienestar.” In Calidad de Vida Edited by Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, 54–83. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993.

This book is made up of a set of multidisciplinary essays on different visions of the concept of quality of life. It provides an interesting rethinking of the concept, with the intention of designing new methods of analysis, developing alternative approaches and establishing some useful proposals regarding this topic of growing interest in the academic community.

Sen, Amartya K. Rationality and Freedom Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.

Amartya Sen brings clarity and insight to three difficult issues: rationality, freedom, and justice. This capability approach is utilized to illuminate the demands of rationality in individual choice (decisions under uncertainty) as well as social choice (cost benefit analysis and environmental assessment).

Townsend, Peter. Poverty in the United Kingdom. A Survey of Household Resources and Standards of Living . London: Penguin, 1979.

This author studied how relative deprivation includes both material and social aspects. One of his main contributions is to relate income levels, poverty and participation.

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13 Urban Poverty, Economic Segregation, and Urban Policy

Paul A. Jargowsky is a professor of public policy and administration at Rutgers-Camden, an affiliated scholar at the Urban Institute, and a senior research affiliate of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan. His principal research focus is the spatial dimension of inequality, including the geographic concentration of poverty and residential segregation by race and class. His widely cited book, Poverty and Place: Ghettos, Barrios and the American City, is a comprehensive examination of poverty at the neighborhood level in U.S. metropolitan areas between 1970 and 1990. He received his Ph.D. in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1991.

• Published: 18 September 2012
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Most of the causes of poverty are relevant to any geographic locale: macroeconomic gyrations, low levels of human capital, discrimination, and factors that limit productivity, such as drug and alcohol addictions. However, urban poverty has additional causes and consequences related to the economic segregation of metropolitan regions. This article begins by examining the fundamental demographic shifts that created the current configuration of urban poverty. It then summarizes the main trends in urban poverty, economic segregation, and the concentration of poverty, as well as the ways in which economic segregation helps to perpetuate urban poverty. It argues that public policies have played and continue to play a role in fostering economic segregation. Finally, it suggests policies and practices that have the potential to address urban poverty by reducing economic segregation.

The slum is as old as civilization. Civilization implies a race to get ahead. In a race there are usually some who for one cause or another cannot keep up, or are thrust out from among their fellows. They fall behind, and when they have been left far in the rear they lose hope and ambition, and give up. Thenceforward, if left to their own resources, they are the victims, not the masters, of their environment; and it is a bad master. They drag one another farther down. The bad environment becomes the heredity of the next generation…. The battle with the slum began the day civilization recognized in it her enemy. It was a losing fight until conscience joined forces with fear and self interest against it. When common sense and the golden rule obtain among men as a rule of practice, it will be over. Jacob Riis, The Battle with the Slum (1902, 1)

Jacob Riis, best known for his photographic essays on the teeming slums of the early twentieth century, encapsulates in this short quote several aspects of decades of arguments about urban poverty. He identifies the fear of the urban poor and what would later be called the “tangle of social pathology,” in the words of William Julius Wilson ( 1987 ), which one finds in many poor, inner-city neighborhoods. That fear has bred white flight, gated cities, suburban sprawl, and central-city fiscal crises. Because new immigrants settle disproportionately in poorer areas of central cities, the fear of the urban slum also feeds anti-immigrant sentiment. Today, antipathy toward immigrants is directed mainly at Mexicans, particularly the undocumented; in 1902, it was directed at immigrants from central and southern Europe (Perlmann 2005 ). Riis also anticipates the two main pillars of supporting arguments for policies to combat urban poverty. On the one hand, conscience and the Golden Rule dictate that we should not countenance people living in such conditions; his visceral photographs appealed directly to the moral instinct. On the other, self-interest and common sense suggest that urban poverty and the problems that it causes cannot be contained and quarantined in a designated slum.

Most of the causes of poverty per se are germane to any geographic locale: macroeconomic gyrations, low levels of human capital, discrimination, and factors that limit productivity, such as drug and alcohol addictions. However, urban poverty has additional causes and consequences related to the economic segregation of metropolitan regions. For example, the concentration of minority poverty in ghettos and barrios engenders neighborhood effects that exacerbate the depth of poverty and undermine antipoverty policies and programs. The centralization of the poor in metropolitan regions limits spatial access to the fasting-growing segment of metropolitan labor markets. Centralized spatial concentrations of poverty are related to metropolitan growth and development practices, particularly the use of exclusionary zoning in the outer suburbs, which by design segregates the poor from the mainstream. Thus, urban form itself can be a contributing factor to urban poverty even as the existence of concentrations of urban poverty and people's reactions to it may drive changes in urban form.

This chapter begins by examining the fundamental demographic shifts that created the current configuration of urban poverty. Then the main trends in urban poverty, economic segregation, and the concentration of poverty are summarized, as well as the ways in which economic segregation helps to perpetuate urban poverty. I argue that public policies have played and continue to play a role in fostering economic segregation. Finally, I suggest policies and practices that have the potential to address urban poverty by reducing economic segregation.

What Is Urban about Urban Poverty?

Urban poverty today must be seen in the context of history and the fundamental forces shaping cities and metropolitan areas. As the United States transformed from an agrarian and artisan economy to an industrial one, cities became organized around the needs of factory production (Katz 1996 ). Low-income workers had to live within walking distance of the factories, which were centrally located in cities to take advantage of rail and port facilities and an ample supply of local labor. Migrants from rural areas and several waves of immigrants reinforced the pattern. The poor areas of most large cities were characterized by high density, dilapidated housing, and poor sanitary conditions (Katz 1996 ; Riis 1902 ). Despite the difficulties, the urban slums of earlier eras served the economic function of connecting the poor to employment opportunities in a time when a majority of the population was poor by the standards of today (Hicks 1994 ). Public aid and charities sustained the poor in their homes during economic downturns, which were more common and severe than in the modern era, so that labor was readily available when economic growth resumed (Katz 1996 ). Slums were destinations for poor people because, despite the harsh conditions, they often provided more economic opportunity and social support than places like Appalachia, the rural South, and poor nations around the globe.

Two fundamental changes served to reinvent urban slums in a new and more disturbing configuration. The first, “one of the most significant demographic events to occur in the US during the twentieth century” (Tolnay 2003 ), is the internal migration of blacks from the rural areas and small towns in the South to urban centers everywhere, but particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. The second is the transition of cities from centralized industrial economies to sprawling, postindustrial, decentralized metropolises.

The Great Migration

Like many poor whites and immigrant groups before them, blacks migrated to cities with abundant jobs in manufacturing and trades. Wages, working conditions, and quality of life were wretched in urban slums but better than in the places the migrants had left behind. Indeed, conditions for blacks in the South had been so bad for so long that the wonder is why the migration did not happen sooner (Tolnay 2003 ). The answer resides in a change in the receptivity of urban destinations to black migrants. The Great Migration began in earnest when World War I led the United States to clamp down on immigration. Northern industries for the first time were willing to hire blacks to address the resulting shortage of labor (Collins 1997 ). The impetus to move was also aided by decreasing demand for black labor in the South caused by increasing mechanization of agriculture, the boll weevil crisis, and low cotton prices (Grossman 1989 ; Massey 2008 ; Tolnay 2003 ).

When the door finally opened, the flow of black migrants was rapid and massive. As is also the case with immigrants, pioneers paved the way and began a chain of migration by communicating information about destinations and opportunities. As a result, the number of blacks departing the South increased tenfold, from about 80,000 in the 1880s to 877,000 in the 1920s (Farley and Allen 1987 ). Unfortunately, the rapid influx of blacks to urban centers was met with great alarm by white residents. Tolerant racial attitudes in the North gave way to racism and resentment as the size of the black population grew. Then, as now, existing workers felt that the new arrivals were stealing their jobs and driving down wages. Blacks were also frequently used as strikebreakers and were imported by factory owners to undermine nascent unions (Massey 2008 ). Some cities and towns refused to allow blacks at all; in these “sundown towns,” blacks were only welcome to work during daylight hours but were warned by signs at the city limits that read, “Nigger, don’t let the sun go down on you in this town” (Loewen 2005 , 3). In larger cities and industrial centers, it was not possible to exclude blacks, so instead a variety of methods were employed to limit them to specific neighborhoods. These included beating or lynching blacks who were caught venturing into white areas, ransacking and bombing the homes of blacks who lived outside black neighborhoods, and racial riots in which whites attacked blacks with impunity. In the face of the escalating violence and growing intolerance, established and middle-class blacks who had previously lived comfortably in white or mixed areas were forced to relocate to all-black areas (Massey 2008 ; Massey and Denton 1993 ).

While the focus of this chapter is economic segregation, racial residential segregation contributes to segregation by class if the segregated minority group is poorer than the majority group (Massey and Eggers 1990 ). The Great Migration, and the white reaction to it, vastly increased the level of residential segregation of blacks from whites. Black-white segregation in northern cities as measured by the Index of Dissimilarity was moderate in 1860, comparable to levels experienced by immigrants. By 1940, however, the segregation of whites from nonwhites was virtually complete. In the largest northern cities, about 90 percent of blacks would have had to move to achieve an integrated residential pattern (Massey and Denton 1993 ).

The incredible racial segregation of large cities in the United States, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, was not comparable to the experience of any other group in U.S. history. Immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Poland, China, Mexico, and many other nations often are concentrated in neighborhoods that become associated with their ethnic groups. However, these neighborhoods differ from twentieth-century black ghettos in several important ways. First, these areas are almost never composed exclusively of members of one group. Second, many members of immigrant ethnic groups do not live in the concentrated area. For this reason, the levels of segregation of immigrants, even at their peak, never approached the levels experienced by blacks, or even the levels blacks experience today (Massey 2008 ; Philpott 1978 ).

The segregation of blacks, and the resulting segregation of black poverty, fundamentally reshaped American cities in ways that would reverberate for decades. It is important to remember that, in the words of Doug Massey ( 2008 ), “The black ghetto did not happen by accident or as a coincidental by-product of other race-neutral processes occurring within U.S. housing markets. Rather, white Americans made a series of deliberate historical decisions to deny blacks full access to urban housing and to enforce their spatial isolation in society” (39).

Suburbanization

The second major structural change that effectively redefined the nature of poverty in urban areas was suburbanization (Jargowsky 2002 ). To examine this trend, we first need to define suburbs. The settlement patterns of the United States vary so widely across space and over time that it is very difficult to devise a simple classification system. Nevertheless, for statistical purposes, the Census Bureau classifies all areas as either metropolitan or nonmetropolitan. The exact definition of metropolitan areas has changed over time, not to mention changes in the areas that meet any given definition. The basic idea of a metropolitan area is one or more densely populated central cities with populations of at least 50,000, the counties that include those cities, and adjacent suburban counties that are economically integrated with the central city, although other configurations are sometimes employed to reflect local circumstances. All other areas are nonmetropolitan areas and consist of smaller cities, towns, and rural areas. 1 Thus, an easy three-way classification is composed of central cities, also known as principal cities; suburbs, consisting of the parts of metropolitan areas not in the central cities; and nonmetropolitan areas, including smaller cities, towns, and rural areas. The last category is sometimes generally called “rural.” However, this is a misnomer; cities up to 49,999 can be nonmetropolitan, and metropolitan areas, being built up from whole counties, may contain some rural areas (Weinberg 2005 ).

Following World War II, the proliferation of the automobile reduced workers’ reliance on spatial proximity to factories and public transit. Simultaneously, the GI Bill and economic prosperity made it realistic for middle-class persons to aspire to own detached single-family homes in the suburbs. Third, the race riots and civil disorder of the 1960s led many whites to avoid the concentration of social problems at the urban core. A related point is that school desegregation made it harder to avoid contact with minority groups and economically disadvantaged persons merely by living in a middle-class or higher-income neighborhood; families believed they had to relocate outside the central-city school district altogether to avoid the threats, real or perceived, that school integration posed to their children. Fourth, a myriad of public policies provided additional incentives and subsidies that encouraged suburbanization, including the construction of interstate highways, subsidies for mortgages, and suburban infrastructure development (Salins 1993 ).

The result was massive suburbanization. Between 1950 and 1990, the land area of metropolitan areas increased by 181 percent, but population of those areas increased by only 128 percent, reducing population density by nearly 25 percent (Squires 2002 ). Central cities lag in job growth generally, and high-tech job growth in particular (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 2000 , 5, 40; Hughes 1993 ). As a result of this process, central cities have declined relative to suburbs in both population and economic status. As shown in figure 13.1 , less than half of the U.S. population lived in metropolitan areas in 1940, and only about one-third of those (one-sixth of the total) lived in suburbs. The share of the population living in metropolitan areas has steadily increased, reaching 80 percent in 2000. Remarkably, despite the rising metropolitan share, the percent of the total population living in central cities has changed little since 1940; it actually declined from 32.5 percent in 1940 to 30.3 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the suburban share of the U.S. population has risen every decade. In 1970, for the first time there were more residents in suburbs than in central cities, and by 2000 fully half the population resided in suburban areas (Hobbs and Stoops 2002 ).

In many of the largest metropolitan areas, the decentralization process has proceeded so rapidly that the population of the central city declined, particularly between 1970 and 1990. Figure 13.2 shows population change in the Baltimore metropolitan area at the neighborhood (census tract) level during that period. The pattern is striking: virtually every neighborhood in the central city, and many neighborhoods in the innermost ring of suburbs, experienced population declines of 20 percent or more. At the same time, the vast majority of neighborhoods in the rest of the metropolitan area experienced population increases of 20 percent or more. Few neighborhoods were in between. The striking doughnut pattern is typical of virtually all large metropolitan areas between 1970 and 1990 in every region of the country.

With the strong economy of the 1990s, many major cities experienced redevelopment, gentrification, and—for the first time in decades—population growth (Glaeser and Shapiro 2003 ). Nevertheless, of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, 30 had central-city population declines, as shown in table 13.1 . In another 51 of the top 100 metropolitan areas, central-city population growth lagged behind suburban population growth. Some of the decline in population could reflect a move to lower density as incomes rose and households of a given size sought to purchase more housing per person. On the other hand, in a city that was still experiencing strong housing demand, increasing demand for square footage would be offset to some extent by infill and vertical development. Thus, it is fair to conclude from table 13.1 that suburbanization in the 1990s often came at the expense of central cities.

Percent in Central Cities and Suburbs

Source : Hobbs and Stoops 2002.

Population Change in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area, 1970–1990s

Changes in metropolitan organization did not necessarily have to lead to economic segregation. If suburban housing had been built with a fair share of affordable housing and if suburban housing had been equally available to minority groups, suburbanization could have led to less segregation by race and class. However, suburbs at the far edge of metropolitan areas are developed for and typically cater to higher-income families. As this group moves from the inner-ring suburbs, middle-class families take their places, moving from central-city residential neighborhoods. This process of selective out-migration systematically reduces the income level of the residents left behind in the neighborhoods near the center of the metropolitan area. The middle class effectively left the poor behind, influenced by both the “push” of inner-city poverty and crime and the “pull” of new housing, larger bathrooms, and better schools.

As is the case with racial segregation, the class-selective nature of suburban development was not simply a natural result of the operation of housing markets. Metropolitan development occurs within a loose, if not chaotic, regulatory context. Many independent local governments control and approve the construction of new suburban developments. Under the rules of the game as they exist, these local governments face strong incentives to compete to be the most desirable and richest suburb. The stakes are high, and local officials would do a disservice to their current constituents if they did not understand and respond to the reality of the situation. The result is that newer suburbs grow rapidly and use exclusionary zoning and other devices to make the entry of low- or moderate-income families practically impossible (Levine 2006 ).

An objection that is frequently raised to any discussion of restraining or altering the current patterns of suburban development is that the government should not interfere in the housing market. But the government is already deeply involved in every aspect of the housing market. There are regulations on how high you can build, how close to the edges of your property, what kind of wiring you can use, how far apart the studs in the walls have to be, whether you have sewer or septic, and a thousand other items big and small. Further, the government regulates and supports the housing credit markets, issues titles, regulates title insurance, certifies inspectors, and in some states shelters people's homes from bankruptcy settlements. These regulations have many purposes, but mainly they serve to protect the health and safety of the larger community from the known consequences of unregulated development. The question is not whether the government should be involved in the housing market, since it clearly should be and already is, but whether government involvement needs to be tweaked in ways that stop promoting economic segregation.

Source : 1990 and 2000 censuses, calculations by the author.

Notes : Based on 2000 MSAs and PMSA boundaries in both years.

Metropolitan areas can have more than one central city. Sorted by 2000 metropolitan area population.

Local governments, through exclusionary zoning, tell a large percentage of the population, “you can’t live here.” A low-income family that wants to live in the suburbs to be close to job opportunities and enroll their children in high-quality schools, even if they are willing to sacrifice space and pay more taxes, will find that they simply cannot find a 1,200-square-foot house in new suburbs. There is demand for affordable residences in suburban areas, near jobs and good schools, but builders are often blocked by suburban city councils from building them (Downs 2004 ). As a result, class-selective suburbanization is the dominant development paradigm. A family with more moderate means eventually can move to inner-ring suburbs only when these areas lose favor due to the aging of their housing stock and infrastructure.

Urban Poverty's New Form

The Great Migration of African Americans and the suburbanization of the middle class both transformed urban poverty. Historically, the poor came from rural areas or from over the oceans to the central cities of urban areas to access jobs and opportunities, because that was where the factories were (Hicks 1994 ). Conditions were often horrid for new arrivals, but the cities were part of an opportunity machine that usually resulted in economic progress over time and over generations. With the Great Migration, inner-city poverty became racialized. Given the prevailing animus against blacks, when the economy changed and job growth moved to the suburbs, the urban poor were effectively cut off from job opportunities (Wilson 1987 , 1996 ). Rather than destinations that offer hope of economic progress, inner cities became the modern-day version of the poor house, keeping the poor contained and out of sight.

As argued in the following, the modern concentration of poverty in high-poverty neighborhoods functions to exacerbate the problems of poverty and reduce the probability that poor people or their children might be able to access opportunities. “Poor neighborhoods are poverty machines,” argues David Rusk ( 1999 , 123), the former mayor of Albuquerque, succinctly capturing the popular view that disadvantaged neighborhoods diminish the life chances of their residents. The view is widely held and deeply believed. People who “escape the projects” are viewed as minor miracles, and their success is viewed as somehow more virtuous, or at least less probable, than that of someone raised at the local country club.

Trends in Urban Poverty

Measuring poverty.

While poverty has always been present in U.S. cities, for a number of reasons it is difficult to compare the extent of poverty in recent decades to past eras. In the first place, at some level poverty is a relative concept. In terms of modern notions of what constitutes the necessities of life, it is likely that the majority of Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would have been considered poor. Another problem is that the modern measure of poverty was not developed until the 1960s in the service of the War on Poverty. Pressed to develop a measure of poverty to assess progress in that war, Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration proposed a measure of poverty based on comparing family income to a poverty standard (Orshansky 1963 , 1965 ). The poverty standard was based on two considerations. The first was the cost of a minimally adequate diet, estimates of which had been developed by the Department of Agriculture for families with different numbers of adults and children. The second was the fact that the average family spends one-third of its income on food, based on the 1955 Household Food Expenditure Survey (Fisher 1992 ). In something of a logical leap, Orshansky argued that a rough poverty standard could therefore be formed by multiplying the cost of the minimal diet for each family type times three. By this measure, a family and all its members are considered poor if the total income from all family members falls below the poverty threshold for families of that size.

Orshansky readily admitted that this poverty measure was crude and replete with problems, but it was intended to spark discussion and the development of more sophisticated measures (Fisher 1992 ). Remarkably, however, this measure is still in use today with only a few minor changes and annual adjustments for inflation (Blank 2008 ). The poverty measure has many flaws (Citro and Michael 1995 ; Ruggles 1990 ), a review of which is beyond the scope of this chapter. One important problem is that the poverty measure has no spatial component. In considering urban poverty, it does not take account of the depth of poverty in a family's neighborhood or community. Despite these flaws, the official poverty line has the virtue of being easy to calculate and has been measured in a relatively consistent fashion for more than four decades, facilitating an analysis of trends over time.

By the official poverty measure, the overall trends in poverty in the United States can be summarized as follows. 2 First, poverty fell consistently and substantially from the end of World War II until about 1973; the official poverty rate fell from 22.4 percent in 1959, the first year for which there is an official rate, to 11.1 percent in 1973.

Second, since 1973, there has been no real progress against poverty, although the rate has fluctuated between 11 and 15 percent in tandem with the business cycle. By 2000, twenty-seven years after the 1973 minimum, the rate was little changed at 11.3 percent. In 2008, the latest figure available as of this writing, the poverty rate had risen to 13.2 percent, although it was surely higher in 2009 and 2010. At the same time, gross domestic product per capita increased 88 percent between 1973 and 2008. If the mean of the income distribution shifted up, but the same proportion of the population is below the fixed poverty threshold, it is clear that the gains of economic growth have not been widely shared. Indeed, income inequality has generally increased since the 1970s, and income gains have been concentrated at the high end of the income distribution (Karoly 1993 ; Piketty and Saez 2003 ).

Third, poverty varies substantially by race and ethnicity. The poverty rates of blacks are about three times higher than those of non-Hispanic whites. The poverty rate of Hispanics is also high relative to that of whites, though lower than the rate for blacks. Like the overall poverty rates, the poverty rates of minorities have fallen substantially over time. Black poverty fell from 55.1 percent in 1959 to 30.1 percent in 1973. Unlike the overall poverty rate, the rate for blacks fell further in the post-1973 period, achieving a low of 22.5 percent in 2000 and rising since then. Hispanic poverty rates were not computed before 1972 but have fluctuated between 20 and 31 percent since then.

Fourth, single-parent families have very high rates of poverty and are less sensitive to cyclical changes in the economy (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2009 ). Their poverty rate was over 50 percent in 1959 and has never dipped below 30 percent. The lower wages of women and the burden of trying to fulfill both caregiver and breadwinner roles contributes to the high poverty of this group (Ellwood 1986 ).

The trends discussed so far are not specifically urban; however, as argued later, there are distinctive characteristics of urban areas that contribute to poverty.

Poverty by Area Type: Cities, Suburbs, and Nonmetropolitan Areas

Nonmetropolitan areas were much poorer than central cities in 1959 and remained so until 1973. Between 1959 and 2003, poverty in nonmetropolitan areas had declined substantially from 33.2 to 14.2 percent, and poverty in the suburbs also declined from 12.2 to 9.1 percent. Central cities experienced a much smaller decline, from 18.3 to 17.5 percent (Weinberg 2005 ). As a result, the ratio of poverty in the central city to poverty in the suburbs increased from 1.5 to 1.9, while the ratio of poverty in nonmetropolitan areas to poverty in the suburbs declined from 2.7 to 1.6. Thus, while poverty was declining overall, the poverty that remains is increasingly concentrated in the inner city. Stoll ( 2008 ) notes that poverty rates for whites, blacks, and Latinos declined in all areas between 1960 and 2000 but declined slowest in central cities for all three groups; Asians actually saw poverty increase in central cities over that period, despite declines in rural and suburban areas. “The persistence of poverty in the central city,” he concludes, “reinforces the notion that place might matter in influencing such poverty” (207).

Economic Segregation

The tendency toward centralization of poverty is part of a more general phenomenon of economic segregation at the neighborhood level. Residential segregation by income or social class in part reflects preferences. Park ( 1926 ) argued that successful individuals seek to turn social distances into physical distances, by residing in high-status neighborhoods to separate themselves from lower-status persons whom they find undesirable. There is to some degree a preference for economic segregation, just as there is some preference for segregation by race. Since the 1968 Fair Housing Act, however, explicit actions to enforce segregation by race are illegal. In contrast, discrimination by income is not only not illegal, it is legally enforced through zoning regulations that effectively limit where low-income people can live. Signs on massive new suburban developments advertise the minimum price, for example, “From the $500,000s!” To those who cannot afford the down payment and/or the monthly payment associated with a house in that price range, the sign says to drive on. To those who can, it says that your neighbors will be as affluent as you are.

Economic segregation is therefore built into the segregated pattern of housing construction, since a highly segregated pattern of housing size and quality will result in a segregated pattern of family income as families sort into homes they can afford. Over the long run, economic theory suggests that the pattern of the housing stock would merely reflect the preferences of potential homeowners, so that the resulting pattern is optimal. In reality, the housing stock is very durable, so that decisions made today constrain consumers for decades. Moreover, development decisions are made by city planners and developers who may not be equally attuned to the preferences of all potential housing consumers. And none of the parties to these local transactions takes into account the externalities associated with high levels of economic segregation at the metropolitan level.

Racial residential segregation has been declining since peaking in 1970 (Farley and Frey 1994 ; Iceland 2004 ). Not so segregation by income. While the levels of economic segregation are modest relative to racial segregation between blacks and whites, between 1970 and 1990 there was a pronounced trend toward increasing economic segregation. By one measure, the Neighborhood Sorting Index, economic segregation increased 21 percent for whites, 40 percent for blacks, and 27 percent for Hispanics over that period (Jargowsky 1996 , table 2). The trend was remarkably consistent across regions of the country, and more than 80 percent of metropolitan areas had increases in economic segregation (Jargowsky 1996 , 990). However, levels of economic segregation fell between 1990 and 2000, a period of very strong economic growth (Yang and Jargowsky 2006 ). Given the economic retrenchment since the 2000 census, there is reason to suspect a return to the earlier trend, but the data needed to test that hypothesis are not yet available.

Concentrated Poverty

Neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are the most extreme manifestation of economic segregation. William Julius Wilson ( 1987 ) called attention to the problem of concentrated poverty in Chicago in the 1980s. He argued that “concentration effects” emerge when the poverty level in a neighborhood exceeds a threshold level. Wilson argued that these effects independently contribute to the perpetuation of poverty and help to produce neighborhoods with high levels of crime and violence and low levels of high school completion, marriage, and labor force attachment. In the high-poverty neighborhoods Wilson studied in Chicago,

children will seldom interact on a sustained basis with people who are employed or with families that have a steady breadwinner. The net effect is that joblessness, as a way of life, takes on a different social meaning; the relationship between schooling and post-school employment takes on a different meaning. The development of cognitive, linguistic, and other educational and job-related skills necessary for the world of work in the mainstream economy is thereby adversely affected. In such neighborhoods, therefore, teachers become frustrated and do not teach and children do not learn. A vicious cycle is perpetuated through the family, through the community, and through the schools (p. 57).

For measurement purposes, census tracts 3 are proxies for neighborhoods, and a census tract is considered a high-poverty neighborhood if 40 percent or more of the neighborhood's residents are classified as poor using the federal poverty standard (Danziger and Gottschalk 1987 ; Jargowsky 1997 ). Census tract data from the 2000 census show that this threshold is a valid indication of the kind of neighborhood distress described by Wilson. The proportion of families with children that have a single-parent family structure is correlated with the neighborhood poverty level, as one would expect. In neighborhoods with poverty of less than 10 percent, more than three in four families with children are married-couple families. Even in neighborhoods with 30 to 39 percent poverty, married couples are still the dominant family type. In neighborhoods above the 40 percent threshold, however, single-parent families are the norm.

A similar finding applies to male employment and labor force participation. The norm in most neighborhoods is that adult males work in the mainstream labor market. Nevertheless, in neighborhoods with poverty levels below 40 percent, more than half of adult males are employed. In neighborhoods with poverty rates of 40 percent or more, the norm for males is not to be employed. The majority of males in high-poverty neighborhoods are either unemployed or not in the labor force, that is, they are not even looking for work. Thus, a child growing up in a high-poverty neighborhood lives in a world where single-parent families and lack of employment are the norms.

Nationally, the number of persons residing in high-poverty neighborhoods in metropolitan areas very nearly doubled between 1970 and 1990, rising from 1.9 million to 3.7 million, based on a constant set of 239 metropolitan areas that could be tracked over time (Jargowsky 1997 ). The concentration of poverty , defined as the percentage of all poor persons living in poor neighborhoods, increased from 12.4 percent in 1970 to 17.9 percent in 1990. Poverty concentration was much higher for minority groups. For example, one-third of the black poor and 22 percent of the Hispanic poor lived in high-poverty neighborhoods by 1990, compared with 6.3 percent of the white poor. Some metropolitan areas experienced huge increases in the concentration of poverty among both blacks and Hispanics. For example, in Detroit, a relatively low 11.3 percent of blacks lived in high-poverty areas in 1970; by 1990, the figure had nearly quintupled, rising to 53.9 percent. Thus, by 1990 more than half the black poor in Detroit had to contend with both low family income and a severely disadvantaged neighborhood context. Other metropolitan areas also experienced huge increases in the concentration of poverty among blacks, including New York (+27), Chicago (+21.4), and Pittsburgh (+21.7). There were also a number of metropolitan areas with huge increases in the Hispanic concentration of poverty, including New York (+18.8), Philadelphia (+48.4), and Detroit (+33.8). The vast majority of metropolitan areas had increases in either black or Hispanic concentration of poverty or both.

Between 1990 and 2000, however, the trend reversed (Jargowsky 2003 ; Kingsley and Pettit 2003 ). Nationally, including all metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, there was a 27 percent decline in the number of poor persons residing in high-poverty neighborhoods. The total population of these areas (poor and nonpoor combined) fell from 10.4 to 7.9 million. In 2000, nearly 75 percent of the residents of high-poverty zones lived in central cities, and the rest were split about equally between suburbs and nonmetropolitan areas. Despite these declines, the concentration of poverty was still more severe in 2000 than in 1980 or 1970, despite decades of economic growth.

The figures for the year 2000 were based on the 2000 census, conducted on April 15, 2000, near the peak of the economic boom. However, the U.S. economy declined since that date by most measures even before the current downturn. After the individual poverty rate reached a low of 11.3 percent in 2000, it rose to 13.2 percent in 2008, as noted previously. The 2008 poverty rate is just shy of the 1990 figure of 13.5 percent, a time when concentrated poverty was at its highest recorded levels. These figures are likely the tip of the iceberg, since the sharp rise in unemployment linked to the credit crisis was only just beginning in 2008.

Given the basic economic trends since the 2000 census, there are ample reasons to believe that the sharp reductions in concentration of poverty observed in that census may have been temporary. Many have suspected that the reconcentration of poverty began shortly after the 2000 census, and the issue takes on a heightened urgency in view of the recent sharp and deep recession. On the other hand, at least some of the decline in concentrated poverty was likely due to a number of policy changes that also occurred in the 1990s: the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, welfare reform, and the (albeit limited) decentralization of public housing and housing assistance. So there is at least some question as to whether an economic downturn would result in a reconcentration of poverty, at least to the levels of 1990. Preliminary evidence, based on tax records and school lunch program enrollment, suggests that poverty has been reconcentrating since the 2000 census (Jargowsky 2009 ; Kneebone and Berube 2008 ).

Consequences of Economic Segregation

Economic segregation has costs to society if the spatial organization of poverty and affluence has causal effects on social and economic outcomes. Low-income neighborhoods naturally have lower levels of education, employment, and earnings and higher rates of poverty, single-parent families, and other social problems. However, these characteristics may be compositional rather than causal; in other words, people with those characteristics may migrate into high-poverty areas to obtain cheap housing, or people who lack those characteristics may move out (Tienda 1991 ). From a policy perspective, the important question is whether these concentrations of poverty have dynamic effects on poverty. Does the experience of living in a high-poverty neighborhood have independent effects on social and economic outcomes for the children and adults? Over time, do the residents of high-poverty areas do worse on these measures than equally poor persons who happen to live in more affluent neighborhoods? If so, economic segregation exacerbates the problems of poverty and undermining efforts to help access economic opportunities. The literature on neighborhood effects is far too vast to cover comprehensively. In the sections that follow, I highlight a few of the more important outcomes to establish the importance of economic segregation in causing and sustaining urban poverty.

Employment and Earnings

As we have seen, the dominant paradigm of development in the U.S. metropolitan areas has been growth in the suburbs, especially outer suburbs, and decline at the center. The poor are disproportionately concentrated at the center, due to the housing price gradient and exclusionary zoning, reinforced by continued racial segregation and discrimination in housing markets. While many jobs remain in the central city, especially high-skill jobs, the largest number and fastest growth of jobs appropriate for workers with lower skill levels are found in the suburbs (Turner 2008 ). As a result, the poor, particularly the minority poor, suffer from a spatial mismatch that separates them from opportunities for employment and advancement (Kain 1968 ).

Given racial and economic constraints on the housing mobility of low-income people, spatial mismatch may contribute to unemployment and low wages in the following ways. First, the difficulty and expense of a “reverse commute” lowers the effective wage rate and increases the probability that the commute will be unsustainable. Second, information about jobs may be less likely to reach into inner-city neighborhoods that have few social, political, or economic ties to the suburbs. Third, employers in suburbs may exercise more racial discrimination in hiring, either because of their own biases or out of concern for customer reactions, because they operate in the predominantly white environment of the suburbs. Fourth, residents of inner-city neighborhoods may fear that they will be treated unfairly and viewed with suspicion in the suburban labor market, reducing the incentives to seek out suburban jobs and endure long commutes (Ihlanfeldt and Sjoquist 2000 , 116–117).

Educational Outcomes

Economic segregation has implications for educational outcomes because schools are creatures of neighborhoods (Levy 1995 ). Often, the relationship is legally encoded in school attendance zone boundaries. Even for schools that draw on larger and less precise areas, such as magnet and charter schools, commuting time and transportation costs often restrict attendance to those who live nearby. Schools usually closely reflect the racial and economic composition of the surrounding community. When they do differ, public schools will tend to have a greater proportion of minority and low-income children, due to life-cycle differences and differential selection into private schools and home schooling. Thus, schools are often even more segregated by race and income than is the surrounding community (Rivkin 1994 ).

As a result, when poor families reside in different neighborhoods than middle- and upper-income families, their children will likely attend different schools than more affluent children. Over time, the schools themselves become different. Schools in poorer neighborhoods have greater needs than schools with more advantaged children. Teachers and school administrators may develop lower academic expectations when they deal predominantly with poor children, many of whom do not have resources or support in the home (Farkas 1996 ). There is also a feedback effect, because school performance plays a role in parental decisions about where to live, and the effect is greatest for the parents who have the most resources to spend on housing and who place the greatest value on education. The neighborhood drags down the school, and the school drags down the neighborhood ad infinitum .

Anyone who has been a teacher understands that learning is in part a group process. Students bring their own skills and abilities, but they learn from and with their fellow students. Children, especially adolescents, want to fit in, and so they may adopt the prevailing attitude toward the value of academic achievement. In some inner-city schools, working hard and getting good grades is derided as “acting white.” Even students who resist caving in to peer pressure may still be impeded in learning if enough classmates are disruptive and slow the pace of instruction. These so-called peer effects on students have been documented in a number of carefully controlled studies (Hanushek et al. 2003 ; Summers and Wolfe 1977 ; Zimmer and Toma 2000 ).

Over and above peer effects, neighborhood conditions may have spillover effects on academic achievement (Crane 1991 ; Crowder and South 2003 ; Datcher 1982 ; Jargowsky and El Komi 2011 ). Neighborhoods develop cultures that in turn influence their members. Students may lack positive role models if few members of a community graduate from college or have steady employment in high-skilled occupations that require education. Students are more likely to drop out if they live in neighborhoods with few affluent neighbors (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993 ). Parents are not immune to neighborhood influences either. It may be harder for parents to keep pressure on their children to achieve academically if other parents in the neighborhood do not expect the same effort from their children's friends and classmates.

Developmental and Health Outcomes

A variety of studies have found that neighborhoods matter for child and adolescent development across a variety of developmental outcomes (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000 ). In other words, neighborhoods have effects on individual outcomes even after controlling for relevant individual and family characteristics. For example, for a child at thirty-six months of age, IQ is related to the presence of affluent families in the child's neighborhood after controlling for family income, mother's education, family structure, and race (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993 , table 2). Girls with fewer affluent neighborhoods were more likely to have out-of-wedlock birth, again controlling for family characteristics (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993 ; Crane 1991 ). Children with a high proportion of poor neighbors have more behavioral problems, low self-esteem, and symptoms of depression (Chase-Lansdale and Gordon 1996 ; Chase-Lansdale et al. 1997 ).

Neighborhood factors take a toll on the health of the residents of segregated communities. The concentration of poverty in segregated neighborhoods often makes for an unhealthy environment with few parks and recreational resources, greater pollution, more alcohol outlets, more advertising for alcohol and tobacco, and less availability of healthy foods (Hackbarth et al. 2001 ; Barbeau et al. 2005 ; Wolch, Wilson, and Fehrenbach 2005 ; Gordon-Larsen et al. 2006 ; Lopez and Hynes 2006 ). Residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods suffer higher rates of communicable diseases like tuberculosis (Acevedo-Garcia 2000 ), premature birth (Osypuk and Acevedo-Garcia 2008 ), self-report of poor health (Subramanian, Acevedo-Garcia, and Osypuk 2005 ), and obesity (Chang 2006 ). Residence in segregated census tracts increases the probability that adolescents will engage in health-risk behaviors (Frank, Cerda, and Rendan 2007 ).

Policies to Address Urban Poverty

The preceding sections outlined some of the consequences of large-scale economic segregation that is common in U.S. metropolitan areas. While the operation of the housing market has built-in pressures toward sorting by income, the fact is that public policies over several decades helped to create and currently help to sustain economic segregation. The resulting pattern of segregation has significant consequences for the perpetuation of poverty though effects on the employment and earnings of the current generation and the education and development of the next generation.

Policies to address poverty come in several varieties. First, there are developmental policies, aimed at helping youth to develop useful skills and abilities and to navigate the dangerous waters of adolescence. Primary examples of these are pre-school programs like Head Start, public education generally, drop-out prevention programs, vocational education, and support for higher education. Second, there are ameliorative policies aimed in a targeted way at helping low income adults to cope, provide for their families, and find ways to improve their situation through education, training, and employment support. These include Food Stamps, EITC, SCHIP, and many others. Third, there are policies that focus on the general operation of the labor market, to improve the combined public/private provision of benefits through employment, including health care, unemployment benefits, and protection against discrimination.

A fourth area, one that is often overlooked, consists of policies to address the spatial dimension of opportunity. As argued above, most metropolitan areas are highly segregated by social class. Except for a brief period during the exceptionally strong economy of the 1990s, economic segregation, including the concentration of poverty, has been increasing since at least 1970. Economic segregation exacerbates the problems of individual-level poverty and undermines the effectiveness of the developmental, ameliorative, and labor market policies mentioned above. Even the best educational reforms may fail when poor children attend schools only with other poor children in neighborhoods that lack role models. Reductions in the drop-out rate may not lead to gains in employment for those who live in neighborhoods far from new employment opportunities and when they are disconnected from job information networks. Thus, reductions in economic segregation may help to reduce poverty directly and also indirectly by improving the effectiveness of traditional antipoverty policies.

Given these considerations, it is important to address the spatial dimensions of opportunity in parallel with the first three types of policies. First, we must recognize that public policy historically has been one of the driving forces of economic segregation. The federal government has encouraged class-selective suburban sprawl in many ways: highway construction made commutes from the outer edge of metropolitan regions to the central city possible; income tax rules provide disproportionate tax subsidies to higher-income homeowners; home mortgage programs favored the middle class buying single-family homes in the suburbs; and water and sewer infrastructure subsidies reduced the cost of housing in newly constructed suburbs (Salins 1993 , 97). The federal government also failed to use the 1968 Fair Housing Act to bring about the racial desegregation of the suburbs (Bonastia 2006 ).

At the state and local level, we have extensive political fragmentation of our metropolitan areas, and suburban jurisdictions are granted nearly complete autonomy in zoning and development decisions. Suburban jurisdictions use exclusionary zoning and other regulations to keep affordable housing out as they compete with each other to be the most desirable suburb (Ihlanfeldt 2004 ; McDonald and McMillen 2004 ). To put it another way, discrimination on the basis of income is perfectly legal and widely practiced by local governments. Moreover, the pace of development in suburban areas is in no way tied to the rate of growth in households in the metropolitan region. Often the rate of suburban construction is such that it comes at the expense of central cities and inner-ring suburbs, leading to abandonment and disinvestment in those areas.

Housing assistance policy, ostensibly meant to help low-income persons obtain affordable housing, has contributed to the regressive spatial pattern. Historically, construction of high-density low-income housing projects in the central city directly segregated on the basis of income (Freeman 2004 ; Oakley 2008 ). Even current subsidized housing and available tax credits, while in theory not tied to specific locations, tend to be concentrated in already low-income areas (Newman and Schnare 1997 ; Oakley 2008 ). Public policies to address urban poverty by reducing economic segregation, therefore, must directly confront these fundamental factors in urban development or find ways to lessen their impact (McClure 2008 ).

There is an old expression that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. As argued earlier, many public policies have contributed to the formation of sprawling metropolitan areas highly segregated by race and class. The first step to reduce economic segregation is to stop building it. Several steps are necessary to accomplish this goal.

The first and foremost policy that contributes to economic segregation is exclusionary zoning, which creates a pattern of housing more segregated than the free market would produce on its own (Levine 2006 ). Moving toward more socioeconomically mixed development will require state action to control local development practices. The norm that needs to be established is that all new development must provide a wide variety of housing options. Such a policy is in place in Montgomery County, Maryland, and has resulted in the production of more than 10,000 moderately priced units that are widely dispersed (Wiewel and Schaffer 2002 ). The federal government does not have direct authority in this area but can provide leadership and financial incentives through conditions on highway and infrastructure funding. One approach that has been tried is to implement inclusionary zoning (Schuetz, Meltzer, and Been 2009 ). Inclusionary zoning programs take many forms, but often they provide incentives for developers to build affordable housing units in mixed-income developments by providing cost offsets and density bonuses.

Local autonomy in development decisions also tends to lead to overproduction of housing in the suburbs relative to what is needed to accommodate metropolitan population growth. States that wish to move toward greater coordination of development can take a number of steps, including imposing regional impact fees, discouraging the formation of new municipalities and special purpose districts, facilitating annexation of newly developed suburban land, and preserving open space (Wiewel and Schaffer 2002 ).

Federal government housing policy also needs to be redirected. The federal government no longer builds concentrated public housing projects; indeed, it is more likely to blow them up. Federal housing policy has evolved into a constellation of scattered site development, “portable” voucher-based assistance, and subsidies for mixed-income private developments. As a result, the recipients of federal housing assistance were already less concentrated in 1980 than in 1970 (Warren 1986 ), and the trend has likely continued. This process could be strengthened by reducing the spatial bias in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program and by consolidating public housing agencies at the metropolitan level, so that there are not separate waiting lists in the central cities and suburbs. The home mortgage interest deduction, the single largest housing subsidy in the U.S. federal budget, disproportionately benefits higher-income families with higher marginal tax rates; 59 percent of the benefits go to the top 10 percent of taxpayers (Dreier 2006 ). It could be replaced by a 28 percent tax credit for mortgage interest that would redistribute the benefits equally across the income scale and be neutral with respect to the median voter. Finally, given the continuing economic disparity between white and minority populations, policies that continue to reduce residential segregation by race and ethnicity will also tend to reduce economic segregation.

Poverty per se is determined primarily by the state of the economy, the labor market, and tax and transfer policies. These are nonurban policies that have urban impacts. Poverty in urban areas, however, is affected in subtle but important ways by urban form, transportation networks, and the system of linked housing markets that constitute a metropolitan region. In metropolitan areas where there is a high degree of economic segregation, the poor will be less likely to hear about jobs and will find it more difficult to be hired if they do apply. Transportation will also be difficult to arrange and navigate in sprawling metropolitan areas where new jobs for low-skilled workers are concentrated in the suburbs while the poor are concentrated in the inner city. The children of the poor will be less likely to develop human capital because they will attend school with many other low-income children. They will reside in neighborhoods with few role models, where the norms are that men do not work and that children are raised in single-parent families. These conditions are a recipe for a perpetuation of poverty and reduce the prospects for economic mobility in a given lifetime and over generations.

The prospect of urban areas that, by their design, contribute to the perpetuation and exacerbation of poverty is clearly a matter of concern for urban economists and planners. Urban form is not a given, as the diversity of urban arrangements around the world makes clear. I have argued that the current situation of cities in the United States stems in large measure from the public policies and political arrangements that create the context for urban housing markets, determine the transportation infrastructure, and affect the access of the poor to important public amenities.

“The slum I speak of is our own,” Jacob Riis ( 1902 ) wrote. “We made it, but let us be glad we have no patent on the manufacture” (9). The housing stock is durable, and changes to the pattern of housing take decades to accomplish. But just as the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act has had far-reaching consequences that have unfolded gradually over time, we must now begin to address the way we build our cities so that we can develop a spatial pattern that enhances rather than impedes opportunity. As of 2010, the U.S. population is about 310 million but is projected to reach 375 million by 2030, a 21 percent increase. In addition, some obsolete housing units are destroyed every year, so at least one-quarter and perhaps as much as one-third of the 2030 housing stock has not yet been built. The question is: Are we going to build those new units in the same stupid, segregated, counterproductive pattern of the past? Or will we finally realize that every housing unit built has implications for urban poverty and therefore for the whole society?

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Recently, the Census Bureau defined micropolitan areas and made other changes to the classification system, but since no trend data exist for these new classifications, I will not address them further.

Data on poverty rates in this and subsequent paragraphs are from U.S. Bureau of the Census ( 2009 ).

Census tracts are spatial units delineated by the Census Bureau in cooperation with local officials. By design, they contain 4,000 residents and to the extent possible are socially and economically homogeneous (White 1987 ).

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How can cities handle poverty?

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Ugo Gentilini

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Cities are magnets of opportunity: they offer better standards of living than rural areas, and will soon house 75% of the global economy . But when demand for housing, jobs, and services outstrips capacity, urban areas can turn into congested, haphazard locales that amplify extreme poverty. In 2008, for instance, urban poverty accounted for 24% of global poverty, up from 17% in 1990. Can cities handle this urbanization of poverty?

Safety net programs like cash transfers and public works could help, but have mostly surged over the past decade in rural areas. While extending them to cities seems like a straightforward thing to do, experience with safety nets in urban settings is surprisingly under-researched. My new paper explores empirical evidence and cross-country practices on this critical matter.

So what’s emerging from country experiences?

First , there are different pathways for introducing safety net programs: some countries have gradually grafted rural schemes onto urban settings, such as Mexico’s conditional cash transfer program Prospera (about 40% of its beneficiaries are now in cities). In contrast, China’s Dibao started in cities – it now reaches 21m people – and then expanded to the countryside. Other countries that have covered urban and rural areas from their outset include India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Some programs were launched in urban areas only, like in El Salvador, Kenya and Burkina Faso, while countries such as Senegal and Mali have now started to implement such programs.

Second , there are significant spatial disparities in coverage. Household survey data from 112 developing countries show that 16.6% of the urban poor participate in some form of safety net program, as opposed to 23.4% among the rural poor – a difference of about 7 percentage points. Such a gap soars to nearly 24 percentage points in some middle-income countries.

Why such a difference?

To be sure, poverty is still concentrated in rural areas, but the locus of ‘where the poor live’ can change dramatically depending on whether we look at poverty rates , which is generally higher in rural areas, or the number of poor people, which can be higher in urban areas (see Slovenia , Vietnam and various countries in Latin America ).

There might also be a perception that safety nets are needed less in urban areas because of more vibrant labor markets. Yet only about 3-4% of the urban poor participate in social insurance and labor market interventions. Poverty may also be underestimated in urban areas, especially since the higher urban cost of living may not be fully reflected in poverty lines.

From another perspective, a sizable share of interventions to tackle urban poverty tend to fall under the remit of urban development and area-based upgrading programs. These provide critical supply-side inputs like urban infrastructure (e.g., drainage, water supply, public sanitation facilities, etc.) and, arguably, are less geared toward the ‘people’ or demand-side of the poverty equation.

In some cases, local politics may also differ, as the middle class is larger in urban areas, and local insider-outsider issues may play an important role in shaping safety net regimes and preferences. Relatedly, large-scale general subsidy schemes have been considered a de-facto urban safety net, although these tend to favor the well-off more. Finally, technical bottlenecks in safety net design and implementation may have stifled program performance in urban contexts.

Third , simply replicating successful rural approaches in urban areas won’t work. When Prospera was initially expanded from rural to urban areas, it generally maintained a rural design: as a result, only 51% of the intended urban beneficiaries participated in the program, compared to 97% of eligible households in rural areas. A similar result occurred when Colombia’s Familias en Accion was first implemented in Bogota. Indeed, urban targeting processes need to take into account the constant growth in (mostly informal) settlements, high levels of violence in select neighborhoods, or weaker community bonds; high mobility and characteristics that make people ‘hard to reach’ (e.g., the homeless, newly-arrived migrants) pose particular challenges for communication; or even when people are reached, programs’ benefit structure may not be attractive enough to offset relatively high opportunity costs of urban beneficiaries, including in terms of time, forgone income and transport cost.

So where do we go from here? Some “A, B, C, Ds” for urban safety nets:

A ction is mostly local. While institutional and financing arrangements can vary dramatically across countries, there is growing interest in understanding how to enhance city and local governments’ ability to deliver, innovate and supplementing national-level capacities. This may include broadening the traditional central-level nature of the global social protection agenda to local actors such as mayors and municipal governments.

B etter urban design. Some program parameters or ‘nuts and bolts’ may require adjustments, like poverty assessments. Others may entail more significant rethinking, like targeting approaches, while others may need to be reimagined, like communication and outreach activities tailored to urban settings. The experience of the United States, for example, shows that enrollment may require customization for particular categories of urban dwellers, such as the elderly, the working poor, ethnic minorities, and newly-arrived migrants. Relatedly, the issue of mobility, whether daily commuting to work or temporary migration, calls for devising ways to make benefits portable.

C onnect with the urban agenda. This may include, for example, linking safety nets to housing policy or slums upgrading programs; integrating safety nets with the labor agenda for the urban poor; and incentivizing the uptake of social services relevant to urban areas, such as daycare provision, prevention of violence, and addressing specific urban health and nutritional risks. Some examples are emerging (see here , here and here ), but relatively little is known about how these dimensions interact, how to identify and prioritize interventions, and what are the possible trade-offs.

D iversity of settings. We need to recognize the diversity of an ‘urban area’, including understanding the role that safety nets can play in different forms of settlements – megacities, secondary cities, peri-urban areas, small towns, and informal settlements (like most slums). Such nuance would be key to frame not only the role of safety nets in urban areas, but also how they can facilitate the process of urbanization and structural transformation more widely.

In short, urbanization and its sweeping changes are occurring at unprecedented pace, and the question is whether systems to address urban poverty can be reimagined at an equal speed. Within such process, perhaps the biggest challenge for safety nets would be to find a balance between harnessing the extensive rural experience and, at the same time, leaving that comfort zone to rethink, experiment and adapt to a largely uncharted domain.

This article was first published by the World Bank’s Let’s talk Development blog . Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

To keep up with the Agenda  subscribe to our weekly newsletter .

Author: Ugo Gentilini is a senior economist with the Social Protection and Labor Global Practice at the World Bank.

Image: Residents are seen in the Villa 31 slum, which censuses show has grown 50 percent in the past four years to currently house some 40,000 people, near the 100-year-old railway station Retiro in the heart of Buenos Aires, February 9, 2014. ARGENTINA-ECONOMY/POVERTY REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian.

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• Published: 02 January 2020

Urbanization: a problem for the rich and the poor?

• Md Abdul Kuddus 1 , 2 , 4 ,
• Elizabeth Tynan 3 &
• Emma McBryde 1 , 2  

Public Health Reviews volume  41 , Article number:  1 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Urbanization has long been associated with human development and progress, but recent studies have shown that urban settings can also lead to significant inequalities and health problems. This paper is concerned with the adverse impact of urbanization on both developed and developing nations and both wealthy and poor populations within those nations, addressing issues associated with public health problems in urban areas. The discussion in this paper will be of interest to policy makers. The paper advocates policies that improve the socio-economic conditions of the urban poor and promote their better health. Further, this discussion encourages wealthy people and nations to become better informed about the challenges that may arise when urbanization occurs in their regions without the required social supports and infrastructure.

Urbanization refers to the mass movement of populations from rural to urban settings and the consequent physical changes to urban settings. In 2019, the United Nations estimated that more than half the world’s population (4.2 billion people) now live in urban area and by 2041, this figure will increase to 6 billion people [ 1 ].

Cities are known to play multifaceted functions in all societies. They are the heart of technological development and economic growth of many nations, while at the same time serving as a breeding ground for poverty, inequality, environmental hazards, and communicable diseases [ 2 ]. When large numbers of people congregate in cities, many problems result, particularly for the poor. For example, many rural migrants who settle in an urban slum area bring their families and their domesticated animals—both pets and livestock—with them. This influx of humans and animals leads to vulnerability of all migrants to circulating communicable diseases and the potential to establish an urban transmission cycle. Further, most urban poor live in slums that are unregulated, have congested conditions, are overcrowded, are positioned near open sewers, and restricted to geographically dangerous areas such as hillsides, riverbanks, and water basins subject to landslides, flooding, or industrial hazards. All of these factors lead to the spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases, pollution, poor nutrition, road traffic, and so on [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The problems faced by the poor spill over to other city dwellers. As the trend to urbanization continues, this spillover effect increases and takes on a global dimension as more and more of the world’s populations are affected [ 3 ].

Some of the major health problems resulting from urbanization include poor nutrition, pollution-related health conditions and communicable diseases, poor sanitation and housing conditions, and related health conditions. These have direct impacts on individual quality of life, while straining public health systems and resources [ 6 ].

Urbanization has a major negative impact on the nutritional health of poor populations. Because they have limited financial resources and the cost of food is higher in cities, the urban poor lack nutritious diets and this leads to illness, which contributes to loss of appetite and poor absorption of nutrients among those affected. Furthermore, environmental contamination also contributes to undernutrition; street food is often prepared in unhygienic conditions, leading to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses (e.g., botulism, salmonellosis, and shigellosis) [ 6 ]. Urban dwellers also suffer from overnutrition and obesity, a growing global public health problem. Obesity and other lifestyle conditions contribute to chronic diseases (such as cancers, diabetes, and heart diseases). Although obesity is most common among the wealthy, international agencies have noted the emergence of increased weight among the middle class and poor in recent years [ 7 ].

Populations in poor nations that suffer from protein-energy malnutrition [ 8 ] have increased susceptibility to infection [ 9 ] through the impact of micronutrient deficiency on immune system development and function [ 10 ]. Around 168 million children under 5 are estimated to be malnourished and 76% of these children live in Asia [ 11 ]. At the same time, the World Health Organization is concerned that there is an emerging pandemic of obesity in poor countries that leads to non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, hypertension, and stroke [ 12 ].

Obesity is caused by increased caloric intake and decreased physical activity [ 13 ], something historically associated with wealth. However, people in urbanized areas of developing countries are also now vulnerable to obesity due to lack of physical space, continually sitting in workplaces, and excessive energy intake and low energy expenditure. In these areas, infrastructure is often lacking, including sufficient space for recreational activities. Further, in developing countries, as in developed countries, large employers frequently place head offices in urban capitals and work is increasingly sedentary in nature [ 14 ]. Another culprit associated with the risk of developing obesity is the change in food intake that has led to the so-called nutrition transition (increased the consumption of animal-source foods, sugar, fats and oils, refined grains, and processed foods) in urban areas. For instance, in China, dietary patterns have changed concomitantly with urbanization in the past 30 years, leading to increased obesity [ 15 ]. In 2003, the World Health Organization estimated that more than 300 million adults were affected, the majority in developed and highly urbanized countries [ 16 ]. Since then, the prevalence of obesity has increased. For example, in Australia, around 28% of adults were obese in 2014–2015 [ 17 ].

Pollution is another major contributor to poor health in urban environments. For instance, the World Health Organization estimated that 6.5 million people died (11.6% of all global deaths) as a consequence of indoor and outdoor air pollution and nearly 90% of air-pollution-related deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries [ 18 ]. Poor nutrition and pollution both contribute to a third major challenge for urban populations: communicable diseases. The poor live in congested conditions, near open sewers and stagnant water, and are therefore constantly exposed to unhealthy waste [ 6 ]. Inadequate sanitation can lead to the transmission of helminths and other intestinal parasites. Pollution (e.g., from CO 2 emission) from congested urban areas contributes to localized and global climate change and direct health problems, such as respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer for both the rich and the poor.

In addition to human-to-human transmission, animals and insects serve as efficient vectors for diseases within urban settings and do not discriminate between the rich and poor. The prevalence and impact of communicable diseases in urban settings, such as tuberculosis (TB), malaria, cholera, dengue, and others, is well established and of global concern.

National and international researchers and policy makers have explored various strategies to address such problems, yet the problems remain. For example, research on solutions for megacities has been ongoing since the early 1990s [ 19 , 20 ]. These studies have concluded that pollution, unreliable electricity, and non-functioning infrastructure are priority initiatives; nevertheless, air pollution, quality of water in cities, congestion, disaster management issues, and infrastructure are not being systematically addressed [ 19 , 20 ].

The impact of inner city transportation on health, such as road traffic, is emerging as a serious problem. Statistics show that a minimum of 10 people die every day on the railways in the city of Mumbai, India [ 21 ]. Vietnam is another example of a country that has seen a remarkable increase in road traffic accidents [ 22 ]. Improvements to the country’s infrastructure have not been able to meet the increasing growth of vehicular and human traffic on the street. Vietnam reportedly has a population of 95 million and more than 18 million motorbikes on its roads. A deliberate policy is needed to reduce accidents [ 21 ].

Although urbanization has become an irreversible phenomenon, some have argued that to resolve the problems of the city, we must tackle the root causes of the problem, such as improving the socio-economic situation of the urban poor.

Until the conditions in rural areas improve, populations will continue to migrate to urban settings. Given the challenges that rural development poses, the root causes are unlikely to be addressed in the near future. Therefore, governments and development agencies should concentrate on adapting to the challenges of urbanization, while seeking to reduce unplanned urbanization.

Some examples of policies and practices that should be considered include (i) policies that consider whole-of-life journeys, incorporating accessible employment, community participation, mobility/migration and social transition, to break generational poverty cycles; (ii) policies addressing urban environmental issues, such as planned urban space and taxes on the use of vehicles to reduce use or to encourage vehicles that use less fuel as well as encourage bicycle use, walking, and other forms of human transportation; (iii) greater cooperative planning between rural and urban regions to improve food security (e.g., subsidies for farmers providing locally produced, unprocessed and low cost food to urban centers); (iv) social protection and universal health coverage to reduce wealth disparity among urban dwellers; including introduction of programs and services for health, for example by establishing primary healthcare clinics accessible and affordable for all including those living in urban slums [ 23 ].

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editor for his/her thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving the manuscript.

This work was conducted as a part of a PhD programme of the first authors and funded by the College of Medicine and Dentistry at the James Cook University, Australia (JCU-QLD-933347).

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Kuddus, M.A., Tynan, E. & McBryde, E. Urbanization: a problem for the rich and the poor?. Public Health Rev 41 , 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-019-0116-0

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Reducing urban poverty – lessons not learnt?

What have we learned from over five decades of initiatives meant to reduce urban poverty? And what, if any, benefits have been felt by the estimated one billion, and counting, residents of informal settlements and tenements in urban areas in the global South?

Jamestown slum in Accra, Ghana (Photo:  Dominic Chavez/World Bank via Flickr ,  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 )

Around one billion people are residents of informal settlements and tenements in urban areas in the global South, with most living in poor and overcrowded conditions lacking access to basic services.

So why have so few of these people actually benefited from poverty reduction initiatives? Why have most aid agencies given this such a low priority?

Part of the reason is that most measures of poverty do not include living conditions and access to basic services. There is an urgent need to rethink how urban poverty is defined, set and applied, and by whom and for what.

A previous blog highlighted how much the scale and depth of urban poverty is underestimated in most official statistics. Most poverty lines are income-based and set far too low in relation to the cost of food and non-food needs. Mention is often made of people living in poverty yet the poverty definitions and measurements take no account of housing and living conditions.

There is also the lack of engagement by governments and international agencies with those designated as ‘the poor’, meaning those on low incomes and with other sources of disadvantage. The definition and setting of poverty lines make little or no provision for consultation with them.

So there is no scope for them to challenge the inaccurate and often unfair stereotypes being used by politicians, local government officials, the media and other bodies in discussions of poverty. And there’s no opportunity for them to hold governments and international agencies to account for the inaccuracies.

Seeing through a new lens

It may be difficult for those who are used to equating poverty with income or consumption-based criteria to accept the broader view. But it brings many important changes. It helps shift official perceptions of ‘poor people’ from being seen as ‘objects’ of government policy to being seen as citizens with rights and legitimate demands – and capacities to act.

A fresh lens can bring clarity about the different deprivations that make up poverty and who is impacted. It can reveal opportunities for addressing them – as well as their many economic, social and political underpinnings. It also helps identify the groups who are more vulnerable, more at risk or who face discrimination.

Urban governments, NGOs and grassroots organisations generally have relatively little scope to directly increase incomes, but they could address other aspects of poverty – for instance, improving or extending provision of essential services (good quality water, sanitation, solid waste collection, health care, schools, electricity and so on), increasing access to assets such as decent housing thus reducing expenditure on rents, safety nets or improving housing conditions.

And these reducing health-related expenditures and so improving incomes. Or through political change that would allow low-income groups to negotiate more support – or less harassment.

Some pointers for addressing urban poverty

It’s important to recognise the multiple roles that housing and neighbourhoods can play in urban poverty – and in poverty reduction.

Housing in urban contexts generally has more influence on the incomes, asset bases, livelihoods, vulnerability and quality of life (and health) of low-income groups than external poverty reduction specialists recognise.

Housing not only provides accommodation and access to basic services but also provides:

• A location for getting to and from income-earning sources or possibilities, and accessing services. Some low-income groups have to put up with low quality accommodation because it is close to income-earning opportunities. Transport costs are often a significant cost in individual or household budgets – so reducing these can mean more disposable income
• Safer and more secure housing also provides residents with greater protection against the loss of their household assets from eviction or extreme weather, and
• For many, a location where income-earning activities take place as in home-based work or income raised by renting out space. They benefit from the reliable provision of electricity, good quality water supply and toilets and regular waste collection as the primary defence against most environmental health risks.

So there is an urgent need to recognise and act on the very large (and mostly preventable) health burdens suffered by the hundreds of millions of urban dwellers living in poor quality accommodation.

These burdens are more serious in urban contexts than rural because of the larger and denser concentration of people and their associated waste.

Making decent housing affordable

One way of achieving this would to be to reduce the cost of housing and inputs into housing (land, tenure, materials, credit, infrastructure and so on). An example would be helping low-income people by giving them access to vacant or under-utilised land on which they can secure their homes, incrementally developing shelter if and when it is affordable.

The key point is that good local governance, including support and space for urban poor organisations and federations, can considerably reduce poverty, even if people’s actual incomes are not increasing.

The knock-on effects of poverty reduction measures can be powerful. For instance, improved basic service provision has health benefits, reduces time burdens and fatigue, and increases real income (as a result of less time off work through illness or injury coupled with lower medical costs).

Recognition for what matters

Key routes to effective poverty reduction include:

• Recognising the importance of what city and municipal governments can do to support poor residents and address poverty – and the importance of what urban poor groups can do (individually and collectively)  
• Recognising how competent, accountable, adequately-resourced urban governments can contribute enormously to poverty reduction. This is both by what they provide or ensure provision for (the now familiar list of water, sanitation, household waste collection, health care, schools, rule of law, documentation) and in how they work with low-income groups. Incompetent, unaccountable, inadequately resourced urban governments enormously increase urban poverty and reduce or even remove health advantages of urban dwellers over rural dwellers  
• Recognising and acting on key roles and space for the urban poor and their organisations, include a greater understanding of their competencies and capacities. A real commitment to work with the urban poor by local governments can remove one of the most profound aspects of poverty – the lack of voice/recognition, as well as the lack of government accountability, and  
• Providing flexible finance through local institutions to engage with and support community-led development, as in the work of the Akiba Mashinani Trust in Kenya.

And measuring what matters

Commitment to a dramatic improvement in the local documentation of all aspects of poverty, both in depth and coverage so that each local government and its citizens and civil society organisations have the basis for key decisions and actions, is important .

Organisations and federations of informal settlement residents, such as Slum Dwellers International , have demonstrated their capacities to help governments do this in hundreds of cities.

The mapping and enumeration of informal settlements provides detailed data on the different aspects of poverty in each settlement – and often for each household. This is the level of disaggregation needed for planning poverty reduction.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals call for more disaggregated data – but they do not recognise the importance of community-led data gathering and its key role in getting action and forging partnerships with local governments. In other words, indicators that drive needed change.

• Read ' Reducing Urban Poverty in the Global South ', David Satterthwaite, Diana Mitlin (2013), Routledge

About the author

David Satterthwaite is senior fellow in IIED's Human Settlements research group

Diana Mitlin is professor at the University of Manchester and research senior associate at IIED

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Is China’s rate of urbanisation too fast or too slow?

Lobbying for land then and now: reflections on what changed in Karachi

The fastest-growing cities in Latin America and the Caribbean

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Urban Poverty

Last updated on December 25, 2023 by ClearIAS Team

Urban poverty is complex and multidimensional and it extends beyond the deficiency of income or consumption. Urbanization has added newer problems like urban slums blossoming in congested cities. Is the weight of the world’s enormous poverty problem, historically a predominantly rural concern, shifting to urban areas? Is urbanization good or bad from the point of view of fighting poverty? Read here to know more.

The developing world is becoming more urban. Some observers see this as the unwelcome precursor to new poverty problems, such as urban slums blossoming in congested cities.

Yet others see it as a force for poverty reduction, as economies shift gradually out of agriculture to more remunerative activities, such as better-paid jobs in other sectors.

Is the weight of the world’s enormous poverty problem, historically a predominantly rural concern, shifting to urban areas?

Table of Contents

Urban poverty, in contrast to rural poverty, is complex and multifaceted, going beyond a lack of resources for consumption or income.

Its many facets are related to the vulnerability of the poor due to their lack of access to land and housing, physical infrastructure and services, sources of income and work, health and education facilities, and social security networks, as well as their lack of voice and empowerment.

In most developing nations, urbanization has been accompanied by slums and shelter deprivation, informality, worsening of living conditions, and increasing risks due to climate change and exclusionary urban forms.

According to the UN-HABITAT , Asia has 60% of the world’s total slum population, and much more live in slum-like conditions in areas that are officially designated as non-slums.

• Working poverty and informality are high in Asian cities and towns.
• Recent years have witnessed, almost universally, increasing urban inequalities and stagnating consumption shares of lower-percentile households.

Causes of urban poverty

Rural-Urban Migration: Large-scale migration from rural to urban areas in search of better livelihood causes overcrowding in the cities.

• Rapid urbanization acts as a pull for the rural poor, but they, unfortunately, become part of the urban poor when they migrate.

Lack of opportunities: The lack of opportunities and skills training for most of the working-age population is a major problem.

• A shortage of adequate investment in quality education and basic services like health, sanitation, waste management, and skill training has had its consequences.
• It has led to generations of malnourished, uneducated, unaware, and unskilled or semi-skilled people who find it difficult to find decent-paying jobs.

Lack of affordable housing: People are unable to afford nominal housing hence they settle wherever they can. As the numbers increase, these develop into a community of slum dwellers.

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• This further complicates the procedure of accessing basic services like electricity, water, sanitation, etc. as the authorities and public utilities can only serve those registered on paper.

Economy: The ups and downs in the economic conditions of a nation also add to urban poverty.

• The plight of lower-income people in metropolitan areas is made worse by a sharp increase in the cost of food and other necessities.

Urbanization: Sometimes, urbanization affects regions at the edges of big cities, often benefiting them because they become more connected to municipal life.

• The fast pace of urban life becomes too expensive for the villagers, they don’t have the skill sets required for higher-paying jobs so find themselves pushed into the informal economy to survive.

Also read: Urbanization: Problems and Remedies

Issues of the urban poor

• Overcrowding is a major factor in informal settlements. There is often just one bathroom for many people in each illegal building.
• A lack of awareness of personal hygiene practices pushes families further into the waiting arms of diseases and infections.
• The low income of these communities means that standard medical help is often a far-fetched dream, not to mention unaffordable.
• Education is inaccessible to most of the children in the urban slums. Even if they start school, they usually drop out due to financial constraints.
• There is always the fear of eviction as they are occupying the lands illegally.

Urban poverty in India

In India, the causes of urban poverty can be linked to the lack of infrastructure in rural areas, forcing inhabitants of these regions to seek out work in India’s mega-cities.

• As more and more people make this migration, the space left to accommodate them becomes less and less.
• Urban development can’t keep up with the growing numbers of informal settlers and no one wants to be held accountable for the slums or their residents.

The nature of urban poverty poses distinct challenges for housing, water, sanitation, health, education, social security, livelihoods, and the special needs of vulnerable groups such as women, children, and aging.

The issue of urban poverty was recognized over two decades ago in India and the reports then proposed solutions to urban poverty including greater equity in the provision of basic services, targeted subsidies for vulnerable sections of the population, and special government assistance to strengthen the economic bases of small and medium towns.

Government efforts to alleviate urban poverty

Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM)

• The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) is implementing DAY-NULM, in statutory towns to reduce poverty and vulnerability of urban poor households.
• The aim is to enable them to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, to improve their livelihoods on a sustainable basis, through building strong grassroots-level institutions for the urban poor.
• The mission also aims at providing shelters equipped with essential services to the urban homeless.
• The mission also addresses the livelihood concerns of the urban street vendors by facilitating access to suitable spaces, institutional credit, social security, etc.

Other major schemes for urban poverty alleviation are:

• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation
• Jal Jeevan Mission Urban has been designed to provide universal coverage of water supply to all households.
• Light House Projects is an initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
• Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS)
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Housing for All – Urban)
• Scheme to Augment City Buses & Urban Green Mobility
• Self-Employment Programme of urban poor
• Towns of Export Excellence

Also read: Economic and Social Development – Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Way forward

The poor are gravitating to towns and cities, but more rapid poverty reduction will probably require a faster pace of urbanization, not a slower one, and development policymakers will need to facilitate this process, not hinder it.

Because slum communities are not recognized by the government, the majority of aid and benefits do not reach residents.

Urban poverty is significantly impacted by the lack of adequate social security programs for informal employees. New methods of urban planning and efficient government are so urgently needed.

Priority should be given to providing the slum regions with essential services such as clean water, sanitary facilities, and electricity.

India is taking the right step in promoting small and medium-scale industries (MSME) in rural areas, as well as promoting other income-generating opportunities. However, more investment into satisfying the demand for more jobs, equal pay, and more career and movement opportunities in the tertiary or agriculture sector, could ease the increasing pressure on urban infrastructure services.

Read:  PM SVANidhi Scheme

-Article written by Swathi Satish

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Urban poverty and nutrition challenges associated with accessibility to a healthy diet: a global systematic literature review

Mireya vilar-compte.

1 Research Institute for Equitable Development EQUIDE, Universidad Iberoamericana, Prolongación Paseo de Reforma 880, Lomas de Santa Fé, 01219 Mexico City, Mexico

Soraya Burrola-Méndez

Annel lozano-marrufo, isabel ferré-eguiluz, diana flores, pablo gaitán-rossi, graciela teruel, rafael pérez-escamilla.

2 Yale School of Public Health, 60 College Street, New Haven, CT 06510 USA

Associated Data

Not applicable

There is an increasing global trend towards urbanization. In general, there are less food access issues in urban than rural areas, but this “urban advantage” does not benefit the poorest who face disproportionate barriers to accessing healthy food and have an increased risk of malnutrition.

This systematic literature review aimed to assess urban poverty as a determinant of access to a healthy diet, and to examine the contribution of urban poverty to the nutritional status of individuals.

Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) methodology, our review included quantitative and qualitative studies published in English or in Spanish between 2000 and 2019. The articles were eligible if they focused on nutrition access (i.e. access to a healthy diet) or nutrition outcomes (i.e., anemia, overweight and obesity, micronutrient deficiency, micronutrient malnutrition) among urban poor populations. Articles were excluded if they did not meet pre-established criteria. The quality of the quantitative studies was assessed by applying Khan et al.’s methodology. Similarly, we assessed the quality of qualitative articles through an adapted version of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) methodology checklist. Finally, we systematically analyzed all papers that met the inclusion criteria based on a qualitative content and thematic analysis.

Of the 68 papers included in the systematic review, 55 used quantitative and 13 used qualitative methods. Through the analysis of the literature we found four key themes: (i) elements that affect access to healthy eating in individuals in urban poverty, (ii) food insecurity and urban poverty, (iii) risk factors for the nutritional status of urban poor and (iv) coping strategies to limited access to food. Based on the systematization of the literature on these themes, we then proposed a conceptual framework of urban poverty and nutrition.

Conclusions

This systematic review identified distinct barriers posed by urban poverty in accessing healthy diets and its association with poorer nutrition outcomes, hence, questioning the “urban advantage”. A conceptual framework emerging from the existing literature is proposed to guide future studies and policies.

Systematic review registration

PROSPERO Registration number: CRD42018089788 .

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-020-01330-0.

Urbanization is a rising global phenomenon. Today 55% of the global population lives in urban areas, and it is estimated that by 2050 70% of the population will live in one of them [ 1 ]. Compared to rural areas, urban regions feature greater social and economic development, more labor opportunities, and access to more diverse and better essential services. However, urban areas also concentrate poverty [ 2 ]. The urban poor not only lack income and resources to ensure an adequate wellbeing, but frequently experience limited access to basic services, labor opportunities and to possibilities for social development. Prior studies highlight increasing trends in urban poverty, partially resulting from accelerating urbanization processes in low-and middle-income countries; it has been estimated that by 2035 the majority of individuals in extreme poverty (i.e. daily income less than US1.25) will live in urban areas [ 1 , 3 ].

These challenges have been addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) [ 4 ]; specifically, SDG 11 establishes that countries need to have urban sustainable development plans to promote the wellbeing of people, especially the most socioeconomic vulnerable. Furthermore, SDG 1 states that all forms of poverty should be eradicated by 2030.

The SDGs are also strongly linked with food insecurity (FI) [ 5 ]. Urban environments imply a particular risk for FI and poor nutrition outcomes since access to food depends on the commercial supply that, in turn, is linked to income levels [ 6 , 7 ]. On the one hand, it has been previously recognized that the urban poor are particularly vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks that affect their capacity to generate income which in turn leads them to consume less healthy diets [ 8 , 9 ]. On the other hand, previous studies suggest that urban diets, on average, are better than rural diets because they are more diverse and, given the food distribution systems, there is greater access to products such as animal proteins [ 10 ]. However, this supposed urban advantage is not equally distributed as it does not extend to the poorest socioeconomic strata.

Previous research indicates that there are geographic differentials in access to food [ 11 ], which are linked to economic barriers in accessing healthy food options [ 12 ]. Hence, those with lower incomes do not have access to diets rich in heathy foods including fresh fruits and vegetables, tubers, and legumes. Instead they have relatively more access and consume higher amounts of sugars, fats, and highly processed or ultra-processed foods [ 13 ]. Although this phenomenon has been generically identified as part of the “nutritional transition”, it is important to emphasize that in urban centers, these outcomes are linked to socioeconomic inequities [ 6 ]. Ultra-processed products have a high energy density, have long shelf lives, many are ready-to-eat and they are relatively cheaper [ 14 , 15 ]. All these features make them convenient for urban and low-income individuals who may have limited resources such as household heating and cooking goods, safe drinking water supply, and sanitation, amongst other basic needs. A study of 74 countries from the Pan-American Health Organization conducted in 2015 found that sales of ultra-processed products were larger in more urbanized countries, and that the market is expanding to poorer sectors [ 16 ].

Food environments can influence the risk of malnutrition and corresponding infectious and non-communicable chronic diseases. In urban areas, food deserts and food swamps – understood as regions with very limited or difficult access to supermarkets and healthful food choices [ 17 ] – exemplify challenging food environments, which are generally more common in low-income urban areas [ 18 ]. These environments are in turn associated with unequal nutrition outcomes. For example, in Latin America, the risk of chronic malnutrition in urban children under 5 years of age is ten times higher among the poorest compared with their counterparts falling in the highest socioeconomic level [ 7 ].

Despite such compelling evidence, there are few studies that have attempted to document in detail the food access challenges and their relationship with different nutritional outcomes among poor urban populations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to conduct, from a global perspective, a systematic literature review (SLR) to assess urban poverty as a determinant of access to a healthy diet, and to document the association between urban poverty and the nutritional status of individuals.

The protocol for this systematic review was registered on PROSPERO prior to starting the literature search (CRD42018089788).

The review centered in nutrition outcomes related to: (i) access to a healthy diet as defined by the World Health Organization [ 19 ], which includes aspects of variety, quantity, balance and food safety, and (ii) nutrition outcomes related to the SDGs – anemia, overweight and obesity, micronutrient deficiency, and micronutrient malnutrition [ 20 ]. These outcomes were kept generic and subsequently categorized through the operationalizations used in the studies. The exposure variable of interest was urban poverty. Poverty was captured through different indicators such as income thresholds, poverty lines, multidimensional poverty measures, socioeconomic indexes (based on assets and services), wealth indexes, geographic areas considered highly vulnerable or lacking basic services (i.e. slums), or people participating in social programs targeted at the vulnerable/low income. Similarly, “urban” as a context where poverty happens was not defined through a unique criterion – as different countries used different criteria. Hence, “urban” was defined in terms of population size, population density, type of economic activity, level of infrastructure, or a combination of these criteria.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

This systematic review followed the guidance of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) [ 21 , 22 ]. We prepared a literature search protocol to define a priori inclusion criteria (see Table  1 ). Qualitative and quantitative studies were included if they focused on nutrition access or nutrition outcomes among urban poor populations (i.e. individuals, families, households). Quantitative studies could be observational or experimental.

Inclusion criteria for urban poverty and nutrition studies

Studies were excluded if they focused on the general population (i.e. without a specific focus on urban and poor settings) or if they were centered in populations with special conditions (i.e. refugees, prisoners). Only peer reviewed studies published in English or Spanish were included in the review.

Search strategy

Four bibliographical databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scielo and EBSCO) were systematically searched for studies published between January 2000 and January 2019. The year 2000 was selected as a threshold because urbanization was recognized as key in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) linked to poverty and the health outcomes of individuals. Indeed, the MDGs led to specific research and interventions targeting the urban vulnerable populations [ 23 – 30 ]. Relevant literature was identified following the Boolean search algorithms summarized in Supplementary Table  1 . Free-text terms were used to generate search strategies for each database. Studies identified through each database were imported to Excel, and then duplicates were identified and removed. The studies were then imported to EndNote [ 31 ].

Study selection

In the first phase, abstracts were reviewed by three of the authors (DF, IF and SB) who were standardized to screen titles and abstracts of studies identified in the search. Articles were excluded if they did not meet the criteria established in Table  1 . They were included if there was an indication that access to healthful foods or any of the nutrition outcomes of interest were being described or analyzed, either through qualitative or quantitative approaches, in urban poor/vulnerable populations. In the next phase, articles were retrieved and independently assessed for eligibility (see criteria in Table  1 ). Consensus was reached in consultation with a fourth author (MVC) as needed.

Data extraction

The following information was extracted from each study: (i) methods (i.e. qualitative or quantitative study design, and corresponding details); (ii) territorial definition of the urban space (i.e. urban or semi-urban, large cities, slums, etc.); (iii) poverty definition; and (iv) operationalization of the food and nutrition variables (i.e. food access, nutrition outcomes). In addition, data were extracted to describe the study sample, confounding or mediating factors, statistical tests or data triangulation, and key findings.

Quality assessment

The studies’ quality assessment was conducted by reviewing each study according to specific guidelines. For quantitative studies, guidelines were adapted from those proposed by Khan [ 22 ] which focus on four aspects: (i) type of design; (ii) how exposure was operationalized; (iii) how outcome variables were ascertained; and (iv) if confounding variables were controlled for. Supplementary Table  2 provides further details on the definition of each of these elements. For qualitative studies a guideline was adapted from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) methodology checklist for qualitative studies [ 32 ]. Five quality domains were assessed for each study: (i) theoretical approach; (ii) study design; (iii) data collection; (iv) validity; and (v) analysis. Supplementary Table  3 defines how each of the areas were specifically assessed. Quality assessment was performed by two researchers (SB, IF); when there were conflicting results a third reviewer (ALM, MVC) provided input until consensus was reached. To estimate the agreement between reviewers, a Cohen’s Kappa statistic was computed.

Analysis of the systematized papers

The purpose of systematically examining the studies was to generate a common understanding about how urban poverty shapes nutrition (both in terms of access and outcomes). The analysis of the studies was based on a qualitative content and thematic analyses. The objective of such perspective was to analyze the textual data from the studies to elucidate themes [ 33 ]. Hence, a three folded analytical process was followed: (i) data from the studies was coded in NVivo 12 [ 34 ]; nodes were generated and significant information from the systematized papers was dropped in such nodes; (ii) meaning of the information in the different nodes was examined; and (iii) themes were generated. This analysis was performed by three of the authors (MVC, DF, SB) based on consensus about the nodes, meanings and themes. These findings led to proposing a conceptual framework about how urban poverty shapes nutrition.

Description of the studies

Figure  1 follows the PRISMA structure [ 22 ] and provides a detailed summary of the research results. After duplicated studies were removed, the abstracts of 717 records were screened, leading to 348 papers for full review. Sixty-eight studies met the eligibility criteria and quality assessment and were included in the review. Among these studies, the majority (81%) used quantitative methods, while fewer focused on qualitative approaches (19%). The average Cohen’s Kappa statistic between-reviewers for quantitative studies was 0.963 (an almost perfect agreement), and for qualitative studies 0.759 (a substantial level of agreement) [ 35 ].

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Diagram

The geographical distribution of the included studies is presented in Table  2 . Based on the categorization by regions as classified by the World Bank [ 36 ], close to two thirds of the papers were based on studies conducted in the Americas (i.e. 39.7% in North America and 25% in Latin American & Caribbean), followed by 17.6% in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 17.6% in East Asia & Pacific. Only 8.8% were from South Asia, 5.9% from Europe & Central Asia, and 2.9% from Middle East & North Africa.

Geographic distribution of the reviewed papers, operationalization of poverty and the urban space

a The categorization by regions and income level of the country corresponds to the World Bank classification (2020)

b The percentage corresponds to the total by category among the 68 articles reviewed

Tables  3 and ​ and4 4 provide information on how studies operationalized the poverty construct. It was commonly defined through mainstream economic classifications such as: lower deciles or quintiles of income distribution (18.9%); low socioeconomic level, ascertained through education level, type of employment, or social class (17.6%); poverty lines or thresholds based on a minimum income to satisfy basic needs, or through more complex multidimensional measures of poverty (13.5%); composite measures such as assets indexes (5.4%) or social vulnerability indexes (2.7%); and relative household’s expenditure measures (1.4%) – which are commonly used in the economics literature due to their strong theoretical background. Together, these definitions of poverty or vulnerability were used in more than half of the studies (59.5%).

Quality assessment guidelines for quantitative studies

Quality assessment guidelines for qualitative studies

The second most common metrics used for determining poverty status was through geographical characteristics (27%). Based on community, municipality or other geographic units, the studies defined the poverty status based on access to services or gradients of human development, among others. The degree of specification of how “poor areas” were defined varied across studies. Finally, another subset of the studies included in the SLR defined poverty and vulnerability through specific unidimensional conditions such as poor housing conditions, FI or homelessness (13.5%).

Tables  3 and ​ and4 4 also provide information about how the “urban” space was ascertained in the studies. More than half of the studies (54.4%) defined broadly the urban space as “cities” or “metropolitan areas”. Around one third of the studies (32.4%) centered in areas within a city, while 13.3% of the studies focused in specific peri-urban areas or slums.

Among the quantitative studies ( n  = 55), 63% analyzed food access measures as dependent variables, 30% as nutrition outcomes, and 7% as both. As portrayed in Fig.  2 , the most common operationalization of access was through food security scales, dietary diversity indexes or scores, and through assessments of access to retail food stores. On the other hand, overweight and obesity and stunting were the most commonly assessed nutrition outcomes. Qualitative studies ( n  = 13) focused in access to healthful choices from different perspectives: about half of the papers studied aspects of food security, around one quarter focused in understanding the food environment, close to one fifth addressed issues of affordability and food supply, and one study assessed coping strategies for lack of food access.

Access measures and nutrition outcomes used as dependent variables in quantitative studies. Note: Some studies used more than one measure and/or outcome

Assessment of the quality of research

For quantitative studies, quality was assessed through three dimensions: (i) type of design, (ii) comparison group or not, and (iii) control for potential confounders (i.e. adjusted models). As summarized in Table  3 , most studies relied on cross-sectional designs (80%). The rest of the studies were a mix of geospatial analyses (9.1%), cohort and longitudinal studies (9.1%), and only one study was based on a case-control design (1.8%). About 82% of the studies had a comparison group, which was commonly operationalized as urban non-poor populations, rural poor populations, or as comparisons between different subgroups of urban poor population (i.e. differences in income within poor groups, different levels of FI, amongst others). Among studies lacking a comparison group, they were mainly cross-sectional studies [ 38 , 39 , 42 , 43 , 47 , 52 , 77 , 81 , 88 , 89 ] that intended to provide descriptions of urban poverty in terms of nutrition outcomes. Close to 70% of all quantitative studies controlled for confounders and presented adjusted models. However, none of the geospatial analyses did so [ 42 , 52 , 78 , 80 , 91 ], neither the case-control study [ 48 ]. By contrast, 75% of the cross-sectional designs [ 37 , 39 , 40 , 45 , 46 , 49 – 51 , 54 – 56 , 59 , 61 – 66 , 70 – 77 , 82 – 84 , 86 , 87 , 89 , 90 ] and all the cohort and longitudinal studies controlled for confounders [ 44 , 53 , 60 , 69 , 88 ].

Among the 13 qualitative studies included in the SLR, all showed adequate research quality (see Table  4 ). All studies were found to have an adequate theoretical approach with clear aims, and a well-established study design including sample characteristics and qualitative sampling processes. Similarly, all the studies provided a description of the data collection process, recording and transcription of study materials, the study context and participants, and addressed some potential research biases. In terms of data triangulation, which is an important validity aspect of qualitative approaches, most studies reported collecting data through different sources and linking them for purposes of analysis; the only two exceptions were the studies by Dubowitz et al. [ 97 ] and Hammelman [ 99 ]. Despite their lack of triangulation, both studies were rated as having richness in data. In fact, all studies but one were rated as having dense and rich qualitative data; with the exception of a study focusing on FI among homeless and marginally housed adults in Sydney, Australia [ 104 ]. Qualitative studies applied different data collection techniques such as in-depth interviews [ 92 , 95 , 96 , 98 , 99 , 101 , 103 , 104 ], focus groups [ 93 , 94 , 97 , 101 ], participant observation [ 95 , 101 ], open-ended questionnaires [ 102 ] and photovoice [ 100 ].

Content and thematic analysis

Given the diversity of designs, methodological and measurement approaches, instead of summarizing effect sizes or aiming at a meta-analysis, we took a qualitative thematic approach to synthesize and analyze the literature. From such perspective, four broad categories emerged: (i) elements that affect access to healthy eating in individuals in urban poverty, (ii) FI and urban poverty, (iii) risk factors for the nutritional status of urban poor and (iv) coping strategies to limited access to food.

Elements of urban poverty that affect access to healthy eating

Urban poverty exerts different pressures which lead, in many cases, to problems of access to a healthy diet that are as serious as in rural areas (Supplementary Table  4 ). One of the risk factors documented in the literature for this lack of access are the economic barriers faced by the urban poor. These studies provide evidence that healthy diets are expensive, which leads to dose-response socioeconomic inequities in food choices. For example, in urban settings budgetary restrictions in the selection of food can lead to the consumption of diets that are very low in animal protein [ 51 ], or may disrupt requirements among populations with special dietary needs [ 92 , 101 ]. Urban dwellers in the lowest income deciles, allocate a higher proportion of their family income to food consumption [ 41 , 57 ], and may find restrictions to buying healthy foods [ 93 ].

In addition, low income urban neighborhoods, tend to have less access to healthful foods, thus, linking economic constrains of the population and place of living to a magnified lack of access to healthy foods [ 78 ]. There are effects of the market structure on access to food in urban poor areas, a common finding was a lower supply of supermarkets [ 42 , 78 , 91 ] that can lead to food deserts. In addition, supermarkets in urban poor areas tend to offer less variety of healthy products (i.e. fresh produce) and oftentimes products of lower quality [ 71 ]. Such fragmented market can lead to the establishment of informal arrangements, especially in low- and middle-income countries, such as street traders and house shops that are more likely to be unstable and deregulated [ 43 , 85 ]. Corner shops are another common source to meet food demand, but this has been associated with increased consumption of ultra-processed foods and inversely associated with home meal preparation, positive beliefs and self-efficacy toward healthy food [ 55 ].

Among poor urban dwellers accessing healthier choices commonly requires “out-shopping” defined as shopping outside of your residential area, but this is limited by transportation cost and lack of public transportation access [ 42 ]. In addition, this implies additional direct costs (i.e. transportation) and opportunity cost (i.e. time spent) in food purchasing [ 99 ]. This can be an even larger barrier to access when experiencing health conditions affecting physical mobility [ 92 ].

An additional barrier faced by the urban poor is the lack of social networks that allow them to access food during difficult times. Urban studies have documented less reciprocity with food exchanges than those observed in rural areas [ 68 ].

Food insecurity and urban poverty

An important body of literature emerged documenting the relationship between FI and urban poverty. FI is defined as “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods; or the limited and uncertain capacity to acquire adequate food in socially acceptable ways” [ 105 ]. This literature was grouped into: quantitative studies that address the determinants of FI, quantitative studies that analyze how FI is associated with unfavorable nutrition outcomes among the urban poor, and qualitative studies documenting experiences of FI among urban vulnerable populations.

Determinants of FI in poor urban settings

Studies from all regions of the world informed the literature on determinants of FI in poor urban settings. Almost all studies operationalized FI through experience-based scales. Most of the studies were based on cross-sectional designs and logistic regression analysis (see Supplementary Table  5 ).

One of the main FI risk factors identified in the literature was low household income; among those living on urban and peri-urban areas, low income increased risk of FI [ 38 , 44 – 46 , 50 , 53 , 58 , 59 , 65 , 72 , 76 , 82 , 84 , 89 ]. Similarly, a study found that lower socioeconomic status and higher levels of unemployment were associated with a higher prevalence of FI [ 37 ]. Few studies focused on assets-based measures and FI. A study documented that households with inconsistent access to utilities such as electricity or water, medical care, cooking fuel and cash had a significantly higher prevalence of severe FI [ 66 ]. Another study reported that access to a personal vehicle was inversely associated with FI [ 64 ].

In addition to experience-based FI scales, one study assessed dietary diversity finding similar associations with socioeconomic status. More specifically it documented that lower income adults in urban areas consumed less varied diets and lower amounts of vitamin C, calcium, iron, riboflavin, and zinc –even when compared with their low-income counterparts in rural areas [ 75 ].

Association between FI and nutrition outcomes among vulnerable urban groups

Studies that examined the association of FI and nutrition outcomes were mainly from the Americas and Africa, and were based on cross-sectional designs but used different data analysis approaches (see Supplementary Table  6 ). The literature found that FI is a risk factor for malnutrition of the urban poor. Few studies assessed the association between FI and stunting, and did not reach consensus. While a study documented that in poor urban settlements children under 5 years of age living in FI households were at greater risk of stunting [ 69 ], others reported that FI was not significantly associated with stunting among adolescents [ 62 ].

Most of the studies assessed the relationship between FI and overweight and obesity leading to mixed findings, partially because study populations were diverse. For example, among schoolchildren living in urban FI households a higher prevalence of overweight was documented [ 73 ]. But such associations could not be confirmed among adolescents [ 56 , 61 ] or preschool children [ 79 , 87 ]. Similarly, the association also depended on the severity of the FI [ 67 ] and the syndemic effect with other factors like parental stress [ 49 , 61 ].

Qualitative approaches to FI in poor urban settings

The qualitative studies included in the systematic review were conducted mostly in poor urban areas of high-income countries. Collectively, these studies exemplify the complexity of food access challenges in urban areas and emphasize that food availability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for adequate food access as de facto it depends on other elements as well. Among poor urban older adults living alone with physical and motor limitations, as well as lack of transportation, and social isolation increase the risk of FI [ 98 ]. Among the homeless FI was related to insufficient income from government welfare programs, low affordability of fresh food, transportation barriers, lack of safe shelter and housing, and limited food storage capacity [ 94 ] [ 95 ]. In fact, challenges with access to a kitchen and inadequate spaces to store food emerged in other studies as factors increasing FI [ 104 ].

Qualitative studies focusing on mothers living in poverty in urban areas revealed specific food access and healthy eating challenges. In large Metropolitan areas, the major limitations for adequate family nutrition were limited time for food shopping and cooking, as well as finding time for family activities, childcare and difficulties in transportation to and from the food stores [ 97 ]. Another factor that emerged is that mothers prioritize food pricing and optimization of food usage when making food selections, oftentimes sacrificing quality [ 96 , 101 ]. Mothers living in poor urban settlements also referred to an unhealthy food environment in their communities due to the abundance of street vendors and food stores selling junk food [ 102 ].

The qualitative studies also documented FI related challenges faced by people who live in urban areas, like increased feelings of anxiety, worry, shame, and uncertainty [ 103 ]; and limited self-control for chronic disease, since it prevents access to proper nutrition [ 92 ]. Moreover, while social protection and food assistance programs, such as community kitchens, help by providing access to basic nutrition, are insufficient to fully resolve their FI related challenges [ 104 ].

Risk factors of the nutritional status of the urban poor

Urban poverty poses major challenges for adequate food access and nutrition outcomes among the urban poor, exposing them to nutritional risks with long-term consequences. Our systematic review identified associations between food access barriers and increased risk for poor nutrition outcomes through three different pathways. First, urban poor have an increased risk of consuming unhealthy and energy dense foods associated with a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity [ 47 , 86 ]. Second, urban poverty was found to increase the chances of chronic undernutrition, leading to higher obesity prevalence in future stages of life [ 88 ]. And third, the review suggested that psycho-social factors are important determinants of obesity through plausible biological links with stress and feelings of despair commonly experienced by people living in urban poverty [ 49 , 76 , 104 ].

Coping strategies for limited food access

An aspect that emerged from the literature refers to strategies used by the urban poor to obtain food and, among them, the use of food banks [ 68 , 92 , 98 ] and community kitchens [ 92 ] stand out. These studies found that beneficiaries considered such support strategies valuable but insufficient to fully mitigate hunger and lack of access to food, hence, families and individuals need other coping mechanisms like selling food on the streets to generate income, while at the same time have more access to food [ 54 ]. Other strategies implied skipping meals or eating smaller portions [ 103 , 104 ]. These unhealthy coping mechanisms were more prevalent among mothers, who buffer their children against FI [ 53 , 103 ]. Finally, other strategies included buying stolen food at a lower price or eating food from garbage [ 104 ].

Conceptual framework

Figure  3 presents a conceptual framework that intends to graphically depict the key themes that emerged from our literature review. At the center two key themes shape the relationship between nutrition and urban poverty: access to food and household food security status. These elements are determined by the factors summarized in the left part of the Figure, which are grouped in different ecological levels: community, family and the individual. These themes and factors help explain nutritional and health outcomes in the context of urban poverty including overweight and obesity, short stature and stunting. The conceptual framework also highlights the coping strategies used among the urban poor to deal with food access challenges as well as FI.

Conceptual Framework of nutrition and urban poverty

According to previous studies, in general, urban diets are likely to be more varied than rural diets [ 10 ]. However, this urban advantage strongly diminishes as a function of socioeconomic status representing a major social and health inequity in urban setting. In cities, food, for the most part, is bought and not grown for consumption. This implies that their access to healthy foods is strongly linked to income and to the structure of the food system, including its corresponding supply and access chains; i.e., “from farm to table”. These factors are two key determinants of the type of effective policies needed for urban populations to have access to a healthy diet [ 51 , 57 ].

The systematic literature review confirms that these determinants of food access in urban areas emerge in the context of poverty and high levels of FI of different countries [ 37 , 44 – 46 , 65 , 84 ], which are highly prevalent of poor nutrition and health outcomes [ 39 , 69 , 73 , 76 ]. Empirical evidence indeed supports the existence of a socioeconomic gradient in access to healthy food in urban areas [ 51 , 92 ]. The review emphasizes that access to food in urban areas is a complex process with multiple determinants and that it cannot be assumed that this access is always better for populations in urban vs. rural areas.

An important structural economic challenge for food access among the socioeconomically disadvantaged in urban areas is that the prices of healthy foods can be higher in poor neighborhoods, which at the same time also tend to have fewer food retail stores [ 41 , 42 ]. This is a strong structural barrier for families living in urban poverty. The structural challenges surrounding the food supply systems and markets in vulnerable urban areas means that sometimes individuals need to travel to other places to access healthy food, which increases costs (i.e. transportation) and mental stress due to the physical barriers to access food in their own communities. This adverse situation for the urban poor is compounded by problems of poor transport infrastructure as well as high community crime rates [ 42 ].

An interesting phenomenon that emerged from the literature –that in future studies may help compare challenges to food access among the urban and rural poor– is related to the nature of the social fabric and networks. Specifically, studies found that because urban networks tend to be weaker and, in the case of coping with FI, it may prevent families from “borrowing” or exchanging food with others [ 68 , 98 ].

Our review also found that urban poverty leads to increased risk of poor nutrition outcomes including stunting, overweight and obesity. Three themes that may help explain this finding emerged. First, the evidence indicates that urban environments foster a greater consumption of ultra-processed foods with high content of calories, fats, salt and sugars and very low nutritional value [ 47 , 86 ]. Likewise, studies show that lack of food-access may lead to skipping meals [ 53 , 103 , 104 ]. This is of public health concern, as it is known that prolonged fasting may predispose to unfavorable metabolic responses [ 106 , 107 ]. Finally, several articles pointed out how these experiences may be leading to mental health problems as a result of shame, and despair among those affected by FI without the ability to properly cope with it [ 76 , 104 ]. FI- related mental health stressors in turn can also increase the risk of cardiometabolic alterations and nutritional status [ 108 – 110 ]. Previous studies have established a strong plausibility for linking mental stress with the risk of overweight and obesity, mainly due to the increased release of hormones and neurotransmitters that can cause an increase in visceral adiposity and changes in the areas of the brain where hunger and satiety are regulated [ 108 – 110 ].

A substantive body of FI literature was identified. It is clear that FI in urban areas is strongly driven by income limitations. Specifically, low-income households need to allocate a high proportion of their total expenditure to food and are extremely vulnerable to any external shock including unemployment, health problems and food price inflation [ 45 , 46 , 65 , 84 ]. Similarly, the literature documented that the impact of FI on poor health is compounded by the fact that low-income urban households tend to have poor sanitation and other essential housing infrastructure and goods [ 46 ].

Given the findings from this review, it is not surprising that FI among the urban poor [ 49 , 73 , 76 ] has been associated with poor nutrition outcomes. This highlights the relevance of monitoring FI in urban populations. Food insecurity experience scales (FIES) are important in capturing this phenomenon among the urban poor, and efforts should be made to capture the different severity levels (i.e. mild, moderate, severe).

Another theme of great relevance is that social protection and food assistance programs designed to facilitate food access - such as monetary or in-kind transfer schemes, community kitchens and food banks - are insufficient by themselves to fully resolve the FI problem because they do not address barriers such as lack of cooking facilities or food storage, and competing health or housing expenses. Therefore is not surprising that socially unacceptable coping strategies, such as taking food from garbage, were reported, illustrating the depth of the negative effects of urban poverty on the right to food [ 104 ]. Interestingly, these FI coping behaviors contrast with those observed in rural areas, such as food exchanges and small family agriculture for self-consumption [ 44 , 68 ].

Urban poverty poses unique and diverse challenges and pathways to food access and the ability of families to consume healthy and nutritious diets that prevent access to healthy diets. It is possible that the nature of cities including unplanned built environments and challenging social network structures prevent low income individuals from finding strategies to cope with FI and lead to socially unacceptable behaviors to access foods.

In terms of the quality of the research examined, from a quantitative standpoint, most studies relied on cross-sectional designs, which do not allow to draw causal inferences, therefore there is a literature gap that requires further research with a longitudinal approach. While in the future more robust designs would be desirable, it should also be stressed that literature using different samples and conducted in a diverse set of countries is yielding similar conclusions in terms of the food access challenges and poor nutrition outcomes among the urban poor. However, further research needs to be conducted with more explicit comparison groups (such as urban population in very small, small, medium size cities, and metropolis) to answer the following questions: i) What is the role of social protection in terms of reducing FI for the vulnerable population? ii) Should it be continuous for some groups and intermittent for others? iii) What interventions should be put in place when food prices rise or economic conditions worsen to make sure the vulnerable are protected? iv) Should economic sanctions or incentives be put in place to induce away the demand of processed food consumption? v) What channels are more effective to assure quality access to food for the poor in urban settings? Finally, vi) What combination of policies could be recommended to be exerted together rather than in isolation?

Ideally, the proposed framework that emerge from the literature review should aid in the development of future research addressing food insecurity and nutrition outcomes in the context of urban poverty.

Furthermore, the operationalization of the definitions of “urban” and “poverty” were highly heterogenous across studies, hence, limiting the comparability of their findings. Future studies are needed to better harmonized definitions of poverty and the urban space, preferably studies should stratify samples according to the urban population size. The quality of qualitative studies was high overall, although there is room for improvement in terms of triangulation and reporting more explicit details on how data were retrieved, coded and analyzed.

In addition to the lack of uniform high quality across studies, this review has other important limitations when interpreting its findings. First, search algorithms were limited to specific nutrition outcomes that, despite being the more salient ones, might have excluded studies addressing other outcomes. Second, although FI is strongly linked to poverty, it is possible that some relevant studies that did not mention the word “poverty” but are related to disadvantages or inequalities, may have been left out from the review. Third, the review only included studies published in Spanish or English which may have led to excluding relevant literature published in other languages. Fourth, the search engines used retrieved studies in published academic journals, therefore the review may have excluded relevant studies only published in the grey literature. Fifth, the review did not conduct a meta-analysis to understand effect sizes of associations. This was not possible due to the strong heterogeneity across studies including the many different ways in which “poverty” and “urban” were defined. However, in recognition of such limitation, we performed a qualitative thematic analysis of the selected studies. Perhaps future reviews could narrow the search strategy to only studies that are more homogenous with regards to operational definitions of exposures and outcomes. Sixth, it is also important to note that mixed methods studies were excluded from the analysis due to the complexity of their systematization.

The systematic literature review evidenced the intricate link between urban poverty, food access, household food security, and nutrition. A contribution of this review is that it identified distinct barriers present in urban areas, questioned the supposedly “urban advantage” regarding access to healthful food, and developed a conceptual framework that focuses on the particular difficulties to achieve household food security among the urban poor through improved food access, which should inform future research. This systematic review provides consistent evidence that the right to food among those living in urban poverty is compromised; this is particularly worrisome considering that an urban setting is where the majority of the countries’ populations now live or will be living in the near future. It is essential that the social and public health sectors engage in addressing these issues jointly due to the complexity highlighted by the framework developed based on the available scientific evidence.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Ida Katerina García Appendini, Erika Germaine García Alberto, Alma Cecilia Pérez Navarro and Luis Alfredo Ortíz Vázquez for their thoughtful input during the developing of this manuscript. The authors also thank Marisol Silva Laya – one of the CO-PIs of the project – who always provided very useful critical insights.

Authors’ contributions

MVC defined the scope of the research subject and developed the search strategy. SBM, ALM, IFE and DF undertook the search, reviewed the literature and summarized the search findings. MVC, SBM, ALM and DF drafted the manuscript. MVC, PGR, GT and RPE provided substantial input in the design stages of the review, critically reviewed the manuscript and helped shape the final version of the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

This work was supported by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT) and the Research Office of the Iberoamericana University.

Availability of data and materials

Ethics approval and consent to participate, consent for publication, competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Urban Planning Against Poverty: How to Think and Do Better Cities in the Global South

By Jean-Claude Bolay. Springer, 2020, ISBN 9783030284190.

Joshua Kirshner (University of York) reviews this book which explores the foundations of urban planning and their suitability for application in mid-sized cities of the Global South.

In Chapter 2, ‘Urban Facts,’ Bolay makes the case for the importance of small and medium-sized cities in the Global South as ‘intermediate cities’ within wider urban networks, advocating for their centrality in global urban agendas given their strategic role in regional economies, their linking of urban and rural worlds via migration, mobility and supply chains, and their growing share of the world’s urban residents. Some interesting discussion of rural-to-urban migration flows, drawing on Bolay’s doctoral research in central Mexico, is also presented. Chapter 3, ‘Global Sustainability: How to Rethink Urban Planning,’ highlights the disjuncture between spatial planning methods fostered in developed economies and the pressing needs and aspirations of developing world cities and their residents. Such disjuncture is particularly felt among poorer urban dwellers living precariously with high levels of informality in employment, land, habitat and access to basic services (e.g. water and electricity) and the legacies of colonial planning histories.

Bolay then turns to developing three case studies: one from West Africa and two from South America, covered in Chapters 4-6. First, Koudougou (pop. 120,000), an intermediate city in Burkina Faso—one of the poorest countries in the world—offers scope to understand how these issues translate in the African urban context. The reader encounters a provincial capital whose authorities confront multiple challenges, but are unable to systematically address them due to an insufficient municipal budget and dependence on the central government and international aid agencies. Urban development thus depends less on local consultation than on donor priorities and top-down, state-led decision making. Bolay stresses the need for reinventing planning in the African context while advocating greater autonomy for local actors to decide how best to put it to useful ends.

Second, Nueve de Julio (pop. 50,000), which lies in the Argentine pampas, demonstrates new forms of social exclusion and spatial fragmentation linked to production for agro-export markets in a small-sized city with growing global connections. Founded in the 19th Century amid territorial conquest, the city typifies secondary cities in terms of its relationship to surrounding rural spaces and local-global linkages. With no long-term vision for sustainable urban development, successive municipal governments have allowed longer-term challenges to mount while addressing only the most urgent problems. As a result, it now faces runaway territorial sprawl and has a poor, poorly integrated populace. Sustainability planning is much needed, but leaders are ambivalent about embracing longer-term investments with no visible or immediate effects when local elections loom.

Montes Claros, an agglomeration of some 400,000 residents in Minas Gerais, Brazil, is the third city under study. In 2015, local authorities updated its master plan with support from universities and professional planners and technicians, but with little input or engagement with ordinary residents. Somewhere between non-existent planning (as in the Argentine example) and exogenous, top-down planning (seen in the Burkina Faso case), the Brazilian example allows us to follow an unfolding process. Faced with ongoing demographic growth and a variety of political and economic risks, the authorities are concentrating on the city centre while abandoning its peripheries. Rather than taking the opportunity to extend bottom-up participation and recognize residents’ agency in broader urban trajectories, they rely on a techno-economic approach, revealing professional biases in public administration and reinforcing socio-economic privilege and hierarchies.

Before concluding, Bolay puts in perspective the discussion of the three cases to highlight the challenges of pursuing sustainable urban development. Though enormously different in their geo-historical development, each is a lesser-known city serving as a hub for a wider region, tapping into global circulations and infrastructures, and linking surrounding rural spaces. Each faces challenges of service provision, accessibility, liveability and job creation amid rapid (and often unplanned) urban expansion, with new neighbourhoods cropping up on their outskirts.

The book is readable and accessible, integrating perspectives from the literature with the author’s own research and three decades of on-site professional experience. It would be a good addition to university courses in planning, urban studies and geography at upper-level undergraduate or masters level. Compelling photos taken by the author are interspersed, and Bolay uses some appealing phrasing, such as when he says “your breath forgets to disembark with you in El Alto airport, 4150m above sea level,” (p. 19) in recounting a visit to La Paz, Bolivia. The early chapters are wide-ranging with a wealth of empirical details, but at times unwieldy, lacking clear and succinct summaries to wrap up. A few points seem outdated, such as a mention of NAFTA on p. 21, or “the recent liberalization of international trade rules and instantaneity of telecommunications” on p. 36. Some more recent or emerging trends are neglected, including the hardening of borders and ‘de-globalization’, the use of algorithms in urban service provision and securitization, or China’s and India’s engagement in Global South cities’ infrastructure.  

A related point, Bolay’s treatment of the literature frequently relies on sources from the 1990s and 2000s in tracing the evolution of development planning, but equally in attending to current urban dynamics, especially in the framing chapters. Much contemporary, interdisciplinary urban research is overlooked, such as on urban precarity, infrastructural politics and urban sustainability transitions, off-grid cities, nature-based solutions, climate disruption, intersectionality and exclusion. To take just a few tributaries from this (transdisciplinary) river would enrich Bolay’s account of the realities in these cities while enhancing his critique of Eurocentric and technocratic planning approaches

That said, the book provides a useful synthesis that broadens our understanding of spatial planning, social integration and poverty alleviation in less-studied, mid-sized cities of economies in transition, where a growing share of humanity resides. It offers valuable insights that can inform planning practice and theoretical understandings of our increasingly urban condition.

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