Urban Poverty: An Introduction

Poverty is best defined with reference to the best definition available on obscenity: “I know it when I see it” was the cryptic definition of a US Supreme Court Justice adjudicating in an obscenity case in the mid-seventies. There is no agreement on a definition of urban poverty. A variety of ways to define urban poverty is available. Each has its own strengths and deficiencies. There are two broadly corresponding approaches that are ubiquitous in current researches; firstly, economic interpretations and secondly anthropological interpretations. Conventional, economic definitions draw on income or consumption, complemented by a range of other social variables, whereas alternative interpretations developed largely by rural anthropologists and social planners working with rural communities in the third world, allow for local variation in the meaning of poverty, and expand the definition to encompass perceptions of non-material deprivation and social differentiation. Urban poverty is not necessarily an indication of economic failures. Nor internal migration is a major variable to explain urban poverty. Urban conditions cannot be generalized across types of urban areas but poor urban governance and inappropriate policy frameworks contribute to the vulnerability of the urban poor. Different needs and levels and types of vulnerability exist among the urban poor. Urban poverty is often characterized by cumulative deprivations. It is a multi-dimensional concept and each dimension is a cause and result of another dimension.