By Enrica Morlicchio, Enzo Mingione and David Benassi

For much of human history, poverty was primarily a rural condition. Cities, despite their inequalities and hardships, represented opportunities: access to work, markets, services and, often, greater freedom from traditional forms of dependence. Yet as the world has become increasingly urban, poverty itself has become urbanized. 

Today, more than half of humanity lives in cities, and the fastest urban growth is taking place in Asia and Africa. Urbanization has undoubtedly contributed to economic development and has coincided with a dramatic reduction in extreme income poverty worldwide. However, this success story only tells part of the picture. The contemporary urban age has also generated new forms of inequality, exclusion and insecurity that require us to rethink how we understand poverty.

This is why urban poverty deserves renewed attention from researchers, policymakers and citizens alike.

Beyond income poverty

Discussions about poverty often focus on income. By this measure, the world has made remarkable progress over recent decades, particularly due to rapid economic growth in countries such as China and, to a lesser extent, India. Yet poverty cannot be reduced to a question of income alone.

Urban poverty is also a spatial condition. Where people live shapes their opportunities, access to services, exposure to environmental risks and chances of social mobility. Across the world, affluent groups increasingly isolate themselves in protected and well-serviced neighbourhoods, while poorer populations are concentrated in areas characterized by inadequate housing, weak infrastructure and limited employment opportunities. The spatial concentration of disadvantage has become one of the defining features of contemporary cities. Whether we look at informal settlements in Lagos, favelas in Rio de Janeiro, peripheral housing estates in European cities or segregated neighbourhoods in the United States, urban poverty is closely linked to the unequal organization of urban space. The challenge, therefore, is not only to reduce poverty but also to understand how cities themselves contribute to its reproduction.

A global phenomenon with diverse forms

Urban poverty is often discussed through concepts developed in Europe and North America. Yet some of the most important lessons now come from the Global South, where urbanization has proceeded at an unprecedented pace. Unlike the historical experience of industrializing Europe, rapid urban growth in many contemporary cities has often occurred without corresponding industrial development or comprehensive welfare systems. Millions of people have moved from rural areas into cities in search of opportunity, only to encounter insecure employment, informal housing and limited social protection.

At the same time, urban poverty does not take a single form. Its characteristics vary according to local histories, labour markets, welfare institutions and patterns of social organization. The experiences of a migrant family in Shanghai, a street vendor in Mexico City, a resident of a social housing estate in Dublin and a waste worker in Lagos cannot be reduced to a single model.

Recognizing this diversity is essential. It allows us to move beyond simplistic narratives and to appreciate the different mechanisms through which poverty is produced and maintained across urban contexts.

‘With its wide international coverage, the book offers a comparative perspective based on the dynamics of urban poverty, for example, the interactions of family income, welfare and civic protections, the everyday practices of the poor, the dynamics of dispossession, precarity in the labour market, and informal opportunities. The coverage of the book is rich, as are its arguments.’

– Ash Amin, University of Cambridge, UK

Seeing the poor as agents, not only victims

One of the most significant developments in contemporary research on urban poverty is the growing attention paid to the everyday practices through which poor populations navigate difficult circumstances. Public debate often portrays the urban poor as passive recipients of aid, sources of disorder or objects of pity. Such representations have a long history. From nineteenth-century descriptions of slum dwellers to contemporary media narratives about welfare dependency, poverty has frequently been associated with moral failure or cultural deficiency.

Yet research from cities around the world tells a different story. People living in conditions of deprivation continuously develop strategies to secure housing, generate income, care for family members and build social networks. They create informal systems of support, negotiate access to resources and, in many cases, organize collectively to defend their rights and improve their living conditions.

These practices do not eliminate poverty, nor should they be romanticized. However, they remind us that poor urban residents are not merely excluded from the city; they actively participate in shaping it. Understanding these forms of agency is crucial if we are to develop policies that strengthen rather than undermine existing social capacities.

The importance of local poverty regimes

Another reason why urban poverty remains difficult to address is that it emerges from the interaction of multiple institutions and social arrangements. 

Labour markets, family structures, welfare systems, housing regulations and community networks all influence who becomes poor and who remains vulnerable. Poverty is therefore not simply the outcome of individual circumstances. It is produced through what can be described as local “poverty regimes”: specific combinations of economic, social and political arrangements that distribute opportunities and risks unevenly.

This perspective shifts attention away from explanations that blame the poor themselves. Instead, it highlights the structural conditions that make poverty more likely for some groups than for others. In many cities, for example, low wages, insecure employment, inadequate housing provision and limited welfare protection reinforce one another. The result is a cycle of disadvantage that is difficult to escape, even for those who are employed.

Looking ahead

Urban poverty is one of the defining social challenges of the twenty-first century. It affects both advanced economies and rapidly urbanizing regions of the Global South, although in different ways. Climate change, housing crises, migration, labour market transformation and growing inequality are likely to intensify existing vulnerabilities in many cities.

At the same time, cities remain places of possibility. They are sites where collective action emerges, where new forms of solidarity develop and where struggles for inclusion and recognition take shape.

Studying urban poverty therefore requires more than measuring deprivation. It demands attention to the ways people inhabit cities, the institutions that shape their opportunities and the political conflicts that determine who has the right to urban life. As the world enters what some scholars have called the “urban century”, understanding urban poverty is no longer a specialized concern. It is essential to understand the future of society itself.

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Enrica Morlicchio is a Full Professor of Economic Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Naples Federico

Enzo Mingione is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Milano-Bicocca

David Benassi is a Full Professor of Economic Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Milano-Bicocca