"This publication presents a methodology for participative informal settlement upgrading with the support of information technology, the result of research and development activities carried out by UNCHS (Habitat) and a group of partners. Examining a number of experiences in the field, and through direct support to specific tool development activities, Habitat aims to consolidate a wealth of practical and field experiences into a methodological framework. The methodology refers to the project preparation phase, including community involvement protocols, and the information management system related to it. This methodology should be seen as a practical reference framework for programme managers and officials involved in designing and managing settlement upgrading projects and should assist policy makers and external support agencies in policy formulation and resource allocation. It will also provide a technical background to the Global Campaigns for Secure Tenure and for Good Urban Governance that UNCHS (Habitat) is launching in the year 2000"--p. 3.

While the negative effects of urban poverty are well documented, the everyday experiences of urban residents are often absent or secondary in urban studies research. The Cost of Being Poor rectifies this problem by examining both the noneconomic and the often-overlooked economic costs faced by residents of poor urban neighborhoods in Gary, Indiana. Using census, regional, and local data, and in-depth interviews with the residents of Gary, Sandra L. Barnes argues that many people incur costs resulting from the dual dilemma of being poor and residing in a poor urban area. She explores how factors such as race/ethnicity, neighborhood type, and location influence residents' views, coping strategies, and unconventional approaches toward making ends meet. Well written and accessible, this study of Gary's poor urban neighborhoods offers broad findings that apply to other similarly impoverished Rust Belt cities.

Wilson, one of our foremost authorities on race and poverty, challenges decades of liberal and conservative pieties to look squarely at the devastating effects that joblessness has had on our urban ghettos. Marshaling a vast array of data and the personal stories of hundreds of men and women, Wilson persuasively argues that problems endemic to America's inner cities--from fatherless households to drugs and violent crime--stem directly from the disappearance of blue-collar jobs in the wake of a globalized economy. Wilson's achievement is to portray this crisis as one that affects all Americans, and to propose solutions whose benefits would be felt across our society. At a time when welfare is ending and our country's racial dialectic is more strained than ever, When Work Disappears is a sane, courageous, and desperately important work. "Wilson is the keenest liberal analyst of the most perplexing of all American problems...[This book is] more ambitious and more accessible than anything he has done before." --The New Yorker

In this revelatory book, Sudhir Venkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside, to explore the desperate, dangerous, and remarkable ways in which a community survives. We find there an entire world of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work, a system of living off the books that is daily life in the ghetto. From women who clean houses and prepare lunches for the local hospital to small-scale entrepreneurs like the mechanic who works in an alley; from the preacher who provides mediation services to the salon owner who rents her store out for gambling parties; and from street vendors hawking socks and incense to the drug dealing and extortion of the local gang, we come to see how these activities form the backbone of the ghetto economy. What emerges are the innumerable ways that these men and women, immersed in their shadowy economic pursuits, are connected to and reliant upon one another. The underground economy, as Venkatesh’s subtle storytelling reveals, functions as an intricate web, and in the strength of its strands lie the fates of many Maquis Park residents. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, and a rich portrait of a community. But while excavating the efforts of men and women to generate a basic livelihood for themselves and their families, Off the Books offers a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America, and reveals how the underground economy is an inevitable response to the ghetto’s appalling isolation from the rest of the country.

The contributors respond to the absence of critical debate surrounding the ways in which spaces of the city do not merely contain, but also constitute, urban poverty. The volume explores how the spaces of the city actively produce and reproduce urban poverty.

"In recent years an extensive body of literature has emerged on the definition, measurement, and analysis of poverty. Much of this literature focuses on analyzing poverty at the national level, or spatial disaggregation by general categories of urban or rural areas, with adjustments made for regional price differentials. Yet for an individual city attempting to tackle the problems of urban poverty, this level of aggregation is not sufficient for answering specific questions such as where the poor are located in the city, whether there are differences between poor areas, if access to services varies by subgroup, whether specific programs are reaching the poorest, and how to design effective poverty reduction programs and policies. Answering these questions is critical, particularly for large, sprawling cities with highly diverse populations and growing problems of urban poverty. Understanding urban poverty presents a set of issues distinct from general poverty analysis and thus may require additional tools and techniques. Baker and Schuler summarize the main issues in conducting urban poverty analysis, with a focus on presenting a sample of case studies from urban areas that were implemented by a number of different agencies using a range of analytical approaches for studying urban poverty. Specific conclusions regarding design and analysis, data, timing, cost, and implementation issues are discussed. This paper-a product of the Urban Unit, Transport and Urban Development Department-is part of a larger effort in the department to promote strategies for reducing urban poverty"--World Bank web site.