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The enormous ensembles of energy resources have elevated Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) to a prominent position in the world energy scene as a leading region in forming a sustainable energy future. However, over half of the population in the region lives without electricity and less than 20% of the population has access to clean fuels. The excessive reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, kerosene, and solid biomass has implications for environmental outcomes in SSA. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of energy poverty from the SSA perspective remains an under‐explored terrain in the research landscape. In this context, to address the pressing challenges of energy poverty and environmental sustainability, this study aims to explore the threat energy poverty poses on the ecological footprints, focusing on “land‐use, carbon footprint, forestry resources, and fishing ground” across 35 SSA countries using disaggregated data covering the period 2000 and 2021. This study employs the novel Method of the Moments Quantile Regression following the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology model as the reference theoretical and analytical framework. The findings disclose heterogeneous effects of rural and urban energy poverty on ecological footprint items. When comparing the magnitudes, we found that rural energy poverty has a more detrimental impact on land‐use than urban energy poverty. Energy poverty is found to have no reliable power to explain the variation in carbon footprint and fishing ground. In the meantime, urban energy poverty exerts a positive effect on forestry resource sustainability. Surprisingly, population density is found to have a significant and desirable impact on land‐use. Based on the obtained results, numerous policy suggestions have been discussed along with some prospects for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self‐employed individuals faced numerous challenges amid the global health and economic crisis that was the COVID‐19 pandemic. Similarly, rural and urban workers faced different challenges during the pandemic. This rural–urban disparity further complicates the impacts of self‐employment and exacerbates inequalities resulting from gender, race, ethnicity, or immigration status. This study examines the economic consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic across these categories in the United States using Current Population Survey data from May 2020 to May 2022. Comparing the wage and self‐employment sectors across rural and urban areas, I examine the effects of individual, business, and geographic characteristics on the probability of work stoppages due to the health crisis. The analysis reveals that recovery from the pandemic was delayed among the self‐employed, while additional education and full‐time employment status can reduce work interruptions for these workers, as does working in select industries. Findings suggest that rural and urban minorities are more likely to face pandemic‐related work disruptions, with key differences between formal and informal self‐employment sectors. Specifically, self‐employed Asians/Pacific Islanders and Native Americans were more adversely affected in rural areas. The study concludes with several policy and program recommendations to assist vulnerable workers, especially in the rural self‐employment sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self‐employed individuals faced numerous challenges amid the global health and economic crisis that was the COVID‐19 pandemic. Similarly, rural and urban workers faced different challenges during the pandemic. This rural–urban disparity further complicates the impacts of self‐employment and exacerbates inequalities resulting from gender, race, ethnicity, or immigration status. This study examines the economic consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic across these categories in the United States using Current Population Survey data from May 2020 to May 2022. Comparing the wage and self‐employment sectors across rural and urban areas, I examine the effects of individual, business, and geographic characteristics on the probability of work stoppages due to the health crisis. The analysis reveals that recovery from the pandemic was delayed among the self‐employed, while additional education and full‐time employment status can reduce work interruptions for these workers, as does working in select industries. Findings suggest that rural and urban minorities are more likely to face pandemic‐related work disruptions, with key differences between formal and informal self‐employment sectors. Specifically, self‐employed Asians/Pacific Islanders and Native Americans were more adversely affected in rural areas. The study concludes with several policy and program recommendations to assist vulnerable workers, especially in the rural self‐employment sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the urban fabric of Lagos is being transformed by neo‐Pentecostal forms of Christian religiosity—a transformation not only of inner, 'private' lives but also of urban infrastructures and their provision. Neo‐Pentecostal churches in Lagos now provide a range of infrastructures such as roads, bridges, electricity, water, healthcare, plus banking and educational facilities as well as a range of residential options. Church emblems are common features of the Lagos streetscape and can be found on buildings, vehicles and advertisement hoardings. In addition to their symbolic, moral and aesthetic register, Pentecostal urban infrastructures can be understood as a response to the crisis of social reproduction in Lagos, within the context of a postcolonial state that has adopted a position of entrenched neoliberalism. Critical questions remain, however, regarding whose interests are served by this arrangement. The article aims to understand (1) the ontological status of neo‐Pentecostal infrastructures, taking seriously the production and delivery of material infrastructures that are understood by some users to also be spiritual; and (2) the novel relations between church, state, market and citizen articulated by these infrastructures. Our arguments are based on qualitative data collected in Lagos between 2018 and 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies concerned with how local states govern the urban poor have long focused on the state's attempts to control, criminalise and exclude individuals from public spaces. Researchers recently shifted this focus; they increasingly engage with organisations and front‐line practices relating to care. Underlying these analyses is the question of how urban governance rubs off on front‐line work and conditions for the urban poor. In their research, scholars rarely study through which organisational mechanisms front‐line workers and clients encounter each other. This article addresses 112 calls issued for unhoused individuals by third parties in Urgencity, a city in Germany. It sheds light on institutional and everyday logics that regularly bring third parties, emergency care front‐line workers and marginalised clients into contact. These calls often blur boundaries of illness and poverty and care and control and result in clients' circulation in emergency care: an urban impasse for front‐line workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing the urban poor is a prevalent challenge in developing economies, regardless of the research attention and policy interventions over the years. It becomes essential to employ innovative approaches in investigating the challenge of affordable housing (AH) provision to achieve effective AH provision in developing economies. It is pragmatic to thoroughly explore expert solutions to the difficult task of housing the urban poor. To achieve this, focus group discussion and semi‐structured interviews with housing experts in Nigeria were conducted in this study. The recordings were transcribed and analysed using NVivo; following descriptive, content and thematic analyses of data we found that deliberate government policies to include the urban poor are the most significant housing solutions consistent across the entire housing supply value chain (HSVC). Major findings are that mainstreaming the use of alternative housing construction materials and strategies, deliberate finance models to target the urban poor and deliberate reservation of some urban land for housing the urban poor are strategies that will enhance AH provision. These are insights into critical solutions to AH constraints and are informative for effective AH provision for the urban poor in Nigeria; an essential ingredient for sustainable development goals. This study is first to explore experts' opinions in relation to HSVC to showcase significant solutions to AH provision challenges. Data from this study are essential for future pro‐poor housing studies. Recommendations are that AH interventions should be informed by research for more effective and sustainable results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined teacher competence and contextual factors associated with teacher‐reported stress in low‐income urban elementary schools. Using a sample of 106K‐5th grade teachers from 14 low‐income urban elementary schools, associations between observed use of instructional and behavior management practices, teacher‐reported stress, perceived instrumental and emotional supports, class‐wide student academic performance, and behavioral functioning were examined. Teacher‐reported stress was significantly related to perceived emotional support, instrumental support, class‐wide student academic performance, and class‐wide student behavioral functioning. Instrumental and emotional supports, observed instructional and behavioral management practices, and class‐wide student academic and behavioral functioning jointly predicted teacher stress. Results from a dominance analysis identified class‐wide behavioral functioning, and emotional and instrumental support as the strongest predictors of teacher stress. Study limitations and implications for research and practice are discussed. Practitioner points: Sources of work‐related stress rated most highly by teachers included student performance on standardized tests, teaching, student learning, student engagement, and behavior problems.The strongest predictors of teacher stress were student behavioral functioning, teacher perceived emotional and instrumental support.No relationship was found between teacher stress and instructional/behavioral classroom practices. Impact Statement: Class‐wide student behavioral functioning, teacher‐reported emotional and instrumental supports are found to predict teacher stress in low‐income elementary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: Child streetism, a concept that describes the desperate situations of children working, living, or surviving on the street, is a complex phenomenon and one of the challenges posed by urban poverty worldwide. Purpose: The increased study of street children in Nigerian urban centres over the last 10 years has seen the accumulation of evidence underpin new policies to address this worldwide problem. This article summarizes the determinants of child streetism, the risks associated with it (violence, street gangsterism, drugs and substance abuse), and the intervention policies and programmes for street children in Nigeria. Methods and approach: The article is based on a textual narrative synthesis analysis of the relevant literature published between 2012 and 2023. Findings: Analysis of the literature shows that street children engage in harmful and risky behaviours and are caught in a cycle of abuse and poverty. Interventions to help street children are generally hampered by a lack of understanding of the causes, impacts, situations, and general characteristics. The literature suggests that the most successful interventions typically capitalize on people's strengths, incorporate elements of participation, self‐help, and mutual support, and take the least stigmatizing approach. Policy implications: Child streetism is an expression of a complicated web of determinants that require structural solutions. Any policy addressing the problem of child streetism must consider the phenomenon as a product of several complex and interrelated factors. Of these, uncontrolled urbanization, poor urban planning and management, and poverty are the most obvious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a mixed‐methods approach and primary data to consider how the length of the working day in Ghana's Greater Accra Metropolitan Area is shaped by time in paid and unpaid work and commuting. The analysis investigates gender differences in the length of the working day and the incidence of time poverty, and explores the relationship between long working days, long and arduous commutes and well‐being. Women are found to be more time poor, and their longer hours of unpaid household caregiving and chores and more difficult commutes have consequences for their leisure time, family–life and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I aim to shed light on boat dwelling as an increasingly popular housing practice in the UK. I investigate the changing nature of this practice in times of housing crisis and of the connection between formal and informal approaches, and discuss how decentralized urban actors influence and safeguard their visions of housing. My investigation concentrates on three intertwined strategies boaters in Oxford use to deal with growing regularization and commodification pressures: (non)compliance, formalization and staying under the radar. My findings challenge several assumptions about housing informality in the global North and document the diverse trajectories that informal processes may take. My analysis reveals that informal and semi‐formal solutions are not simply 'tolerated' or 'overlooked' by the state, but co‐produced by urban dwellers through a repertoire of everyday actions and ad hoc advocacy approaches. The construction of specific trajectories of informal housing emerges at the interface of complex agendas and attitudes that go beyond the generalized roles attributed to the key urban sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myanmar experienced multiple COVID shocks as well as a military takeover in February 2021. Impacts on household poverty remain uncertain, however, because large‐scale in‐person surveys were impossible during the pandemic and heightened internal conflict. We use ex ante simulation models and phone survey evidence to estimate the poverty effects of these shocks and identify factors correlated with them. While each approach has limitations, and cannot explicitly validate each other, they both indicate rising rural and urban poverty and capital‐depleting coping mechanisms. Wider use of simulation modeling could help mobilize social protection faster than waiting for survey results in emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines an incident of fire in a squatter settlement in Delhi to understand the interaction between the urban poor and the state. Following the incident, the Delhi government undertook different welfare measures for the affected residents. These included immediate relief in the form of temporary tents for the families, a proposal to build proper houses for them, and compensation checks as direct monetary support. The empirical materials presented in this article show how state interventions tend to suffer from deficiencies of knowledge, trust, and bureaucratic effectiveness. Thus, they do not commensurate with the apparent intentions behind them. Each of these welfare measures engendered an entanglement of the urban poor in the state that affects their relationship to the law, urban space, the local economy, and bureaucratic structures. Analyzing the unfolding of the everyday state on the ground, I suggest that a squatter settlement's dynamic and entangled relationships with the state make it a unique site for analysis of the state from an urban perspective. Critical interpretations of their interactions and the discourses they engender are key ethnographic resources for understanding the dynamics of inequality in contemporary cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the incidence of financial institutions' dynamics of depth and access in the effect of income inequality on poverty and the severity of poverty in 42 sub‐Saharan African countries from 1980 to 2019. The Gini index is used to measure income inequality while poverty is measured as the poverty headcount ratio, and the severity of poverty is generated as the square of the poverty gap index. An interactive quantile regression approach is used as an empirical strategy. Income inequality unconditionally increases poverty dynamics while the financial institutions' depth and access mitigate the adverse effects of income inequality on poverty dynamics. Financial institutions' policy thresholds or minimum financial institution levels needed to completely dampen the adverse effects of income inequality on poverty dynamics are provided. The findings are contingent on existing levels of poverty, poverty measurement, and proxies for financial institutions. Policy implications are discussed. Related Articles: Abdulai, Abdul‐Gafaru, Justice Nyigmah Bawole, and Emmanuel Kojo Sakyi. 2018. "Rethinking Persistent Poverty in Northern Ghana: The Primacy of Policy and Politics over Geography." Politics & Policy 46(2): 233–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12250. Adegboye, Alex, Kofo Adegboye, Uwalomwa Uwuigbe, Stephen Ojeka, and Eyitemi Fasanu. 2023. "Taxation, Democracy, and Inequality in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Relevant Linkages for Sustainable Development Goals." Politics & Policy 51(4): 696–722. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12547. Nchofoung, Tii, Simplice Asongu, Vanessa Tchamyou, and Ofeh Edoh. 2022. "Gender, Political Inclusion, and Democracy in Africa: Some Empirical Evidence." Politics & Policy 51(1): 137–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12505. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource scarcity is a powerful construct in social sciences. However, explanations about how resources influence overall wellbeing are difficult to generalize since much of the research on scarcity focuses on relatively affluent marketplace conditions, limiting its usefulness to large segments of the global population living in poverty. Conversely, poverty research provides cultural insights into resource deprivation, yet it stops short of explaining the systematic variation of scarce resources among impoverished individuals. To bridge these intellectual silos and advance a deeper understanding of scarcity, we integrate resource scarcity research, which builds upon a psychological tradition to understand various forms of everyday deprivation, with poverty research, which builds upon a sociological tradition to understand extreme and enduring deprivation. We propose a novel framework that integrates the concept of consumption adequacy and clarifies resource scarcity's forms, intensity, duration, and dynamic trajectories. We leverage this framework to generate a research agenda, and we propose ways to stimulate dialog among scarcity and poverty scholars, policymakers, and organizations to help inform impoverished life circumstances and generate effective solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reciprocity and negativity in social relationships are fundamental topics of social research rarely examined in sub‐Saharan Africa. Since the number and quality of relationships is associated with individual outcomes, these ties are particularly important in impoverished areas. We conducted a multi‐method study of the conditions associated with problematic networks and difficult people, including face‐to‐face surveys in Agbogbloshie (Accra, Ghana) and Kangemi (Nairobi, Kenya). While one quarter of all relationships were perceived to be difficult, results reveal significant differences between the two communities in terms of the composition of personal networks and the factors associated with difficulty at both relational and network levels of analysis. Kenyan networks are more difficult when there is an imbalance of assistance provided by the respondent (exploitation), while any imbalance (inequality) is problematic in Ghanaian networks. These findings underscore the importance of independent analyses of negative ties and difficult networks, contributing to a community‐based understanding of poverty in urban slums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During research conducted in the summer of 2020, I observed the advanced marginality of the refugees in Ankara, Turkey. While some authors have examined this precarity, and some others have examined how refugees have begun to live in a spatially distinct section of certain cities, the combination of these two phenomena demands further investigation. If the underpinning truly is spatial as claimed by Lefebvre (The production of space. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991), then the precarious subject and the precarious space co‐produce each other. What this paper intends to do is to combine space and precarity using the observations of Wacquant (Urban poverty and the underclass: a reader. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996, Urban Studies, 2016, 53, 1077) in his various analyses on the ghetto in France and the United States. In Wacquant's work, we can begin to see a spatial conception of precarity, and we can further extend this to the point that as space is a production and its subjects are also a co‐constitution of that space. Nevertheless, Sampson (Ethnic & Racial Studies, 2014, 37, 1732) points out a certain state centrism in Wacquant's analysis. Building upon this, as well as the work of Roy (International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2011, 35, 223 and Territories of poverty: rethinking north and south. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015), we can offer the refugee neighbourhood in Ankara as an example of "bottom‐up" agency, alternative to Wacquant's original state‐centric analysis. In the course of this paper, this possibility of a "bottom‐up" refugee solidarity and related refugee space will be analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cities in the global South, internally displaced persons (IDPs) often end up in marginalized places created by uneven processes of urbanization. While IDPs experience similar disadvantages to the urban poor living in these places, they face additional vulnerabilities related to their displacement. Building on insights from urban studies and forced migration studies, we argue in this article that a multidimensional understanding of urban marginality is a useful analytical lens with which to examine the conditions of urban IDPs. Based on multi‐sited ethnographic research in Kersa and Sululta IDP settlements of Ethiopia, this study reveals how IDPs experience similar spatial, social and symbolic marginality in different urban contexts. Our findings show the relational manifestation of segregation, social distance and stigmatization that impede IDPs' access to urban space and services. This study also highlights how these dimensions of marginality interact and reproduce an additional layer of marginality. Our research suggests the need for inclusive urban governance in which IDPs contribute to and benefit from urbanization as citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the contours of modernization in the unmaking and remaking of homes among evicted and resettled families in highrise housing. We examine the trajectories of forced eviction by drawing upon interviews with 17 individuals from nine evicted families who have transitioned from living in informal settlements to highrise social housing (rusunawa) in Jakarta. Drawing on two strands of literature—'developmental idealism and the family' from population studies and the critical geographies of 'homemaking'—we argue that the demolition of houses is but an initial event in a long, quiet and subtle, yet profoundly defining, process of 'upgrading' families as part of 'improving' society, according to developmental logic. The disciplining of the urban poor does not end with the demolition of their houses, but rather continues as part of the fulfilment of shelter. This article attends to the slow unravelling of home hidden and embedded in post‐eviction everyday lives, which are often overlooked because of the overt and violent brutality of forced eviction. While eviction can be seen as the violent visual expression of developmentalism, we argue that the relocation in rusunawa is where this ideal permeates into daily domestic life, making mundane activities a battleground for different ideals of 'home'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To claim welfare entitlements, the residents challenge state enumeration procedures and carry out a multitude of documentary and inscriptive struggles in the city. Such "numerical strength" is also evident in Old Fadama, Accra, Ghana, where resident population numbers became highly contentious between residents and state officials, with community-led enumeration counting 2.5 times official figures (Farouk & Owusu, [8]). If the state agencies defer in issuing proper documents, the poor interrogate the politics of deferral and the dilatory tactics of the state by filing applications under the ambit of the Right to Information policy. The diverse research sites offer the opportunity to explore some of the similarities and differences among the various tactics that residents adopt to navigate their precarious living conditions and engage with state authorities. [Extracted from the article]

Sound exerts wide‐ranging influence on humans. The quality of that influence depends on the sound source and context in which it is perceived, but nature sounds are generally preferred by people and associated with health and well‐being benefits.In many environments, sounds are highly mixed giving rise to a multi‐source 'soundscape' that may vary through days or seasons. The complex and dynamic nature of soundscapes makes them challenging to quantify or classify to rigorously compare them and their contributing sources quantitatively through space and time.We address this challenge by developing an analytical procedure resulting in a generalized soundscape classification framework that (i) elucidates dominant sound sources (e.g. biophony vs. anthrophony) and (ii) can be used to improve our understanding of spatial and temporal variation in soundscapes across different contexts.We also address a knowledge gap in urban sound research by describing the soundscapes of urban informal settlements in Fiji and Indonesia. Despite the growing emphasis on improving the physical design and quality of life in urban informal settlements, little is known about soundscapes in these settings or their relationship to human health and well‐being.We identified seven soundscape classes representing relative dominance by (i) sustained geophony, biophony dominated by (ii) insect stridulation or (iii) bird song, anthrophony dominated by (iv) machines, (v) vehicles, (vi) human voices or (vii) a mixture of the former. These classes were applicable in both Indonesia and Fiji but differed in their prevalence between the countries, times of day and seasons in expected ways. Future automatic sorting of new sound data into this classification framework is provided by a supervised classification model that attained an overall testing accuracy of 94% and Cohen's kappa of 0.93.Our procedure yields broadly applicable, informative soundscape classes indicative of dominant sound sources, including natural sounds, that are known to have different effects on human health. Therefore, our soundscape classification framework can be used in conjunction with health, well‐being, or economic data, to aid the development, assessment and scaling of sustainable design solutions for liveable cities and especially for improving urban informal settlement environments. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban transformation in Turkey, ranging in scale from gigantic infrastructural investments to small property‐redevelopment ventures, has posed one of the most puzzling questions for scholars and activists: Why do the urban poor, despite being the most vulnerable to such projects, continue to partake in the populist mobilization around the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)? Grounded in an analysis of how neoliberal assemblages are entangled with urban land markets at the margins of Istanbul, I argue that neoliberal policies are not necessarily implicated in the prevalence of depoliticized individuals, conceptually framed as homo oeconomicus, but can also serve to create a fertile environment for populist mobilization. The partisans and sympathizers of the AKP find that their social and political activities, from neighborhood organizations to single‐party hegemony in the parliament, are inherently inseparable from economic values. At this nexus between populist politics and economic forces, global capital emerges as a salient interlocutor that interfaces with political developments and social characteristics, having various predispositions and predilections—an actor whose miraculous powers can be unleashed and destructive tendencies controlled only through collective political mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confraternities were a vital part of early modern Catholicism, and their records provide a unique vantage point from which to view the religious lives of the laity. In I Charity for and by the Poor i , Laura Dierksmeier compellingly inserts the Franciscan-Indigenous confraternities of early modern Mexico into the rich field of confraternity studies. The book presents these Franciscan-Indigenous confraternities as egalitarian sites: women and men, rich and poor, indigenous, creole and Afro-Mexican interacted in these confraternities on a relatively level field. [Extracted from the article]

Urban vacant lots (VLs) can harbour a large number of rare and endangered species. In the present study, we evaluated species composition and biodiversity of plant communities inhabiting VLs in the City of Mashhad, northeastern Iran. We used a line transect sampling method to sample 98 random VLs along different districts of the City. We classified VLs based on their species composition and environmental factors. Then, a significant difference in the community composition along with the dominant and indicator species of clusters was evaluated. Also, we compared species and phylogenetic diversities of clusters. We identified four clusters. The species composition of the four clusters was different. One cluster (i.e., D912) had more range‐restricted species than the other clusters. This cluster also had a higher species and phylogenetic diversity than the others. Two clusters had the lowest phylogenetic diversity in comparison with the others. Our results implied that income distribution in the city had indirect effects on plant communities of VLs. Vegetation of VLs in areas with higher average income was less damaged than that of the lower‐income areas. Because of its most diverse and range‐restricted plants, the D912 cluster should be managed to maintain the biodiversity in the city. Land use change to parks or urban agricultural lands is suggested for degraded and species‐poor VLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban foraging is a global informal phenomenon which has been investigated in the Global North more than other parts of the world. Characterising the nature of urban foraging in the Global South is imperative given the rapid urbanisation and sustainable development priorities in the region.In this study, we interviewed 80 urban foragers in four cities in the eastern coastal region of South Africa, with an aim to understand the nature of urban foraging in a developing nation context. We asked foragers about their initiation to and motivations for foraging, their logistics, yields and associated activities, descriptions of their foraging grounds, and if and how they had changed, and what they envisage as an ideal future for foraging.Many foragers started foraging in their childhood, in the company of friends and family, and, as in the Global North, regarded it as a cultural and recreational activity. Foraging was mostly done within a 5‐km radius of home, on a weekly or fortnightly basis, and very few foragers processed or sold their foraged products.Unlike the Global North, formal green spaces were not foraged in, and were perceived to be poorly provisioned in urban planning. Forests and roadsides were equally used by the foragers, and very few had been discouraged from foraging. Most foragers were enthusiastic about the possibility of more people foraging, having designated spaces for foraging, and foraging‐based businesses such as processed products and ecotourism.We recommend that policymakers and land managers recognise and encourage foraging as a potentially sustainable use for stewardship of urban green spaces. To this end, we list the main wild edible fruit species used by foragers in the area, which could be planted in public spaces. We also suggest harnessing foragers' knowledge of useful species and spaces to develop green spaces and foraging‐based supply chains. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I analyze the participation of economic patrons or gamonales in processes of city building. Like clientelistic leaders, local 'big men' can partake in the transformation of the living conditions of the urban poor. These individuals show an extraordinary capacity for transforming cities, their built environments and social and political infrastructures, especially in small and rapidly growing cities located in the peripheries of nation‐building projects. In my research I explore the case of one patron in Granada, a rapidly urbanizing city in Colombia that received many forced migrants between 1990 and 2010, to reveal a new way in which city building and patron–client relationships co‐evolve and are constituted within a space of intimate interactions between landed property and urban real estate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty reduction in low‐ and middle‐income countries is increasingly an urban challenge, and a challenge that continues to be constrained by lack of data, including data on the spatial distribution of poverty within cities. Utilizing existing household survey data in combination with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) applied to high‐resolution satellite images of cities, this study shows that existing data can generate detailed neighborhood‐level maps providing key targeting information for an anti‐poverty program. The approach is highly automatic, applicable at scale, and cost‐effective. The method also provides direct support for policy development, as illustrated by the case study, where the Government of Mozambique is implementing an urban social safety net program, targeting poor urban neighborhoods, utilizing the estimated poverty maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Billions of people live in urban poverty, with many forced to reside in disaster‐prone areas. Research suggests that such disasters harm child nutrition and increase adult morbidity. However, little is known about impacts on mental health, particularly of people living in slums. In this paper we estimate the effects of flood disasters on the mental and physical health of poor adults and children in urban Indonesia. Our data come from the Indonesia Family Life Survey and new surveys of informal settlement residents. We find that urban poor populations experience increases in acute morbidities and depressive symptoms following floods, that the negative mental health effects last longer, and that the urban wealthy show no health effects from flood exposure. Further analysis suggests that worse economic outcomes may be partly responsible. Overall, the results provide a more nuanced understanding of the morbidities experienced by populations most vulnerable to increased disaster occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon three years of ethnographic research conducted in drug and alcohol recovery houses and treatment centers in Philadelphia, this article argues that attending to the practice of informality in the subproletariat and precarious working classes of the postindustrial US city helps elucidate the twinned legacies of informality and surveillance in racialized US urban poverty. To do so, it recuperates Bourdieu's practice theory with the invigorating insights of Black studies on the historic legacies of racializing surveillance to theorize the practice of informality in the postindustrial US city. Ultimately, the article argues that informal practice offers a space of concealment forged through the evasion and countersurveillance of racializing surveillance in the postindustrial US city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration is an essential livelihood strategy in rapidly developing, low‐income contexts. However, this article seeks to analyze occupation choices and the struggle for livelihood among laborers. This study carried out both secondary and primary data; the primary survey was conducted in the Udupi district of Karnataka. Detailed information was gathered from both individual and household levels. According to National Sample Survey data, construction offers the main occupation for short duration migrants, absorbing 36.2% of total short duration migration. However, the field survey findings indicated that at the destination, the construction sector migrants are more vulnerable and struggle for their lives and livelihood in the urban labor segments—poverty and rural unemployment a significant reasons to push the laborers into the construction segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has had negative impacts on vulnerable populations worldwide. This study aimed to examine the association between the health worries of urban older people in Thailand and covariates related to income and non‐income poverty, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and metabolic risk factors (MRFs). The study utilized the 2021 Survey on Housing and Support Services for Poor Older Adults, which sampled lower‐income urban adults aged at least 55 years from five national regions. Bivariate analyses were performed to determine the relationships of NCDs and MRFs with the covariates. Then, binary logistic regression was used to analyze outcomes of perceived health risks including becoming infected with COVID‐19, declining health status, and being unable to access health care. Higher educational attainment and income levels were observed to be negatively correlated with worse health status and the inability to access health care. Subjective household crowding consistently had a positive association with the three health concerns. Having MRFs was related only to concerns about health status and access to health care during the pandemic. Welfare and health policies need to improve their responsiveness to the needs of the older population, especially for protection from socioeconomic shocks such as those seen with the current pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ghana and South Africa proactively implemented lockdowns very early in the pandemic. We analyze a three‐wave panel of households in Accra and Greater Johannesburg to study the mental and economic well‐being of the urban poor between the COVID‐19 lockdown and the "new normal" one year later. We find that even if economic well‐being has mostly recovered, life satisfaction has only improved slightly and feelings of depression are again at lockdown levels one year into the pandemic. While economic factors are strongly correlated with mental health and explain the differences in mental health between South Africa and Ghana, increasing worries about the future and limited knowledge about the pandemic (both countries) as well as deteriorating physical health (South Africa) and trust in government (Ghana) explain why mental health has not recovered. Therefore, we need broad and country‐specific policies, beyond financial support, to accelerate the post‐pandemic recovery of the urban poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing First is a hegemonic model of homeless services that advocates immediate placement in permanent supportive housing without preconditions such as sobriety, treatment, or employment. Federal authorities in the United States have adopted Housing First as a governmentality to make social investments through homeless policy. Although research has examined logics that federal authorities used to make this social investment, sociologists have devoted little attention to techniques that frontline workers use to yield returns on social investment in neoliberal cities. This knowledge gap hinders sociologists from theorizing contemporary urban poverty governance. I make three contributions that address this shortcoming. First, I present a unique qualitative analysis that examines techniques that Housing First providers in a U.S. Rust Belt county use to select a lease configuration for their clients. Second, I expand the definition of economization to incorporate logics that Housing First providers use to estimate transaction costs they will confront while mediating rental market exchanges with a particular lease configuration. Third, I demonstrate, unlike federal policymakers who economize homeless populations as public expenditures to make social investments, service providers economize homeless individuals as transaction costs to yield returns on Housing First in urban communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calculates poverty and inequality elasticities using the latest‐available World Bank primary survey household consumption expenditure data for the rapidly growing urban sectors of India, Indonesia, and China. Our approach compares the conventional use of the overly simple headcount measure to the poverty gap squared (PG2) measures of poverty and focuses the effectiveness of reducing inequality on the disutility of the poor using a microeconomic utility‐based point elasticity measure of poverty loss. The calculations show that reducing urban inequality is more effective in reducing (1) urban poverty than promoting growth and (2) poverty distress more than that in the rural sector. The optimal policy prescription is to reduce urban inequality by targeting the urban very poor using the PG2 measure. Further research is required to identify and quantify the determinants of the point elasticity magnitudes and the possible directions of causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: One path to improving weight management may be to lessen the self‐control burden of physical activity and healthier food choices. Opportunities to lessen the self‐control burden might be uncovered by assessing the spatiotemporal experiences of individuals in daily context. This report aims to describe the time, place, and social context of eating and drinking and 6‐month weight change among 209 midlife women (n = 113 African–American) with obesity receiving safety‐net primary care. Methods: Participants completed baseline and 6‐month weight measures, observations and interviews regarding obesogenic cues in the home environment, and up to 12 ecological momentary assessments (EMA) per day for 30 days inquiring about location, social context, and eating and drinking. Results: Home was the most common location (62%) at times of EMA notifications. Participants reported "yes" to eating or drinking at the time of nearly one in three (31.1% ± 13.2%) EMA notifications. Regarding social situations, being alone was significantly associated with less frequent eating and drinking (OR = 0.75) unless at work in which case being alone was significantly associated with a greater frequency of eating or drinking (OR = 1.43). At work, eating was most common late at night, whereas at home eating was most frequent in the afternoon and evening hours. However, eating and drinking frequency was not associated with 6‐month weight change. Conclusions: Home and work locations, time of day, and whether alone may be important dimensions to consider in the pursuit of more effective weight loss interventions. Opportunities to personalize weight management interventions, whether digital or human, and lessen in‐the‐moment self‐control burden might lie in identifying times and locations most associated with caloric consumption. Clinical trial registration: NCT03083964 in clinicaltrials.gov [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the politics of the design of a golf‐focused gated community in Gurgaon, India. It considers the aesthetic uses of golf and architecture that go into the production of a purified urban environment to explore the relationship between urban development, environmental aesthetics and spatial purification in contemporary India. I demonstrate how an architectural focus on golf reproduces the 'distribution of the sensible' by attempting to delimit the field of view: who and what is seen, and what an individual can or cannot see. I show how golf is political—deeply connected to and inseparable from legacies of colonial environmental and spatial purification and exclusion, as well as contemporary aesthetic‐political regimes that justify spatial segregation, cleansing, and the protection of beautiful environments away from the urban poor. The aesthetic emphasis on a beautified, green and empty environment that characterizes the production of golf highlights the aesthetic terms on which environmental selves are imagined and how environmental images are constructed. This is an aesthetic premised on the creation of shared viewership combined with the power to be(long) in a place where one can be with others but not mixed up with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing attention to social protection in urban settings is not being paired with increasing evidence. This paper offers a single ex‐ante evaluation methodology that simulates the monetary poverty effects of changing eligibility conditions, unitary benefits, and the composition of cash transfer programs aimed at expanding coverage in urban areas. We apply this methodology to Ghana, a growing, middle‐income country committed to reducing poverty but with a weak social protection system with little urban presence. We show that while a flagship cash transfer program, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty program (LEAP), transfers less than GHS 34 million (US$7.6 million) a year, ending extreme poverty in Ghana would require spending around GHS 1,800 million ($400 million). Efforts to tackle urban poverty through transfers will prove unsuccessful without enough fiscal resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the application and implications of magnetic prospection within two complex early mediaeval sites of the 5th–10th centuries BCE in northern Spain, at Aistra and Peña Amaya in the Upper Ebro Valley. In this period most sites displaying domestic and other forms of occupation present multifaceted and challenging problems due to the poor preservation of stratigraphic relationships in rural contexts and rarity and poor visibility of early mediaeval horizons in multi‐period urban sites. It is now widely acknowledged that extensive magnetic prospection, both in rural areas and in abandoned townscapes, can on a variety of sites facilitate the identification of domestic settlements, productive areas and monumental structures as well as the patterns of former roads, trackways and field boundaries. The two sites described here were selected to test this approach in the particular environment of the Ebro Valley and to draw any resulting conclusions about early mediaeval settlement in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Gothic Sovereignty: Street Gangs and Statecraft in Honduras" by Jon Horne Carter, which challenges the prevailing perception of gangs in Central America as wholly outside of society. Carter argues that poor urban youth who join gangs have tapped into the truths behind power and understand how things really work in their society. The book provides a nuanced understanding of gangs and their existence, focusing on their vitality and creative lifeforce rather than their destructiveness. It also explores the historical context of gangs in Honduras and the state's use of extralegal means to combat them. The article highlights the importance of Carter's work for anthropologists, criminologists, and sociologists studying gangs, and emphasizes the need to address the underlying issues that contribute to gang violence rather than suspending the rule of law. [Extracted from the article]

This pilot study presents preliminary data on the efficacy of Strong Bonds, Strong Pikin (SBSP), a brief intervention program that aims to enhance sensitivity among mothers who care for their preschool children in a slum settlement in Freetown (Sierra Leone). SBSP adapts principles of attachment theory to intervention within a non‐Western cultural setting, where families suffer from extreme poverty. A combination of psychoeducation, group work, video‐feedback, and storytelling defines the methodology of the program. Maternal sensitivity, parenting stress, and the use of violent discipline practices were measured before (pretest) and after the intervention (posttest) in a sample of 43 mothers who participated in the program. Analyses showed a significant increase in observed maternal sensitivity, as well as a decrease in mother‐reported parenting stress, child problems, and use of violent discipline practices from pretest to posttest. These results are discussed in terms of the potential value of culturally sensitive, attachment‐centered interventions with caregivers who raise their children in non‐Western settings affected by economic vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As governments around the globe navigate the effects of COVID‐19 crisis, the urban poor endure the unevenly distributed socio‐economic impacts of the pandemic. This burden is more pronounced in Global South megacities, where millions of people engage in precarious informal employment. We examine how the urban poor in Delhi (India), Dhaka (Bangladesh), and Manila (Philippines) have been disproportionately affected by the crisis. A cross‐case analysis was undertaken to determine how the realities and relations of one context can enrich our understanding of the other. We argue that the current COVID‐19 pandemic has exposed the unequal urban citizenship in these three metropolises. Drawing on research reports, news articles, and interviews with urban poor leaders, we explain how limited government assistance has forced some to retreat to their rural hometowns or rely on self‐help and mutual aid practices to survive. We consider the patterns both in governments' treatment of impoverished citizens and in the unjust effects of lockdown enforcement on marginalised populations. We also discuss the roles that women and non‐government organisations (NGOs) have played in facilitating solidarity‐based practices to help urban poor communities cope with COVID‐19 vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health care systems in the United States are experimenting with a form of surveillance and intervention known as "hot spotting," which targets high‐cost patients—the so‐called "super‐utilizers" of emergency departments—with intensive health and social services. Through a calculative deployment of resources to the costliest patients, health care hot spotting promises to simultaneously improve population health and decrease financial expenditures on health care for impoverished people. Through an ethnographic investigation of hot spotting's modes of distribution and its workings in the lives of patients and providers, we find that it targets the same individuals and neighborhoods as the police, who maintain longer‐standing practices of hot spotting in zones of racialized urban poverty. This has led to a convergence of caring and punitive strategies of governance. The boundaries between them are shifting as a financialized logic of governance has come to dominate both health and criminal justice. [health care, chronic illness, governance, policing, poverty, United States] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a spatial analysis of the authoritarian governmentality of the Kurdish issue in Turkey through a case study of Diyarbakır in which geographies of war and peace have coalesced. Drawing on recent theorisations of military urbanism, it examines encounters—including both conflict and cooperation—between the state bureaucracy, local pro‐government elite and pro‐Kurdish municipal authorities within the context of the initiatives to rehabilitate the city's historic centre, Suriçi, during the period 2002–2015. The article suggests considering Suriçi's rehabilitation as part of a post‐conflict urban regime to thwart social and political vibrancy of the Kurdish urban poor in tandem with the idea of securitisation through marketisation. In doing so, it demonstrates that unpacking spatial imaginaries and rationalities that have rendered Suriçi dwellers displaceable by devaluing their collective urban experience is critical for our understanding of the utter violence erupted during and after the urban warfare of 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the everyday politics through which citizenship is negotiated by diverse residents, analysing the case of Bansighat, an informal settlement in Kathmandu, Nepal. It focuses on both the collective tactics of the Nepali women's federation of the urban poor—Nepal Mahila Ekata Samaj—as well as the quotidian practices of diverse residents around water and sanitation. This analysis reveals the variegated politics through which citizenship plays out—reflecting complex interactions between wider processes of urban transformation in Kathmandu, localized socio‐spatial conditions of Bansighat and long‐standing social relations in Nepali society. The empirical findings help to make more explicit the politics through which some residents are able to capitalize and transform diverse tenure and infrastructural practices into a broader sense of legitimacy or belonging in the city, while simultaneously engendering exclusions for others. This article accordingly reflects on how broader class and ethnic power relations play out through everyday citizenship negotiations, generating differentiated experiences of citizenship for diverse individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gentrification is now a common feature of contemporary cities. The process has extended its spatial reach from urban cores into neighbourhoods previously deemed unlikely to gentrify. More recently, scholars have identified an intensifying suburbanisation of poverty reshaping socio‐spatial inequalities. In this paper we argue that it is increasingly urgent to integrate analyses of gentrification with those on the suburbanisation of poverty. The two processes are fundamentally related through the displacement and exclusion of disadvantaged populations. Drawing on Dutch full‐population register data for the 2005–2015 period, we empirically illustrate the existence of suburbanising poverty alongside urban gentrification in the urban regions of Amsterdam and Utrecht. We further show these are far from uniform processes, eschewing urban–suburban dichotomies. In addition, we find regional differences in the intensity and spatial reach of both gentrification and poverty suburbanisation. Spatial trends are more pronounced in the Amsterdam region, where low‐income households are pushed to the furthest parts of the region. By way of conclusion, we outline an agenda for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yet, what Stuart reveals, is that the young men's perceptions of success in his study are not only a reflection of what is in the media, but also is contingent upon the young men's own ability to utilize social media as a way to compete for notoriety in the online attention economy. IN CLOSING Despite Stuart's nuanced analysis, it is interesting that he acknowledges that schools are important staging areas for the Corner Boys and their drill careers, but yet writes little about the young men's relationship to education, particularly as a possible means for upward mobility. Stuart documents how these young men, confronting the increasing loss of opportunities in both the informal and formal economies, turn to the "unique affordances provided by digital social media to capitalize on a burgeoning market for urban gang violence (or, more accurately, a market for the I representation i of urban gang violence)" (p. 2). [Extracted from the article]

Urban floods resulting from climate change and unplanned urban growth are creating tremendous stress on the urban poor who are already living in vulnerable conditions. This paper sets out to analyse the livelihood status of the urban poor in a regular situation and a situation under stress due to urban flood in Dhaka city. Two urban poor settlements were surveyed; 400 households were interviewed. It was found that the urban poor households had different types of livelihood capitals at different levels which expressed the livelihood status of the households. In a normal situation, slum dwellers were living with a moderate level of livelihood status, which dropped down to a poor level during a stressed period. The store of capitals of households influenced the capacity of a household to cope with stressed situations because adaptive capacity and sensitivity were controlled by the stock of capitals. Capitals were influencing each other internally, which produced differences in livelihood status among households in both normal and stressed situations. The geographical setting, intensive flooding, poor socio‐economic conditions, and lack of collective actions profoundly increased the vulnerability of slum dwellers. These findings suggest that more emphasis should be given to improve capital assets, particularly human capital and social capital, for increasing the capabilities of the urban poor to reduce poverty and to cope with periods of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interdisciplinary debate emerged in the 1990s about the nature of homeless governance in neoliberal cities. Contributions to this discussion have interrogated the form, function, and legitimacy of contemporary homeless management. Urban scholars have differentiated three techniques of homeless governance: punishment, support, and discipline. A subset of scholarship has defined punitive governance as an illegitimate act of repression that promotes urban revitalization by excluding the homeless from urban political economies, supportive governance as a legitimate act of voluntary or coercive care that helps the homeless survive a traumatic life experience, and disciplinary governance as an illegitimate act of production that fortifies urban political economies by including rather than excluding homeless individuals into bourgeois institutions. An emerging body of research demonstrates frontline workers coordinate these techniques of governance to pursue the aims of institutional elites. This article outlines the main points of contention in this debate, examines significant empirical findings that scholars have reported, and identifies salient knowledge gaps to be addressed in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Untapped markets are often deemed institutional voids, terra incognita ripe with economic possibility. The conversion of institutional voids into viable markets has become the ambition of many corporations today, which view marginal and under‐served areas such as urban slums as opportunities to achieve the dual aims of market growth and poverty reduction, particularly through 'bottom of the pyramid' (BoP) programmes. This article examines how firms manage institutional voids and the consequences of these approaches for workers through a case study of a BoP 'route to market' programme designed by a global food manufacturer in Kibera, Africa's largest slum, located in Nairobi. Instead of engaging with Kibera by upgrading informal markets or generating formal employment, the corporation focused on harnessing existing informal systems through composite arrangements of NGOs, social networks and informal enterprises, a strategy the authors term 'remote (dis)engagement'. The article describes the logics and outcome of this strategy of formal engagement with informal markets, concluding that the BoP business model depends on 'gig practices' of flexibility, irregular work and insecurity to realize the much‐heralded 'fortune at the bottom of the pyramid'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the intersection of race and poverty on the lives of Black women living in urban communities. Historical systemic racism continues to leave many marginalized communities on the periphery and struggling to maneuver in a society that limits access to empowerment to move out of poverty. To transform the lives of those living in poor urban communities, dismantling systemic racism where race and poverty intersect must be included in policymakers' priorities. This work begins with partnerships forged between public policy makers, adult educators, literacy education and training programs, welfare programs, and employment programs and employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile telephony penetration has reached up to the remote location of globe enabling access to communication to each individual. This communication access and technology can also assist individuals to gain financial inclusion specifically in emerging economies like India. This study aims to address the issue of financial inclusion and inclusive economic growth through the development of mobile penetration in India. The study targets financially excluded Indian urban poor segment and aims to address the missing linkages between mobile telephone, digital transaction, and financial inclusion during demonetization. The study follows qualitative research design. Qualitative research design aims to address the nexus between financial inclusion and mobile telephony from the demand side. The study conducts 52 in‐depth interviews collected under naturalistic observations from the urban poor segment of society across major cities of India. Open coding method is followed to analyze the in‐depth interviews to assimilate information from various emerging themes. Qualitative data analysis identifies various themes to understand the usage of mobile telephony for any financial transaction, financial planning by the urban poor segment. The study explores various reasons behind financial exclusion of urban poor segment and how mobile telephony adoption can be utilized to attain financial inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]