A Conceptional Examination of Urban Poverty: Under–Class or Ghetto Poverty?

Year 2009, Issue: 56, 393 - 407, 08.10.2010

Doğan Bıçkı , Serhat Özgökçeler

Abstract

In this paper, the basic concepts commonly used in the discussions of urban poverty are briefly examined. As a result of this examination, the main aim of this study is to provide guidance to the general reader with no mastery of the literature of the concepts used in the analysis related to the problem of urban poverty; on the other hand, to provide introductory information for those researchers recently interested in the literature. It is because the arbitrary usage of some of the concepts related to poverty such as the interchangeable use of underclass and lower–class, similar to all other conceptualizations, invalidates the efforts trying to understand and explain them. Therefore, there certainly is a need to decide whether foreign concepts borrowed from different cultural contexts are usable to describe domestic facts and cases.

Keywords

Conceptional, Examination, Urban

A Conceptional Examination of Urban Poverty: Under–Class or Ghetto Poverty?

Abstract

In this paper, the basic concepts commonly used in the discussions
of urban poverty are briefly examined. As a result of this examination,
the main aim of this study is to provide guidance to the general reader
with no mastery of the literature of the concepts used in the analysis
related to the problem of urban poverty; on the other hand, to provide
introductory information for those researchers recently interested in the
literature. It is because the arbitrary usage of some of the concepts
related to poverty such as the interchangeable use of underclass and
lower–class, similar to all other conceptualizations, invalidates the
efforts trying to understand and explain them.
Therefore, there certainly is a need to decide whether foreign
concepts borrowed from different cultural contexts are usable to
describe domestic facts and cases. 

Keywords

Absolute Poverty, Relative Poverty, Social Exclusion, Ghetto, Neighborhood, Poverty

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