Blackwell Reference Online

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While a technical definition of the urban poor includes those individuals in families with incomes below the federal poverty line who live in metropolitan areas, most research on urban poverty focuses on racial and ethnic minorities living in segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods in central cities or inner-ring suburbs. The study of urban poverty lies at the intersection of several sociological fields, including race and ethnicity, immigration, stratification, and urban sociology. As a predominantly problem-oriented field, urban poverty research attempts to understand the roots of urban dilemmas such as crime and delinquency, single motherhood, unemployment, and low levels of education, often drawing theoretical concepts from other areas of sociology such as social capital, networks, and culture. The causes and consequences of spatially concentrated poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty are also frequent subjects of inquiry. A recurring debate in this field is whether income inadequacy causes problem behavior or whether problem behavior causes income inadequacy. The study of urban poverty dates back to the founding of sociology as a discipline in the United States with W. E. B. Du Bois's The Philadelphia Negro , first published in 1899. Du Bois developed theoretical ideas that remain important to this day, including the connection between spatial isolation ... log in or subscribe to read full text