LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Urban Poverty: Governments
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[U]rban poverty may be even more debilitating than rural poverty because in urban areas, unlike rural areas, access to virtually all goods and services depends on having a cash income. Furthermore, services that governments usually provide free in rural areas, such as schooling, usually carry costs for households in urban areas—for example, school fees and expenditures for school uniforms, books, and transportation (3, 104). Urban residents have to buy most of their food, while rural residents grow a substantial portion of their own food, and food prices often are higher in urban areas than in the countryside. Urban households spend 60% to 80% of their income on food (101) and pay up to 30% more for it than rural households (1).
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A review of the performance of these urban poverty alleviation schemes revealed several operational difficulties. The most important of which was a top-down approach towards the implementation of those schemes. The other difficulties being inadequate coverage of the poverty stricken population as well as non-availability of grants to be released by the governments. The inadequate attention of the policy-makers and planners towards problems of urban poor is ... reflected by the absence of a well formulated policy for urban development both at the national and state levels. It took almost four decades since independence to constitute a National Commission of Urbanisation (1986) and five decades to enact the 74th Constitution Amendment Act (1993) empowering the urban local governments with the responsibility of planning at the grassroots for the overall improvement of livelihood patterns in urban areas.
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Using Katrina's devastation of New Orleans' low-income neighborhoods as a starting point, this paper argues for a refocusing of political energy on the problem of concentrated urban poverty. Though images of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina did provide a uniquely shocking vantage point into the problems facing low-income, racially segregated, and resource-limited neighborhoods, the authors point out that New Orleans is by no means unique when it comes to poverty clustering. Katz and Berube highlight the government policies that led to the creation of many distressed neighborhoods, and propose a set of policy changes aimed at increasing the geographic and economic mobility of families trapped in pockets of poverty.
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While considerable progress has been made in alleviating urban poverty in most countries of the region, most efforts have been ad hoc and fragmented. Sustaining and intensifying efforts to alleviate urban poverty require substantial capacity-building, particularly in the public or governmental sector, among the organizations of the poor themselves and among the civil society organizations that work towards empowering the poor. Capacity-building, as defined here, has essentially two aspects: institutional change and human resources development.
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