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‘Neighbourhood cooperation’ can be viewed as a key element for livelihood improvement, particularly within areas of urban poverty in Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Such cooperation might be useful for mobilising resources and sharing risks of investing in infrastructures/services and maintaining common goods. This article explores the structural relationships between individual level cooperation and overall social capital, in relation to household and neighbourhood characteristics. These relationships are complex as various factors are interlinked, which influence cooperation at both individual and group levels. Literature on social capital has relied mainly on Western countries; from this starting point, this article analyses the relationships among aspects of social capital. Analytical models are based on Durlauf’s approach of measuring ‘social capital’ and Manski’s perspective on social interaction, which are tested on 1800 households’ data across three locations in Bangladesh. The estimates reveal that individual level cooperation can be influenced directly by households’ socio economic circumstances and indirectly through neighbourhood mediation, while questioning some theoretical generalisations about neighbourhood cooperation. The findings contribute to the literature on neighbourhood effects by revealing that: (a) the relationship between one’s socio economic status and one’s social capital is less clear than expected; and (b) extreme poverty and proximity of living in a neighbourhood can promote norms of trust and cooperation.

This project examines violent victimisation and offending in poor urban neighbourhoods in Nairobi, Kenya. Using data from the 2000 Nairobi Cross-sectional Slum Survey (NCSS), the study assesses neighbourhood characteristics utilising the foundation from US-based neighbourhood effect research. Results from multilevel models demonstrate that social disorganisation theory and neighbourhood effect research can work as a framework for studying neighbourhood-level processes and public safety in the rapidly urbanising region of sub-Saharan Africa. However, important exceptions exist. A robust and positive relationship between residential stability and violent victimisation by strangers was found. This relationship between residential stability and personal victimisation, in addition to a positive association between household-level residential stability and family violence, shows support for the negative effects associated with poverty traps in urban Africa. Neighbourhood characteristics matter for public safety in Nairobi, but frameworks for examining neighbourhood effects must consider the context of chronically poor neighbourhoods in urban Africa.

One central thesis in recent urban poverty research, that social context has further disadvantaged poor residents of central-city neighbourhoods, has not been tested empirically. This analysis examines the strength of relationships among adverse social conditions in neighbourhoods in one North American industrial city. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the hypothesis that negative social conditions have become increasingly intertwined in the 1980s was supported. Neighbourhoods could be distinguished along several important dimensions in the early 1980s. At the end of the decade, a single dimension of interconnected adverse conditions predominates. While the explanation for these trends is structural, the conditions themselves must be addressed if efforts to revitalise neighbourhoods and prevent the spread of poverty are to succeed.

This paper analyses the problem of the urban poor in India from a primarily macro-economic perspective, tracing the origins of their economic status to their low share in the factor earnings generated in individual industries. A macro-economic model then simulates the implications for them of a range of alternative policies, including growth on the current pattern of development priorities, income transfers from rich to poor and growth-with-redistribution via the creation of new income sources specifically for the target groups. The major conclusions are that on current development strategies the outlook for the urban poor is bleak, but through growth-with-redistribution moderate sacrifices of income growth by the richer classes can secure very substantial improvements for the poor.

A summary of the situation regarding urbanization in developing countries is first presented by drawing on the published literature. Variations in the rate of urbanization around the world are noted and the impact of rural-urban migration and urban growth on urban poverty and employment is considered. The author examines urban development strategies under these conditions and the role that international assistance could play in helping to resolve such urban problems. (ANNOTATION)