“Urban poverty and its governance in the United States”

Editors :

Marine Dasse, Université de Perpignan.

Hilary Sanders, Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès

Since the first studies by sociologists of the Chicago School in the 1920s, urban poverty has been one of the main concerns of social scientists in the United States. Through analyses of stigmatized populations (N. Anderson), neighborhoods of relegation and ethnic solidarity (Wirth), and the consequences of urban population growth (Burgess), early works proposed a spatial approach to a phenomenon previously understood as an individual failing. This perspective made it possible to account for the concentration of poverty in urban areas and the inseparable link between social mobility and geographic mobility (Park and Burgess).

After a long period of expansion in policies of social redistribution, the rise of neoliberal policies in the 1980s and the conservative backlash led to a revival of studies on disadvantaged inner-city neighborhoods and the stigmatization of their residents (Wacquant and Wilson; E. Anderson). The study of the criminalization of behaviors associated with poverty has highlighted the creation of a moral economy that excludes people deemed undesirable and “undeserving” of state social protection. Research on the mechanisms and consequences of inner-city gentrification has provided a better understanding of the role of the real estate market in the more or less organized displacement of populations to peripheral areas (Smith). Geographer Don Mitchell has revealed how certain municipalities move homeless people away from visible and busy public spaces in order to protect their image, among other goals. Zero tolerance policies and increased police intervention contribute to reinforcing this marginalization, transforming precarious bodies and behaviors into targets of urban control and repression (Stuart). In fact, the management of urban poverty calls into question the very definition of citizenship; individuals living in extreme poverty, such as the homeless, are often considered second-class citizens and are the target of coercive measures (Wacquant).

            In her book on Skid Road in Seattle, Josephine Ensign offers an analysis of the systems of care for populations in situations of extreme precarity. Starting from a specific question (if a person is unable to provide for themselves, who is accountable?), she highlights the mechanisms of delegation and redistribution of responsibilities between the family sphere, public institutions, and para-governmental programs. This question allows us to examine the socio-political construction of vulnerability, contemporary forms of social welfare intervention as well as the tensions between demands for autonomy, norms of respectability, and recognition of the right to live on the margins.

The aim of this issue is to bring together recent case studies and ethnographic surveys, as well as articles dealing with the historiography of urban poverty studies in the last twenty years. The aim is to bring together analyses of historical and contemporary reconfigurations of modes of management and representations of poverty in urban areas, as well as forms of resistance and protest developed by the populations directly concerned. We wish to renew critical reflection on the governmentality of poverty and the limits of the paradigm of individual autonomy in current urban policies.

How have recent social and urban policy transformations redefined the categories and representations of poverty, and how do these redefinitions vary according to geographical contexts? To what extent have the last few decades seen the emergence of new institutional and social definitions of poverty, and how do these differ according to national and urban spaces? To answer these questions, we will focus in particular (but not exclusively) on the following issues and aspects:

• The criminalization of poverty: from the Poor Laws of the Victorian era to contemporary anti-homelessness ordinances.

• Political aspects: what ideologies or concepts have been used to generate or reinforce exclusion? Examples include 19th-century eugenics, which targeted immigrant populations and racial minorities, and neoliberalism since the 1980s. How can we evaluate their impact?

• Issues related to media representation, including the representations of precarious populations in political campaigns: how are they instrumentalized? What vocabulary is associated with them (“welfare dependency”)? To what extent is individual responsibility at the center of the debate?

• Violence: we are interested in exploring all forms of violence against the poor: whether physical violence, as homeless people are regularly attacked, some fatally (Villareal, Farrington)- sexual violence, but also psychological or symbolic violence. How does “class contempt” manifest itself towards the poorest (Renahy)?

• Immigration: what place do migrants occupy among the poorest urban populations (Coutin and Nicholls)? What phenomena of “crimmigration” (Arriaga; Stumpf) target them and reinforce their precarity?

• Environmental aspects: To what extent does environmental pollution disproportionately affect homeless people and disadvantaged neighborhoods? When and how have precarious populations reclaimed urban space to feed themselves (as was the case during the 2008 crisis in Chicago)?

• The role of anti-drug policies in the spatial management of poverty: when does care become an instrument of criminalization that conditions access to social rights (Bach) and reinforces the logic of criminal, administrative, and migratory control in urban spaces (Tosh), with differentiated effects on the most marginalized populations.

• We are also interested in considering forms of resistance: the Alliance for the Right to the City, based in New York City, fights against evictions (among other things) as do many other organizations: what is their concrete impact in terms of combating poverty? What forms of resistance (through cultural practices such as rap or hip hop) have emerged from and in the streets?

• Finally, proposals analyzing urban poverty through a theoretical contribution to contemporary debates are also welcome.

Articles may be written in French or English. A 250-word proposal is expected by April 15, 2026, accompanied by a short biography, and may be sent to Marine.dasse@univ-perp.fr and Hilary.Sanders@univ-tlse2.fr. Finalized articles must be submitted by September 1, 2026.