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

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 theliterature. 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 foreignconcepts borrowed from different cultural contexts are usable todescribe domestic facts and cases.