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Poverty is defined as the deprivation with reference to socially accepted norms. Historically poverty has been a rural phenomenon. In the past cities for the most part housed society's elite whereas the poor were secluded to the rural areas. The industrial revolution saw a shift in this trend. People began to migrate to the great cities of the world in large numbers. Poverty that was once considered a rural phenomenon increasingly became an urban reality.
Recent estimates reveal that by 2015, the poorest cities will house three-quarters of the world population. The poorest cities of the world lie in the developing world, in third world countries. African and Asian cities will continue to grow in population faster than the rest of the world, and as a result house more of the worlds poor. These cities lack sufficient housing, piped water, sewage, public transportation, schools, police protection, health care facilities, and other necessary amenities of urban life. Poverty though, is by no means exclusively a problem facing the third world. Inner cities in several of the worlds developed nations such as the United States of America and Great Britain, face poverty and poverty related problems.
It is worth noting though that people living in these conditions handle poverty in a markedly different manner. In this paper I will attempt to compare the poverty faced by people living in third world cities with the poverty faced by people in cities of the developed world. More specifically I will compare poverty faced by people living in the Indian city of Bombay with that of people living in the poor parts of New York City. The reason I have picked these two cities in particular is because of their similarities in size and population. Before I start to compare the two cities, it is very important to get a hand on how these cities came about form a historical and social perspective, for that in a sense defines the outlook of the people living in the two cities. Bombay is located on the Western coast of India.
The city is now officially known as Mumbai. It originally consisted of seven islands, namely Colaba, Mazagon, Old Womans Island, Wadala, Mail, Page and Manga-Sion. This group of islands, which have since been joined together by a series of reclamations, formed part of the Kingdom of Ashoka, a famous Indian Emperor. The islands were passed into the hands of various Hindu rulers until 1343. In that year, the Mohammedans of Gujarat took possession and the Kings of that province ruled for the next two centuries. In 1534 the Portuguese, who already possessed many important trading centers on the Western coast of India took Bombay by force of Arms from the Mohammedans.
In 1662 the islands were given to the English King Charles II in dowry on his marriage to Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza. In the year 1668 the English East India Company on lease from the crown acquired the islands for an annual sum of ten pounds in goal. Subsequently in 1687 the English East India Company moved its headquarters to Bombay, making it the trading capital of India. In 1858 after the unsuccessful First War of Independence, the East India Company was accused of mismanagement and the islands reverted to the British Crown.
The Bombay Stock Exchange was established in 1875, and is one of the oldest in Asia preceding even the Tokyo stock exchange. On August 15 th 1947, India gained independence from British rule and today Bombay is considered the financial and business capital of India. Behind the hype of being considered Indias most dynamic and westernized city, lies the reality that the city is in a constant crunch for space and is overburdened by poverty. In less than five hundred years the city has metamorphosed from a fishing settlement into a sprawling mega polis of fifteen million people. The roots of the population problem lie, paradoxically, in the citys enduring ability to create wealth. Bombay by itself generates 35 percent of Indias Gross National Product (GNP), its port handles half the countrys foreign trade, and its movie industry is the biggest in the world.
Symbols of prosperity are everywhere: from the phalanx of office blocks clustered on Norman point (Indias Manhattan) to the yuppie couples nipping around town in their shiny new cars. The flip side of the success story is the citys much chronicled poverty. Each day, hundreds of economic refugees pour into Bombay from all around the country. Some find jobs and secure accommodation; many more (around a third of the total population) end up living on the already overcrowded streets, or in the midst of the appalling squalor of Asia's largest slums. Their day-to-day economic survival is reduced to rag picking and begging from cars at traffic lights. The reason behind this mass exodus of people from the rural areas is the fact that there are few ways of earning livelihood open to village workers who do not possess any land.
They can find jobs in farms, but real wages (money wages adjusted for inflation) have been declining. The average real wages for unskilled agricultural labor declined by 6. 2 per cent in 1991 - 92 for the country as a whole. Since then accepting for the year 1994 - 95, real wages have been increasing slowly, that is by less than 5 per cent. As a result there is a natural temptation to make more money in the cities in order to survive the onslaught of inflation.
As a result Bombay has been the city hardest hit by migrant workers who survive in shanty living conditions and put a tremendous burden on the already overburdened urban infrastructure. Located on the Eastern Atlantic coast of the United States, New York City is the largest American city and the third largest city in the world. It is considered the financial capital of the United States and in a sense the financial capital of the world. New York City is made of five boroughs separated by various waterways. Brooklyn and Queens occupy the western portion of Long Island, while Staten Island and Manhattan are completely on their own land mass. Bronx, to the north remains attached to the New York State mainland.
Manhattan was the first borough to be settled into by the Europeans. In 1624 Dutch settlers established the town of New Amsterdam in lower Manhattan. Peter Minuit supposedly bought the island from its Native American inhabitants for about $ 24 worth of trinkets. In 1664 the English seized the colony and renamed it; during the American Revolution they held it from 1776 to 1781. New York was briefly (1789 - 90) the U. S.
capital and was state capital until 1797. By 1790 it was the largest U. S. city, and the opening (1825) of the Erie Canal, linking New York with the Great Lakes, led to even greater expansion.
In 1898 a new charter was adopted, making the city Greater New York, a metropolis of five boroughs. Massive immigration, mainly from Europe swelled the citys population in the late 19 th and early 20 th century. After World War II, many African Americans from the South, Puerto Ricans and Latin Americans migrated to the city in search for jobs. New York city is perhaps the most beguiling place there is. It is a city of polar opposites. In one sense it represents the greatest dream of capitalism, and on the other it is the epitome in many ways of all that is wrong with America.
Take a walk in Manhattan beside Central Park, notably its east side, past the citys richest apartments and best museums, and keep walking: within a dozen or so blocks you find yourself in the lower reaches of Spanish Harlem. The shock could hardly be more extreme. The city is constantly like this, with glaring in your face wealth juxtaposed with urban problems poverty, the drug trade, and homelessness. The increasing social polarization is closely connected to the specific character of the New York City economy, which has become increasingly based on Wall Street, luxury goods and tourism. Large number of immigrants have been attracted to New York- 2 million in the last two decades-because the economic misery in their own countries is worse. For the vast majority of these immigrants, the only opportunities are in low-wage service employment, or jobs directly serving the very wealthy.
The only jobs available are often low paid retail positions in the fast food industry or small shops, or as security guards. The steady stream of immigrant labor, including that of undocumented workers, has been a major ingredient in New York's vaunted prosperity. While the upper middle class and the super-rich have flaunted and increased their wealth thanks to the prosperous economic boom of the last decade, millions of workers face a daily struggle to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. From the above descriptions it is clear that poverty is a very real problem faced by both cities. To a large extent the reason behind poverty in both these cities is very similar. In the case of Bombay it is largely due to mass migration from the rural areas of the country to the more appealing urban environment.
In the case of New York City it is due to mass immigration over the years from various countries around the world to the great land of opportunity and freedom that America represents. However it is important to keep in mind that the definition of poverty differs greatly from the developed world that America represents, to the third world that India is a part of. Due to this factor it is important to take a closer look at some of the statistics that define poverty in the two countries. The poverty rate in America is defined as the percentage of people following below a certain income level, depending on the size of a household.
In 1996 it was $ 7995 for a single person. For a household consisting of two people it was $ 10233. For a household consisting of four people it was $ 16036. The poverty line has remained close to these values over the last four years. These lines were set in the early 1960 s, ever since which they have simply been adjusted for inflation. To put it differently, todays poor are conceptually supposed to enjoy th...
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