Urban Social Poverty Reading Log

Alyce Pickering

Intro analysis
Things I understand:
1. "Poverty is a complex multi dimensional and embedded phenomenon-- an economic fact but also a distinctly social fact as well What he is saying in this is that there are many reasons for poverty. Its partially the Government and supply and demand of that particular nation/country/state's goods but its also caused by the people themselves

Difficult to understand:
1. The Second Paragraph on the first page. I don't really understand What he is saying. Probably because he is shoving so many numbers into a small space and it is jumbling in my mind. 2. "Establishing objective criteria for measuring economic poverty are at best imprecise undertakings" ....What?

3. I also don't understand his reference to 1 and 2 USD per day.

Confusing words
1. "Relative Poverty"

2. "Horizontal social capital" are resourses that are accesible and appropriable within a specific socioecomomic or cultural stratum

3. "Vertical Social Capital" are resources that are accesable and appropriable between and among various socio-ecomomic and cultural strata

Thesis statement:
"What I want to do in this chapter is to draw on recent theoretical work in social capital to show how a certain type of urban poverty - What I call "urban social poverty"- is best explained in terms of such normative constraints or set of constraints"

Rest of the Essay Analysis

Important Words:
1. "Horizontal social capital" are resources that are accessible and appropriable within a specific socioeconomic or cultural stratum 2. "Vertical Social Capital" are resources that are accessible and appropriable between and among various socio-economic and cultural strata 3. "Socio-economic strata" 4. "Cultural Strata" 5. "ethno-racial strata"

Confusing Words:
1. "Homogeneity" 2. "Heterogeneity" 3. "Cultural pluralism" when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture. 4. "Milieu" 5. "Enclaves"

6. "Capability poverty"" 7. "Degradation" 8. "Gentrifying"

Things I understand:
1. "The bridging functions of social capital thus characteristically lead individuals to bond with and trust others more or less like themselves." People who are at certain levels of social capital generally tend to befriend and be around people of similar standing

2. "Conceptualizing social poverty within a framework that more clearly distinguishes between horizontal and vertical social capital allows us to redeploy social capital theory in a more nuanced way into he study of politics. Poverty, and development of urban societies" Putting social poverty into certain categories that shows more clearly the differences in horizontal and vertical social capital make it easier to rethink social capital theory in a more enlightened way with the different aspects of urban societies.

3. "As the physical proximity between rich and poor has shrunk in urban Sao Paulo, upper and middle class "fortified enclaves" have begun to grow rapidly" As the poor and rich start living closer together, it becomes more noticeable that people stick with their own.

4. "Urban social poverty can also be collectively self--incurred" People can create Urban social poverty themselves

5. "In severing certain strata of urban society from larger culture, urban social poverty transforms specific socio-economic and cultural groups into socially exclusive or socially excluded minorities who inhabit parallel but seemingly different normative universes." When you take away all of the rules of society and just look at the social poverty of a certain area you will see groups of people and cultures that,

though they operate in the same way in the same universe, act like they have nothing to do with each other 6. "And in undermining everyday experiences of cultural pluralism and social difference, urban social poverty fosters or reinforces inequality and threatens to deprive cities of precisely the kinds of day-to-day vertical connection, ties, mutual recognition, and reflexive social cooperation upon which they depend for their democratic Character." When you take for granted the everyday experiences off the small economic cultures and look more at the big picture, you see that urban social poverty is keeping people from making the beneficial connections to people who can help boost their vertical social capital (go from middle class to upper class and the like)

7. "In a related way, pursuing a capabilities approach to the problem of urban social poverty --an approach in which the state helps to ensure not the well-being of individuals bit the capabilities individuals need to secure their own welfare and realize their own goals and lifestyles __ will likely increase levels of inclusion, decrease relative economic disparities and foster the expansion of individual freedoms" If we approach urban social poverty like the proverbial saying "give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish he'll eat for a lifetime" and help show people ho to raise their socio-economic sanding instead of just giving them what they need then the general welfare and socio-economic standing of the country will also go up.

Difficult to understand:
1. 2. "Horizontal Social Capital is social capital in its most basic and commonplace form." "Vertical social capital, by contrast, is social capital in its more sociologically exceptional state"

3. 'Unlike social exclusion, the, a dearth of vertical social capital is not necessarily the result of involuntary macro-level structural forces." 4. "Hence while the social poverty of fortified enclave residents is a contributing

factor in the social exclusion of those who serve them, the reverse is decidedly not the case." 5. "...an Abundance of human capabilities can be deployed against the cultivation of vertical social capital. The counterpoint is that even capability rich groups can be--or become--socially poor"