For most of history, and despite the stereotype of urban squalour, it has

been the countryside where poverty has particularly thrived. But as the
world urbanises,poverty is moving with it. Over the past decade, the share
of poverty in the developing world blighting cities rather than rural areas
has jumped from 17% to 28%. In sub-Saharan Africa, almost a quarter of
all poverty is urban. In east Asia, half.
You know it when you see it, of course, but modelling poverty is a
complicated business, and ranking hardship not a simple, or happy, task.
One thing is certain, though: given that China has so effectively hauled
much of its population out of pauperism, and with North Korea
statistically dark, sub-Saharan Africa has the most extreme examples of
urban impoverishment.

There are supranational forces that take a strong interest in these things:
the UN, the IMF and the World Bank chief among them. (The CIA is
pretty hot on this stuff, too.) The World Bank and IMF use an array of
statistical criteria to quantify poverty. Theres gross domestic product at
purchasing power parity per capita, or GDP (PPP) per capita, which
adjusts for comparative costs of living and inflation. There are complex
models of income inequality. And theres the more easily comprehensible
headcount of people who live on less than $1.25 a day. Although they
dont break down these figures on a citywide basis, the stats make clear
the desperate straits of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. According
to the IMF, the poorest countries in 2013 were Eritrea, Liberia, Burundi,
Zimbabwe and, taking the bottom spot, the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
In 2012, though, the UN decided to get to grips with poverty stats city by
city. It launched what it called the City Prosperity Index [pdf], featuring
an add-on conceptual aid, the Wheel of Prosperity.
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The index uses a more complex model of privation, which takes into
account productivity, quality of life, infrastructure development and
environmental sustainability, as well as equity and social inclusion. Each
city gets a score between zero and one. The UN hopes the index provides a
fuller picture of poverty in these cities, and therefore can be a more useful
tool for putting together development strategies. There are certainly
common trajectories to these cities woes, and seemingly intractable
problems, from post-colonial re-constitution to bloody conflict,
corruption to water shortages, lack of health care to disease.
Addis Ababa and Dakar, which come in at No 10 and 9, have some
positive developments to note, says the UN. They are both investing in
infrastructure and manufacturing, and striving to overcome what is their
key problem: the instability of Ethiopia and Senegals immediate
neighbours.
Harare, at No 8, however, is a city in steep decline. Once a key economic
motor in Zimbabwe with a cityscape and infrastructure to match, the city
is crumbling, and more people than ever live in makeshift slums. Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania, can only dream of Harares slum levels: a full 70% of
the citys population lives in informal settlements. Like other cities on the
list, though, Dar is a victim of its own success: the population had
doubled in the last two decades to 4 million. In Zambia, a mineral-rich
country that is Africas largest producer of copper, life expectancy is just
56, and the capital, Lusaka the fifth poorest in the world struggles to
cope with high levels of HIV and Aids.
West African capitals dominate the bottom five, and for similar reasons.
Niamey in Niger, Bamako in Mali, Antananarivo in Madagascar (in
southeast Africa) and Conakry in Guinea are all victims of conflict,
terrorism, political instability and ethnic tensions, which stifle their
potential for growth. And these conditions are exemplified by what the
UN has identified as the poorest city in the world, Monrovia, the capital of
Liberia.
Liberia was founded in the early 19th century by free African Americans
(not by freed slaves, as is often presumed, though many freed slaves

followed). The capital was named after the US president James Monroe,
and you can still see something of the antebellum south in Monrovias
older architecture.

Whats left of it, that is. Monrovia was devastated by civil war and Charles
Taylors child soldiers in the 1990s. Supplies of fresh water and electricity
are still unreliable. So is public transport and healthcare. Only a third of
the one million or so citizens have access to a functioning toilet. In the
huge shantytowns, many use poorly built latrines that collapse during the
rainy season, or they use the beach or the narrow spaces between houses,
and the failing sewerage system pumps raw waste into the streets. And
last year, to add insult to injury, Monrovia was hit with an Ebola
outbreak.
What is so frustrating about Monrovias plight is that Liberia is rich with
gold and diamond mines the profits from which rarely end up in the
public purse.
Of course, these are pockets of misery in a huge continent. There are as
many stories of new wealth and emergent middle classes in Africa as there
are of civic dysfunction. The cities continue to mushroom at a pace
outstripped nowhere else on Earth. Addressing their urban poverty is
more important than ever.