Prosperous cities at the top of the urban hierarchy

Prosperous cities at the top of the urban hierarchy - such as Paris, Sydney and Los Angeles - are experiencing a dramatic renewal of the urban core and the subsequent displacement of poor people out to the suburbs (and beyond).

This displacement has important consequences for how poor people access services such as health, shelter and food, many of which are now provided by third sector organisations that have remained, for the most part, concentrated in the inner core.

This infrastructural deficit was especially pronounced in Sydney, where inner Sydney had five times more voluntary sector organisations per capita than Metropolitan Sydney as a whole, raising the issue of a possible mismatch between gentrifying inner-cities with high concentrations of services versus certain under-served, increasingly impoverished suburbs.

Canlyniadau

The funding was used for a one-week pilot study in the western suburbs of Sydney, given its especially pronounced mismatch of suburban poverty and inner-city services.

This builds on my previous research of Sydney voluntary sector organisations done in 2011 and 2014. Within Sydney, I was able to conduct two interviews as well as several site visits.