The Underclass

“In my conception, the term underclass suggests that changes have taken place in ghetto neighborhoods, and the groups that have been left behind are collectively different than those that lived in these neighborhoods in earlier years” (Wilson 187). 

“It is also true that certain groups are stigmatized by the label underclass… but it would be far worse to obscure the profound changes in the class structure and social behavior of ghetto neighborhoods by avoiding the use of the term underclass” (Wilson 187)

From East to West, the theme of the urban underworld recurs over and over again as the cities begin to change economically and thus culturally. Oftentimes, the changes in the cities only benefit certain groups of people. As William Julius Wilson writes in his essay “The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy” in The Blackwell Reader, he defines the world underclass and just as he acknowledges the controversy behind the term, I will be using the term the way he suggests it is, that it talks of groups that have been left behind in these slum neighborhoods while the surroundings change and other more prosperous groups move out. The three cities I will be discussing through this lens of the underclass will be Boston, Mumbai, and Moscow.

Though the cities are in completely different regions of the world, the problems they face remain the same: stratification and extreme disparity between the rich and poor leading to the creation of an urban underworld when the legitimate economy cannot support those left behind in the ghettos.