Nearly one half of the world's urban population lives in poverty and about 800 million people occupy substandard housing. This "housing crisis" has continued unabated despite over 20 years of research and policy. At the forefront of new policy initiatives, confirmed by recent conferences such as Habitat II in Istanbul, is an inititiative to afford greater priority to finance, yet, with the expediation that the provision of small quantities of finance to low-income households will bring real improvements to the quality and quantity of housing provision. This book explores the linkages between formal and informal housing finance drawing upon the lessons of NGO and micro-finance practices. Both public and private formal finance institutions have experienced great difficulty in lending below a middle-income client group, and are often reluctant to lend for the purpose of housing at all. This failure of formal finance to filter down to low-income households, and in particular to women, has led various NGOs and community groups to create and adopt innovative finance programmes, such as informal savings banks and credit rotating schemes. The authors critically assesses the impact of these

This original and topical book tells the untold stories of migrants' experiences of, and responses to, financial exclusion in London. Breaking important new ground, it offers an insight into migrants' lives which is often overlooked, yet is increasingly vital for their broader integration into advanced financialised societies. Adopting a holistic focus, Migrants and their Money investigates migrants' complex financial lives which extend far beyond remittance sending, exploring their banking, saving, credit and debt related practices. It highlights how migrants negotiate the complex financial landscape they encounter and the diverse formal and informal ways in which they manage their money in the financial capital of the world. Drawing upon a rich evidence base, this book will be of particular interest to academics, local authorities, policy makers and the financial services industry.

This book is about the people who always get taken for granted. The people who clean our offices and trains, care for our elders and change the sheets on the bed. "Global Cities at Work" draws on testimony collected from more than 800 foreign-born workers employed in low-paid jobs in London during the early years of the new century." Global Cities at Work" breaks new ground in linking London's new migrant division of labor to the twin processes of subcontracting and increased international migration that have been central to contemporary processes of globalization. "Global Cities at Work" raises the level of debate about migrant labor, encouraging policy-makers, journalists and social scientists to look behind the headlines. The book calls us to take a politically-informed geographical view of our urban labor markets and to prioritize the issue of working poverty and its implications for both unemployment and community cohesion.