Growing numbers of the dispossessed are also being left on the sidelines as the disparity between rich and poor grows. Life is vastly easier in the industrialized world than it was 150 years ago. Most people live longer, eat more and work less. Many live in private homes and drive to work alone in their own cars.
Office workers communicate instantaneously across continents through telephone, fax and e-mail.
Industries crank out new goods faster than people can buy them in ever-bigger shopping malls. Added to these is the disinvestment in services and physical infrastructure over the past 15 years, which has hit urban dwellers especially poor urban dwellers the hardest. The cuts in government spending for social programmes are all the more stark when viewed in the context of a world with a widening gap between rich and poor. The fraying of social safety nets, most severe in the United States, has increased the percentage of children under 6 living in poverty from 20 per cent of US children in 1980 to 24 per cent in 1995. Without addressing these fundamental inequalities, programmes developed to mend worsening urban conditions will be unable to secure long-lasting solutions.