Poor People, Poor Places

Most of the material for the book Poor People, Poor Places was originally presented at a conference organised, with financial support from the Combat Poverty Agency, in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth on behalf of the Geographical Society of Ireland by Jim Walsh (Combat Poverty Agency), Mark Hennessy (Trinity College Dublin) and myself in September, 1996. The book contains revised versions of most of the papers presented at the conference, supplemented by a couple of commissioned papers and additional chapters by the editors.

The fourteen chapters are organised into four themes:

• Empirical studies of the spatial distribution of poverty, including census and survey-based research;
• Analyses of urban poverty, including case studies of deprived urban neighbourhoods;
• Theoretical and empirical perspectives on rural poverty, access to services and rural development;
• Critiques of international and national spatial policy responses to poverty, including current area-based strategies.

There is also a substantial concluding chapter, which assesses the relevance of geography to our understanding of poverty in Ireland and to the search for appropriate policy interventions.

Detailed Contents

• Poor People, Poor Places: An Introduction. Dennis G. Pringle and Jim Walsh (CPA).
• Affluence and Deprivation: A Spatial Analysis based on the 1991 Census of Population. Trutz Haase.
• Spatial Aspects of Poverty and Deprivation in Ireland. Brian Nolan, Christopher T Whelan and James Williams.
• Methodological Issues in a Cross-Border Investigation of Poverty in Ireland. Sally Cook, Adrian Moore and Michael Poole.
• Rural Poverty: A Political Economy Perspective. Hilary Tovey.
• Integration and Exclusion in Rural Ireland. James A. Walsh (NUIM).
• Poverty and Accessibility to Services in the Rural West of Ireland. Mary Cawley.
• Residents' Perspectives of Rural Living Conditions in Cork and Kerry. David Storey.
• Deconstructing Urban Poverty. Andrew MacLaran.
• Poor People or Poor Place? Urban Deprivation in Southill, East Limerick City. Des McCafferty.
• Spatial Planning and Poverty in North Clondakin. Brendan Bartley.
• Something Old, Something New: Lessons to be Learnt from Previous Strategies of Positive Territorial Discrimination. Dennis G. Pringle.
• The Role of Area-Based Programmes in Tackling Poverty. Jim Walsh (CPA).
• Poor People, Poor Places: Conclusion. Dennis G. Pringle and Jim Walsh (CPA).

For details of how to purchase Poor People, Poor Places (ISBN 1-86076-108-9), please contact from Oak Tree Press, Merrion Building, Lower Merrion Street, Dublin 2.

Return to the main Social Geography page