Circuits of Work

Abstract

The combination of rapid economic and demographic growth in many Third World cities has resulted in concentrations of wealth and poverty within them (Santos, 1971a, 1971b). It was once thought that industrialisation would cure the situation of social crisis which was generated as a consequence. The current state of many long-established industrial cities testifies to the contrary: economic divisions within the urban system persist in the face of official efforts to improve conditions of housing, education and, most recently, of work.²

This paper was originally translated from the French by Marie-Francoise Eze.