Short answer: An important reason is chronic unemployment and underemployment in urban areas, which keeps many residents in poverty despite geographic concentration in cities. This is driven by mismatch between job opportunities and skills, as well as high living costs and limited access to stable formal employment.

Explanation

• Urban poverty often arises from structural economic factors, including a shortage of formal jobs and reliance on low-wage or informal work that lacks stability. This creates persistent income shortfalls for large urban populations.

• Rapid urbanization can outpace the expansion of infrastructure and services, intensifying living costs (housing, transportation, basic services) and making it harder for the urban poor to escape poverty.

• Additional contributing factors include social inequalities (education, healthcare, gender disparities) and governance gaps that hinder targeted anti-poverty programs.

Context and nuances

• Rural-to-urban migration increases demand for housing and services, often leading to overcrowded informal settlements and slums if formal sector absorption lags. This reinforces cycles of poverty within urban areas.

• While unemployment is a key driver, the persistence of urban poverty also stems from limited mobility into better-paying, formal employment, barriers to education and skill development, and structural barriers within city economies.

If you’d like, I can tailor this to a specific city or country and pull more recent studies or data to illustrate how unemployment, housing costs, and policy gaps interact there.