Urban Bottoms in Six Global Cities: Inequality, Informality, and Struggles over Externalization

This book focuses on the urban bottom, particularly the very bottom people, in six global cities: Tokyo, New York, Paris, Nairobi, Mexico City, and Manila. Urban bottom is a hierarchical concept that captures urban populations systematically bottomized under neoliberal capitalism. Using urban bottom as its key analytical concept, the book examines the labor, everyday lives, social networks, mobility, and lifeworlds of these populations, including female workers, young people, immigrants, sex workers, slum residents, street vendors, homeless individuals, and welfare recipients. It explores how they struggle to survive amid informal and unstable living conditions, and offers a typological analysis that reveals similarities and differences across cities.