The global financial and economic crisis that hit the world since 2008 has affected the lives of many people all over the world and resulted in declining incomes, rising unemployment, foreclosures, forced residential moves, and cut-backs in government expenditure. The extent to which the crisis has affected urban neighborhoods and has led to rising intra-urban inequalities, has not yet received much attention. The implemented budget cuts and austerity programs of national and local governments are likely to have hit some neighborhoods more than others. The authors of this this book, which come from a variety of countries and disciplines, show that the economic crisis has affected poor neighborhoods more severely than more affluent ones. The tendency of the state to retreat from these neighborhoods has negative consequences for their residents and may even nullify the investments that have been made in many poor neighborhoods in the recent past. This book was originally published as a special issue of Urban Geography.

Ronald van Kempen (1958-2016) was a Professor of Urban Geography at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. His research focused on urban spatial segregation, urban diversity, housing for low-income groups, urban governance and its effects on neighbourhoods and residents, social exclusion, and minority ethnic groups. He has published over 200 reports and articles, most of them in international social and urban geography journals.

Gideon Bolt is an Assistant Professor of Urban Geography and Methods & Techniques at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on urban policy, social cohesion, residential segregation, and neighbourhood choice. He is project coordinator of the EU-FP7 project DIVERCITIES (Governing Urban Diversity).

Maarten van Ham is a Professor of Urban Renewal and Housing at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands; and a Professor of Geography at the University of St Andrews, UK. Maarten studied economic geography at Utrecht University, where he obtained his PhD in 2002. Maarten has published over 60 academic papers and 6 edited books, and has expertise in the fields of urban poverty and inequality, segregation, residential mobility and housing choice, and urban and neighbourhood change. In 2014, Maarten was awarded a 2 million ERC Consolidator Grant for a 5-year research project on neighbourhood effects (DEPRIVEDHOODS).