ABSTRACT
Introduction It is easy to forget that economics is about people, people and markets, and the outcomes people receive from interacting with others in markets, and in society more broadly. Is there a particular urban dimension that economics takes account of or should be taking account of or has been neglected? There is a sense in which a city can alert us to poverty because groups of poor congregate in the centers of cities and can be seen begging quite regularly where pedestrian traffic is dense. But the urban setting may conceal the poor because we grow accustomed to seeing people begging and we develop routines that allow us to ignore them. The Fabians in England were presumably upset by the throngs of poor people on the streets of London around 1900 and developed a socialist approach to economics and government activity. The Fabian agenda became a political platform of various parties in various countries and socialist policies such as unemployment insurance, welfare for the impoverished and pensions for the aged were enacted in the legislature in London. It is difficult to believe that such policies would have been pursued if poor people had not been seen in many places in many large cities, once the industrial revolution was well underway. These “socialist” policies are part of a critique of “the free market system.” Modern social theory takes it for granted that a free market system leaves many behind and governments, acting for “the public,” must be the carer of last resort.
