This article discusses the connection between urban poverty and social inequality, based on ethnographical studies in the city of São Paulo. We start from the statement that there are actual improvements in the material conditions among the population considered poor, but the reproduction of social distances stay untouched. Based on a comparison of three different cases, we try to discuss a few social mechanisms that are in the origins of this variation between relief of poverty and reproduction of inequalities.
urban poverty; social inequality; symbolic violence; social bonds