Analysis of cold and hot spot regions for research on urban poverty spaces in the Global South

The advancement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of poverty eradication (SDG 1) and sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) are facing the serious challenge of the complexity of urban poverty spaces in the Global South. Through a series of studies, this team integrated bibliometric (1 394 publications from 1939—2023), satellite remote sensing, and field survey validation data, mapped a 120-m-resolution map of urban poverty spaces covering 1 075 cities in 108 countries/regions in the Global South, and conducted a systematic analysis of the cold and hot spot regions of the research. The results show that: 1) urban poverty in the Global South was significant and spatially heterogeneous, with 423×106 urban residents (44.76% of the total urban population) living in environmentally poverty spaces covering an area of about 46 927 km2 (39.43% of the total urban built-up area), with South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America being the three most severely affected regions. 2) Existing research on urban poverty in the Global South was unevenly distributed geographically. Only 67 cities have been identified as hot pot cities having populations exceeding one million (average population size of 5.602×106), and they are highly concentrated in low-and middle-income countries/regions. There are a total of 1 008 cold spot cities (accounting for 93.77%), which have smaller population size (average population size of 0.564×106) but bear 60.15% of the total poverty population, widely distributed across regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. 3) Urban poverty mapping and attention studies complement each other, uncovering regional differences in urban poverty and revealing the urgency and priority of poverty alleviation in different regions, thereby reducing costs and increasing efficiency in poverty alleviation in low-income countries/regions and small and medium-sized cities. By sharing poverty data, optimizing international aid, and promoting China’s poverty alleviation experience, it is possible to effectively advance the anti-poverty and sustainable development process in the Global South.