Abstract
There are conceptual debates to understand the urban poverty in developing countries. Of late, many argue that income/consumption alone is an imperfect measure of people's well-being and emphasize non-monetary variables. Some have insisted on the concept of poverty based on perceptions of the poor themselves. This paper examines the urban deprivation in Colombo from this emerging conceptual framework and employs a participatory methodology. By comparing the official definitions of poverty focused on income and housing situations with the expressed views of the poor on their own issues, the paper concludes that the former deviates considerably from the latter, and points out the needs to broaden the official concepts of poverty and to make the defining and surveying processes participatory.
