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Urban Management Programme Policy Paper No. 22. Understanding how the poor respond to economic crisis has become increasingly important, especially for governments and donors faced with the problems of poverty in countries experiencing economic difficulties. This understanding can help ensure that interventions aimed at reducing poverty complement and strengthen people's own inventive solutions rather substitute for or block them. This second volume belongs to a four-volume set of case studies that presents the main findings from four very different communities: Cisne Dos, Guayaquil, Ecuador; Angyalfold, Budapest, Hungary; Commonwealth, Metro Manila, Philippines; and Chawama, Lusaka, Zambia. The studies were primarily conducted during the 1980s, a time when all four countries were experiencing economic difficulties. Each study examines how poor households adjust to a deteriorating situation, what strategies they adopt to limit the impact of shocks and generate additional resources, and what constraints impede their actions. The studies also incorporate the concept of vulnerability to capture the aspects of changing socioeconomic well-being. To assess vulnerability, a simple classification of tangible and nontangible assets was developed--labor, human capital, productive assets, household relations, and social capital. The studies map out factors that can affect each of the assets on an asset vulnerability matrix to identify indicators of increasing and decreasing vulnerability. Key findings of the studies reveal how the poor benefit when they use their assets effectively and what happens when those assets are eroded or depleted.