He said the revolutionary underpasses had become frightening and the inner ring road had pushed working class Birmingham into the periphery of the city.

BBC: Historian says Bullring lacks heart

Their desire to stay in their inner Southeast neighborhood a middle-class area of one-story ranch houses and cottages that's a good bike commuting distance to Mr. Butler's office limited their options.

WSJ: A Bicyclists' House Built for Two

The centre of gay life in Sydney is Oxford Street, an inner-city Victorian thoroughfare where once tough, working-class pubs have been transformed into the rowdiest gay drinking places in the world.

ECONOMIST: Gays and the Australian economy

Biden complements a Democratic ticket in areas that polls show Obama is weak he has gravitas, foreign policy experience, knowledge of the inner workings of Washington, and an appeal to working-class voters.

NPR: Ohio Voters React To Biden Selection

Yet the mayor realises where the proof of the pudding lies: whether middle-class parents en masse will feel happy to send their children to inner-city schools.

ECONOMIST: Mayor Daley��s arboretum

But Republicans are hardly the ideal champions for a measure that primarily benefits poor blacks in the inner cities not least because their own base, the middle-class suburbs, are perfectly happy with their local schools (which are often the reason why they live where they do).

ECONOMIST: Lexington

By pursuing our battle against the challenges of the modern world, we can do for the middle-class what our war on poverty has done to the poor and vulnerable in our inner cities.

FORBES: Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

But it has not cracked the problem of inner-city poverty, nor the biggest social question of the age: how can an excluded social class find its way into the mainstream?

ECONOMIST: Chicago's current success may be about as good as it gets

The favela is actually a highly variable site for living, a bit like the inner cities of the U.S. At one end they are suitable homes for middle-class people and civil servants, and at the other end they are places of utter misery, not fit for human living.

FORBES: Curfew In The Favela