While there is some suggestion of a re-orientation in the World Bank's income-cantered conceptualization of poverty to one based on Amartya Sen's concept of 'development as freedom', it is hard to uncover definitive evidence of such a re-orientation from a study of the Bank's urban programmes in Brazil. This paper attempts an application of Sen's capability approach to the problem of improving the urban quality of life, and contrasts it with the World Bank's approach, with specific reference to

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... a typical squatter upgrading project in Novos Alagados in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.