This paper offers information about poverty to non-specialists, contextualizing its manifestations on Brazilian and particularly on Amazonian cities, under economic liberalism. Its first section discusses different approaches to poverty, according to developing countries perspectives. Afterwards structural causes to poverty in Brazil and evolution of official understanding to the problem are presented. These are followed by liberal policies to fight poverty recommended by World Bank, and their impacts on public policies inherited from Welfare State, and by the information related to recent approaches of Brazilian government to the problem. At last, liberal strategies applied to cities during the last decades are presented, highlighting their echoes on Amazonian cities.
