With a combined population of nearly 60 million and dramatic growth in recent decades, these five cities are places of mix, change and extreme polarisation which can be destabilising, inhumane and wasteful of resources. Cities and Social Equity assesses the impact of inequality in an urban context with comparative research and data collection in the five cities (including innovative mapping of inequality to identify the pockets of privilege and deprivation in each city). While the research work commissioned in the report has a specific focus on the problems facing São Paulo, the region's pre-eminent city, their findings have wider resonance for cities throughout the world.