Summaries This article looks at definitions and concepts of urban poverty and the ways in which they inform the infrastructure debate. Parallels between the treatment of poverty in classical literature and the treatment of urban poverty in the current orthodoxy (notably as developed in the World Bank's World Development Report (WDR 1990)) are examined. This article suggests that this orthodox way of approaching and addressing poverty may not be producing either the most appropriate or sustainable response. The arguments are explored through an analysis of urban infrastructure provision with reference to an alternative approach to water services in urban Zambia.