A fairly large number of poor are disadvantaged and endangered by the places where they live and work. They often face the problems of water scarcity, inaccessible and unsafe to drink; isolation with bad roads and inadequate transport; precarious shelter; scarcities of energy for cooking and heating; and poor sanitation. Many places in which the poor live have multiple disadvantages that include not only missing and inadequate infrastructure geography, vulnerability to environmental shocks and seasonal disasters...editorial