It is critical to investigate the issues of urban poverty in large cities with highly diverse populations, such as London and Shanghai. Although developed and developing countries differ markedly in income, economic structure, administrative capacity and political configuration, the underlying causes, and the ways poverty affects people’s lives, can be very similar. Therefore, this paper believes that the experience of London and Shanghai to tackle the growing problems of urban poverty could help offer an attempt tograpple with familiar issues, and one opportunity to study the merits and demerits of different solutions.