Despite the success of some antipoverty programs, it is not evident that conditions in poverty areas have improved; in fact, some indicators show that living conditions in the slums are worsening. One of the biggest difficulties is a lack of data on the nature of, and solutions to, the problems of these areas. Frequently revised data at least as comprehensive as that provided by the decennial census are needed. This project was designed to determine possible means of gathering the needed data so that program planners could make decisions based on facts instead of intuition. Although this is a case study of an inner-city poverty area in Philadelphia, it can be generalized to describe any similar urban area. Both the need for data and the methodology for establishing a manpower information system are developed from a broad perspective. Several data sources are compared in the second volume of this study, which is available as VT 011 115. (BH)