  We review briefly several approaches used to investigate the stability of
stripe phases in high temperature superconductors, where charge inhomogeneities
arise from competing kinetic and magnetic energies. The mechanism of stripe
formation, their consequences for the normal state and enhancement of pairing
interaction triggered by charge inhomogeneities are briefly summarized.
Finally, we demonstrate that orbital degeneracy ($i$) leads to a more subtle
mechanism of stripe formation, and ($ii$) plays an important role and
determines the symmetry of the superconducting state in pnictides.
