Slum

A slum is a part of a city or a town where many poor people live. It is a place where people may not have basic needs, such as running water, electricity, toilets, telephones, etc. Some of these people may also have social disadvantages, such as unemployment, no access to education, no access to health care, no municipal services, etc. There are slums in most of the big cities of developing countries and least developed countries (which are also labelled as the "Third World"). They may not be called slum, however; see shanty town.

Victorian London
Charles Dickens was a great author of Victorian London. His account of the St Giles rookery was:
"Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper; every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three – fruit and ‘sweetstuff’ manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlours, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a ‘musician’ in the front kitchen, a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one – filth everywhere – a gutter before the houses, and a drain behind – clothes drying, and slops emptying from the windows; (…) men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing".

Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1839.

 Sources 
Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, 2006
Elizabeth Blum/ Peter Neitzke Favela Metropolis 2004

 Other websites 

 http://skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=131517
South Africa slum dwellers' movement 
Slums of Victorian London 
Slums of New Delhi, India
Every third person will be a slum dweller within 30 years, UN agency warns; John Vidal; The Guardian; October 4, 2003.
Mute Magazine Vol 2#3, Naked Cities - Struggle in the Global Slums 

Category:Shanty towns