Skid Row

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A skid row or skid road is a run-down or dilapidated urban area with a large, impoverished population. The term originally referred literally to a path along which workingmen skidded logs. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest. Examples are Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington, Skid Row in Los Angeles, San Francisco's Tenderloin District, and the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. The term 'skid road' dates back to the 19th century, when it referred to a corduroy road made of logs, used to skid or drag logs through woods and bog. The term was in common usage in the mid-1800s and came to refer not just to the corduroy roads themselves, but to logging camps and mills all along the Pacific Coast. The source of the term as an urban-landscape reference is heavily debated, and is generally identified as originating in either Vancouver or Seattle.