A shanty town (also called a squatter settlement) is a slum settlement (sometimes illegal or unauthorized) of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap materials: often plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which are usually built on the periphery of cities, often do not have proper sanitation, electricity or telephone services.
Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations, or partially developed nations with an unequal distribution of wealth. In extreme cases, shanty towns have populations approaching that of a city. As of 2005, one billion people, one-seventh of the world's population, live in shanty towns.
Read more about Shanty Town: Etymology, Features, Examples, Development
Famous quotes containing the words shanty and/or town:
“You can’t appreciate home till you’ve left it, money till it’s spent, your wife till she’s joined a woman’s club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)
“It is an old saying in the town that “most any fellow with a chaw in his jaw can sit on his front porch and spit down the chimney of a neighbor’s house.””
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)