History Main / FantasticGhetto

** The casteless dwarves of Orzammar are only allowed to live in Dust Town, the ruins of the old city. In ''Awakening'', Nathaniel (an elf) asks Sigrun (a casteless dwarf) if Dust Town is anything like the alienages, only to be taken aback when she compares the alienages ''positively'' to Dust Town.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', many of the original inhabitants of Rabanastre have been forced by TheEmpire to live in Lowtown, an underground area originally just used for storing goods. Meanwhile, the wealthy and imperial citizenry take everything above the surface.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': as shown in ''Heavensward'', the Holy See of Ishgard is divided into two districts called the Pillars and Foundation. The Pillars is home to the highborn residents of Ishgard, including noble families and those working for the clergy, and is a pleasant neighborhood. Foundation, on the other hand, is downtrodden and scarred from the war with the dragons, housing the city-states industries and lowborn population, including a young woman named Hilda, a mixed elezen[=/=]hyur woman. One neighborhood in Foundation, called The Brume, is particularly dilapidated, lacking in amenities and basic necessities, and located in an area that often sees dragon attacks. [[spoiler:By the end of the story, things start to improve as a new democratic government is founded to help bridge the gap between highborn and lowborn.]]

Ghettoes are very much a case of TruthInTelevision: the term ''"(bor)ghetto''", Italian for, more or less, "little town", originally referred to the district in [[UsefulNotes/TheCityStateEra City-State]] UsefulNotes/{{Venice}} where the Jews were supposed to live. Ironically, it has been asserted that the original Jewish ''ghettos'' were privileges, designed to protect Jews from unfriendly Gentile citizens, provided by the local rulers, including walls and locked gates which [[GoneHorriblyWrong were bitterly resented by the locals]]. Like all well-meaning attempts at segregation, the "special treatment" not only turned out to be not so special but increased division and tension between communities, especially since the ghettos were often poorly maintained and serviced, despite the frequent promises to the contrary. Additionally, their separation from the rest of the city often made doing business difficult for those who lived there, meaning that the community within the ghetto would become poorer over time. When American segregation was being litigated, testimony from the Middle Ages was actually used in court to prove that the claim of "separate but equal" was an impossibility.

* ''Literature/MonsterGirlDoctor'' is set in a city that's being repurposed so monsters can live alongside humans. Abandoned slums are flooded so that aquatic monsters can live there and the area is turned into a tourist sight.

* ''Literature/Overlord2012'': The city of E-Rantel has a DemiHuman District, which used to be a slum but was recently rebuilt.
* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'': Each city of the OneNationUnderCopyright government has slums outside of its main defenses, which is also part of their general policy of UrbanSegregation. Besides how they use slum residents as CannonFodder to fend off attacks and to replenish the ranks of [[PrivateMilitaryContractors hunters]] due to it being the only real work available to them, and use them for PlayingWithSyringes, it takes a while for a reason to be attached to why the residents are kept there. It turns out to be because the government takes an extremely harsh view of debt, and due to the free MysteryMeat food, housing, and water that they get, slum residents are seen as each being in debt to the government until they bring in enough LostTechnology relics scavenged from ruins to pay the city back (which is represented by [[FantasticRankSystem having a hunter rank of 10]]).
* ''Literature/SpiceAndWolf'': The city of Kumersun has an area surrounded by a high wall, where live alchemists and other people, whose profession is considered "suspicious" by the Church. Dian is a local chronicler, collecting tales not yet censored by authorities and mediating in trade between inhabitants and the outside world. She also happens to be [[spoiler:a giant bird, who took on human shape like Holo]].

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* ''Literature/TheOrphansTales'' has Shadukiam city, where magical beings are either locked in separated areas on the outskirts (genies, one-legged) or forced to wear distinctive clothes (Yi). The local MadOracle (who actually pretends to be mad to scare off wealthy idiots) chose to reside in the shadow of the shiny basilica, chained to a dirty wall, because it’s where those in need appear. Citizens prefer to have them all where they can't dirty their beautiful city.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': The ''[[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing]]'' novel ''Wedge's Gamble'' shows that the Empire allows nonhumans only in certain parts of Imperial Center which are called ethnic neighborhoods. One is officially the "Alien Protection Zone (dubbed "the Invisible Sector" or "Invisec") walled off from the rest. Supposedly this is for their protection against prejudice (hence the name) and they have prominent statues of heroes from different species living there, although they're really massive ghettos, as you would expect. A rebel group named the Alien Combine arose in Invisec because of this. It turns out that General Evir Derricote [[spoiler:is having residents of Invisec rounded up for use as test subjects in his secret development of the Krytos Virus]].

* In ''Literature/TheWitcher'', some cities force elves and dwarves to live in ghettos, where they are second-class citizens. Despite the discrimination, the situation for them is much worse in other kingdoms, where hunting and killing elves is practically legal.

* In ''ComicBook/AngelAndFaith'', a magical plague has mutated some of the residents of Hackney, London into magical creatures. The area they live in is now called Magic Town.
* In ''ComicBook/TheBalladOfHaloJones'', New York has designated areas for the Proximan alien refugees where humans aren't allowed. The title comes from ''The Hoop'', a floating, hoop-shaped conurbation full of unemployed humans and Proximans that's tethered to Manhattan.

* In ''ComicBook/TransformersTransTech'', Axiom Nexus has nine ''Offworlder Zones'' that house interdimensional refugees.

* Mutants in ''ComicBook/BeforeTheIncal'' live in an enclosed ghetto called the G.T.O. which they don't leave until they're 21 because it's legal to kill them before that age.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Hemostuck}}'', the seadwelling trolls get forced into the ghetto 'round the docks, and some of the worse-off end up living in what passes for the local sewers.
* In ''Fanfic/MassEffectHumanRevolution'', once the [[KnightTemplar Templars]] gained control over Caleston, they quickly moved all the alien population into the Red Light district. They don't bother patrolling inside anymore, and the situation quickly descended into mass anarchy and partying.

* In ''Fanfic/TalesOfTheCanterlotDeportationAgency'', the "temporary human settlement camp" (aka New Cynosure) where the trans-dimensional humans are kept qualifies. The Princesses recognize that there are peaceful humans who either arrived by accident or found their deliberate method only worked in one direction. Those incursions were granted two square kilometers carved out of a wild zone, and there they live, work, and make any friends they can. They can even recreate technology as long as it works cleanly. But... it's isolated from pony territory, there are guards, the entire thing is covered by a shield, and outside the border, there's a monster-infested wilderness. However, one option for some of the violent incursions is an underground prison. (Ben doesn't ask about the rest).

* ''Anime/BirdyTheMighty'': Most Altans live in a slummy area of the city, called simply "the Altan district".

* ''Literature/WildCards'': Jokertown, the only place where Jokers (the nine percent of the people who contract the Wild Card Virus who don't die or become normal-looking superhumans) don't have to be self-conscious about their disfiguring mutations. Masks are still popular fashion statements there, though. Other countries have other arrangements. There's a Joker Quarter in Jerusalem and Ireland banished all their Jokers to Rathlin Island (a visiting American compares it to TheRez).

* ''ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesIDW'': The aftermath of Old Hob's mutagen bomb attack left more than 300 people transformed into mutants. Newly elected mayor Baxter Stockman quickly ordered the affected zones to be quarantined and all the mutated humans confined therein, supposedly until a cure for their conditions could be administrated. He also ordered building a 50 ft wall around the zone to prevent the mutants from escaping. Eventually, the area became known as Mutant Town, a hellhole full of dilapidated neighborhoods, abject poverty, homelessness, hunger, and cold.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Attempted in the backstory, when humans tried to relocate Faunus to the isle of Menagerie. The two sides eventually went to war and the end result allowed Faunus to live among humans, and while there's no institutionalized racism, there is still a lot of bad blood between the two groups.

* Robots in ''WesternAnimation/{{Farzar}}'' have to live in a rundown Robot District and there's an alien shantytown just outside the DomedHometown.

* ''Comicbook/StrontiumDog'': {{Mutant|s}} populations in [[CrapsackWorld New Britain]] are not allowed to hold any jobs (apart from bounty hunting) or live amongst normal humans, instead living in their own trashed ghettos, the most prominent one located in Milton Keynes.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'':
** ''Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism'' takes place in the Underground, home to a population of banished {{youkai}} like a plague-manipulating [[GiantSpider tsuchigumo]] or [[MindOverManners mind-reading]] satori, whose powers made them shunned and despised even by other youkai. There's also a lot of oni found there too, but oddly enough the oni relocated later and voluntarily, after getting fed up with humans resorting to trickery to defeat them. True to [[CrapsaccharineWorld the nature]] of ''Touhou'', the Underground's denizens seem far more content amongst their fellow exiles than they were before... well, except the satori, who found that they were just as unwanted among the exiles as they had been on the surface, causing at least one of them to lock herself away and pushed her little sister into giving herself a PokeInTheThirdEye.

* ''WebComic/SkinDeep'': The Avalons are basically {{Hidden Elf Village}}s where mythological creatures walk around openly. They range from remote villages like Wonderland, to single shops like the Southwest Missouri Avalon, to concealed neighborhoods like the Liverpool Avalon (which is housed in the empty shell of a huge warehouse.) PlayedWith in that we are told that mythical creatures chose to go into hiding and took their communities with them, to escape the FantasticRacism of medieval humanity.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': The plot of the first movie is essentially driven by the local FeudalOverlord turning Shrek's swamp home into a ghetto for fairy-tale creatures and the like, and Shrek objecting rather violently to this -- not so much because he's against ghettoization, but because he's against ghettoization in ''his'' back yard.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' has a variation of this trope, shown in the two-part episode "Past Tense": in the 21st century, America's unemployment and poverty rates rose so high that nearly every major city would set up "Sanctuary Districts", walled-off communities for the destitute. In theory, they would help those struggling with poverty find steady employment and housing. In practice, however, they were essentially massive debtors' prisons for everyone from the unemployed to the mentally ill, as the residents were legally forbidden from leaving "for their own safety", and job placement services had been practically abolished.

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': Each city of the OneNationUnderCopyright government has slums outside of its main defenses, which is also part of their general policy of UrbanSegregation. Besides how they use slum residents as CannonFodder to fend off attacks and to replenish the ranks of [[PrivateMilitaryContractors hunters]] due to it being the only real work available to them, and use them for PlayingWithSyringes, it takes a while for a reason to be attached to why the residents are kept there. It turns out to be because the government takes an extremely harsh view of debt, and due to the free MysteryMeat food, housing, and water that they get, slum residents are seen as each being in debt to the government until they bring in enough LostTechnology relics scavenged from ruins to pay the city back (which is represented by [[FantasticRankSystem having a hunter rank of 10]]).
* ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'': The city of Kumersun has an area surrounded by a high wall, where live alchemists and other people, whose profession is considered "suspicious" by the Church. Dian is a local chronicler, collecting tales not yet censored by authorities and mediating in trade between inhabitants and the outside world. She also happens to be [[spoiler: a giant bird, who took on human shape like Holo.]]

* ''Comicbook/StrontiumDog'': {{mutant|s}} populations in [[CrapsackWorld New Britain]] are not allowed to hold any jobs (apart from bounty hunting) or live amongst normal humans, instead living in their own trashed ghettos, the most prominent one located in Milton Keynes.

* ''ComicBook/WildCatsWildStorm'': This shows up during Creator/AlanMoore's run when the team visits Khera, where it turns out the Kherubim-Daemonite war ended centuries ago everywhere except Earth. Khera is ruled by the wealthy and technologically advanced Kherubim while the planet's indigenous population, a race of {{Sizeshifter}}s from which [[TheBigGuy Maul]] descended, has been displaced into underground cities, and Daemonite civilians living on Khera are confined to a low-tech ghetto. Having one Daemonite ancestor is enough to get Voodoo, a Kherubim-human hybrid like her teammates, forced into the ghetto.

* ''LightNovel/AiNoKusabi'': Ceres, a slum where the mongrels live.

* ''LightNovel/MonsterGirlDoctor'' is set in a city that's being repurposed so monsters can live alongside humans. Abandoned slums are flooded so that aquatic monsters can live there and the area is turned into a tourist sight.

* ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'': The city of E-Rantel has a DemiHuman District, which used to be a slum but was recently rebuilt.

* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'': The Octarians were forced to live in a series of dilapidated underground domes as punishment by the Inklings for the [[GreatOffscreenWar Great Turf War]]. Today, however, it's their ''own'' leader, rather than the Inklings, who keeps them underground with [[PropagandaMachine military propaganda]] in hopes of invading and getting revenge for that loss. Any Octolings that manage to get to any cities on the surface however will find that most Inklings in the present day will happily accept them into their communities... partially out of sheer ignorance over the fact that they're speaking to an Octoling rather than an exotic-looking Inkling.

Ghettoes are very much a case of TruthInTelevision: the term ''"(bor)ghetto''", Italian for, more or less, "little town", originally referred to the district in [[UsefulNotes/TheCityStateEra City-State]] UsefulNotes/{{Venice}} where the Jews were supposed to live. Ironically, it has been asserted that the original Jewish ''ghettos'' were privileges, designed to protect Jews from unfriendly Gentile citizens, provided by the local rulers, including walls and locked gates which [[GoneHorriblyWrong were bitterly resented by the locals]]. Like all well-meaning attempts at segregation, the "special treatment" not only turned out to be not so special, but increased division and tension between communities, especially since the ghettos were often poorly maintained and serviced, despite the frequent promises to the contrary. Additionally, their separation from the rest of the city often made doing business difficult for those who lived there, meaning that the community within the ghetto would become poorer over time. When American segregation was being litigated, testimony from the Middle Ages was actually used in court to prove that the claim of "separate but equal" was an impossibility.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': The Eldians that were left outside the Walls were [[spoiler:rounded up by the Marleyans and thrown into internment camps. They live in abject poverty, with absolutely no rights, and are only permitted to step outside the designated Internment Zones with special permission. In the century since their internment, Marley has used propaganda to frame this as them showing "mercy" on the "Children of the Devil", and convinced the residents that the Eldians that escaped behind the Walls are the ones to blame for their suffering. In reality, the camps exist to maintain a captive population that can be turned into Titans during times of war. Libero Internment Zone is the main camp seen in the series, and was the home of both Grisha Yeager and the members of Marley's Warrior Unit]].

* ''Anime/CodeGeass'': In the [[TheEmpire Holy Britannian Empire]] , the "Concession" cities in the conquered "Area" colonies are usually split between the rich "Settlements" inhabited by Britannians, Honorary Britannians, and generally the rich and powerful, and the "Ghettos" where the conquered "Numbers" (native subjects), terrorists, and other unsavoury groups are forced to reside. The Tokyo Concession in Area 11 (Japan) is the most notable example, being the setting for the majority of the series.

* ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'': The city of Kumersun has an area surrounded by high wall, where live alchemists and other people, whose profession is considered "suspicious" by the Church. Dian is a local chronicler, collecting tales not yet censored by authorities and mediating in trade between inhabitants and outside world. She also happens to be [[spoiler: a giant bird, who took on human shape like Holo.]]

* In ''ComicBook/TheBalladOfHaloJones'', New York has designated areas for the the Proximan alien refugees where humans aren't allowed. The title comes from ''The Hoop'', a floating, hoop-shaped conurbation full of unemployed humans and Proximans that's tethered to Manhattan.

* ''ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesIDW'': The aftermath of Old Hob's mutagen bomb attack left more than 300 people transformed into mutants. Newly elected mayor Baxter Stockman quickly ordered the affected zones to be quarantined and all the mutated humans confined therein, supposedly until a cure for their conditions could be administrated. He also ordered to built a 50ft wall around the zone to prevent the mutants from escaping. Eventually, the area became known as Mutant Town, a hellhole full of dilapidated neighborhoods, abject poverty, homelessness, hunger and cold.

** The Fortress City of Rad is a [[ImpliedTrope subtle]] one. One one hand, it is a populous city where one would not see the same race twice. On the other hand, it is dedicated to the fantasy races (aka. the [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman non-human]] population) once considered to be undesirable by the Kingdom of Eostia.
* ''Fanfic/{{SAPR}}'': Atlas is divided into two cities. In the sky there's an upper city built on a giant floating rock, which is mostly inhabited by humans and is extremely advanced and affluent. On the ground there is a lower city (also called Low Town) that is inhabited mostly by poor faunus and is constructed a ramshackle and thrown together manner with little in the way of the technology the kingdom is famous for.
* In ''Fanfic/TalesOfTheCanterlotDeportationAgency'', the "temporary human settlement camp" (aka New Cynosure) where the trans-dimensional humans are kept qualifies. The Princesses recognize that there are peaceful humans who either arrived by accident or found their deliberate method only worked in one direction. Those incursions were granted two square kilometers carved out of a wild zone, and there they live, work, and make any friends they can. They can even recreate technology as long as it works cleanly. But... it's isolated from pony territory, there are guards, the entire thing is covered by a shield, and outside the border there's a monster-infested wilderness. However, one option for some of the violent incursions is an underground prison. (Ben doesn't ask about the rest).

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': The plot of the first movie is essentially driven by the local FeudalOverlord turning Shrek's swamp-home into a ghetto for fairy-tale creatures and the like, and Shrek objecting rather violently to this -- not so much because he's against ghettoization, but because he's against ghettoization in ''his'' back yard.

* ''Literature/DanShambleZombiePI'' us largely set in the Unnatural Quarter, a slum district in an unspecified American city that's been zoned for habitation by the MonsterMash of non-humans unleashed by the Big Uneasy.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Ankh-Morpork has a dwarf neighborhood around Cable Street, and a troll neighborhood around Quarry Lane. [[FantasticRacism People like "Mayonnaise" Quirke]] sometimes refer to the dwarf district as "Tinytown". ''Literature/{{Snuff}}'' reveals that the goblin district is a shantytown outside the city walls. This is described in terms very reminiscent of black townships in UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica during UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra, and is even explicitly described as "a township".

* ''Literature/WildCards'': Jokertown, the only place where Jokers (the nine percent of the people who contract the Wild Card Virus who don't die or become normal-looking superhumans) don't have to be self conscious about their disfiguring mutations. Masks are still popular fashion statements there, though. Other countries have other arrangements. There's a Joker Quarter in Jerusalem and Ireland banished all their Jokers to Rathlin Island (a visiting American compares it to TheRez).

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orks]] and [[AllTrollsAreDifferent trolls]] often get this treatment, and more rarely other metahumans such as [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]] and [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]]. Notable examples include Orkland in the Bay Area; Yomi Island in Japan, serving as an internment camp for all Japanese metahumans, before the internment laws were lifted by Emperor Yasuhito and the camp was left to the {{Wendigo}} and other [[TheVirus HMHVV]] infectees; and the Seattle Underground, settled by orks and trolls following anti-metahuman pogroms. When a rogue Japanese general took over the California Free State, he also enforced metahuman segregation and forcibly relocated the metahuman citizens of San Francisco and Sacramento to hastily-made ghettoes outside of the cities proper.

* ''VideoGame/Destiny2'': When the House of Light, a [[TokenHeroicOrc friendly faction]] of the Eliksni, petitions the Last City for sanctuary, they're settled in the Botza District, an unpopulated section of the City that was razed in the Red War a few years ago. As with the original ghettoes, it's for their own protection: the City's leadership is sympathetic to the House of Light, but is keeping them isolated because the City's populace mostly knows the Eliksni species as raiders and pirates who slaughter humans on sight. Members of the House of Light are even allowed to travel around the rest of the City if they wear visitor passes, but this opens them up to violence from angry citizens. Attitudes have cooled after the House of Light proved instrumental in resolving the current crisis, but the Eliksni Quarter remains their home.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', many of the original inhabitants of Rabanastre have been forced by TheEmpire to live in Lowtown, an underground area originally just used for storing goods. Meanwhile the wealthy and imperial citizenry take everything above the surface.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': Taris has ''two''. Nonhumans are ghettoed in the middle levels of the CityPlanet, while criminals are punished by exile to the planet surface, which is infested with [[TheVirus rakghouls]].