Line #56 Main/WrongSideOfTheTracks


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5	[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5909f268_fb0d_40d1_a98f_3749ac31e8d7.png]]]]
6
7	->''"Let me guess, this is where the poor people live."''
8	-->-- '''Alistair''', ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins,'' upon entering Dust Town.
9
10	Most cities, wherever they are, gather together people across a large range of incomes and social status. But often, for various reasons, [[SlobsVersusSnobs those of similar wealth come to live in the same parts of the city]]. This trope is about the poorer end of that scale. Crippling poverty is a day-to-day fact for people living in this type of neighborhood, often leading to both an [[WretchedHive increase in crime]] and the residents requiring aid from the government to meet their financial needs. The buildings are dilapidated and infrastructure is crumbling. The few businesses that are located here are pawnbrokers, liquor stores, bars, strip clubs and "happy ending" massage parlors. Police and ambulances may be slow to respond to calls here, and if this part of the city has [[TheCityNarrows gang-controlled, seedy alleys]], police may not go there at all.
11
12	Many residents live in run-down tenements or grimy rooming houses, and many are homeless, and facing drug and [[TheAlcoholic alcohol addiction]]. People are living so precariously that they may lose their home if an illness or a car breakdown means they can't pay rent (due to having little in savings), and steady, legal work is difficult to find. Many residents may turn to less-than-legal methods of acquiring money by way of panhandling, petty theft or sale of illegal goods, [[TheOldestProfession or ones that may be legal but frowned upon]].
13
14	The phrase originated in the early railroad era. Land is expensive, so the railroad would buy the cheapest land on the outskirts of towns, or would head for industrial areas since the most money is to be made in shipping goods. This would often lead to new homes being built near the train station as it allowed people to commute by train, but the residential properties are not in the industrial area, but on ''the other side of the tracks.'' So the ''wrong'' side is the industrial, cheap land area.
15
16	This development may be unintentional, as urban development can cause this area to become poverty-stricken; or intentional, as people are forced to live in these areas by ethnic UrbanSegregation.
17
18	This trope can be seen in three major classes:
19
20	* '''Industrial Slum''': This area usually springs up around rapid industrialization of an urban area. Those who work in the factories usually live in this area, barely getting by on a meager living. Deaths from disease and poor working conditions are common, leaving many children without parental support forced to live on the streets or end up in an OrphanageOfFear with no government regulation. The poor here have the choice of either living on the street or working in workhouses. The area is polluted and dirty. This variant makes this entire trope OlderThanSteam.
21	* '''Modern Ghetto''': This variant has similar origins to the Industrial Slum, but is usually promoted by businesses leaving the area and taking their business with them due to the already-existing conditions. Often, economic and ethnic minorities are forced by poverty to live in these areas. Individuals living here are often more likely to receive government aid. Crime often runs rampant, usually in the form of burglary, drug sale, robbery, prostitution, and gang-related violence. Often [[UrbanHellscape plays host to broken homes, runaway children, alcoholism and violence]]. Nearly always has an InnerCitySchool.
22	* '''Enforced Segregation''': This variant is enforced by law or by government policies. Certain individuals, such as those of a certain social group (i.e. race, ethnicity, religion) or political and ideological dissidents may be forced to live in such conditions isolated from the rest of society, and punished if they leave.
23
24	Home of many GangBangers, drug dealers and practitioners of TheOldestProfession. See also CityNoir for a citywide mood, TheCityNarrows for a fully criminal subdistrict, and WretchedHive for near-total lawlessness. If there's an inspirational underdog story about a RagTagBunchOfMisfits who want to go to a sports meet, they have to make do with ImprovisedTraining. If this place is filled with [[FantasticRacism Fantastic Races,]] it's a FantasticGhetto. It is possible that it is a CloseKnitCommunity, where the characters support each other against their problems. Rural versions of the trope may exist in the form of a [[TrashyTrailerHome Trashy Trailer Park]] or a DyingTown. Contrast (the American version of) {{Suburbia}}.
25
26	Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease
27
28	----
29	!!Examples:
30	[[foldercontrol]]
31
32	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
33	* ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' takes place in Satellite, a blending of the Modern Ghetto type with the ghettos of Nazi Germany.
34	* A very literal example in ''Anime/CodeGeass'', where [[DarkMessiah Zero]] takes his [[LaResistance minions-to-be]] on a train ride through Tokyo and asks [[ActionGirl Kallen]] what she sees out of the windows to her right: "A city of the Britannians. A city of robbers which stands because of our sacrifices." And to her left? "Our city. The husk of a city which was sucked dry by the Britannians." Areas like Saitama and Shinjuku deal with all the problems of any modern ghetto on top of the occasional genocidal purge when TheEmpire needs to find someone.
35	* [[LittleMissBadass Fabiola Iglesias]] from ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' was born and raised in the barrios of Caracas, Venezuela. In the 2nd episode of the 3rd season, we get an aerial view of Caracas that is very similar to the ''Code Geass'' example: a clean, modern city and an overcrowded massive slum are divided by a highway between them.
36	* ''Kaze no Yojimbo'' take place in a town with an old red brick house side and a side with more modern white houses.
37	* ''Manga/Area88'': In manga issues that didn't make it stateside, we learn that Gary "Mac" Macburn grew up in poverty and squalor in Harlem.
38	* ''Manga/Moscow2160'': Danila encounters a part of the city that was originally build as a living area with cheap houses, but when their exploitation date was up, they weren't demolished but constantly repaired to the point where it's habitants abandoned it and it became a ghetto for prostitutes to work.
39	* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'': Akira is from the slums, the result of a deliberate policy of UrbanSegregation by OneNationUnderCopyright. Kugamayama city has four sections separated by wealth: Upper, Middle, Lower, and Slums. The top two are the only ones with a legal system, and their inhabitants consider the lower two little more than extensions of the DeathWorld wasteland. While the working-class lower district has PrivateMilitaryContractors made up of former hunters providing security, the slums have nothing but the local flavor of {{Gangbangers}} under slum lords. Besides those, there are only a few laws whatsoever there: Corpses must be disposed of or the government will enact ThePurge in a firestorm, and anyone leading monsters into the city will pay. They mostly survive on the free food supplied by the government: MysteryMeat filled with harmful {{Nanomachines}}, and plant products grown in places that may be radioactive, to test if these are safe to sell. The slums are kept in place to serve as CannonFodder in two forms: To keep attacking monsters busy while the military responds, and to encourage people to become hunters that scavenge low grade LostTechnology relics to get by. Thanks to this, guns are more common than food there.
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Comic Books]]
43	* Downplayed with Bakerville in ''ComicBook/AstroCity''. While it's more industrial-oriented and its residents are definitely lower on the social strata, it's not a lawless hellhole filled with drugs and crime, and has its own supers to keep things under control.
44	* ''ComicBook/TheDregs'': The titular dregs are the six slummiest blocks in Vancouver, where the city's undesirables live. A businessman is trying to gentrify it and is resorting to [[KillThePoor less than ethical methods]].
45	* Taken to extremes in ''ComicBook/GiveMeLiberty'', where the Chicago housing project of Cabrini-Green is walled in and turned into a virtual prison for the residents.
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Fan Works]]
49	* ''Fanfic/TheGoodHunter'': The slums of Lescatie, the City of Heroes, [[SlobsVersusSnobs in stark contrast to the noble estates and the rich district there]]. The very first chapter describes the poorer end of the city as a place filled with abandoned houses, "where desperation and hunger ruled and [[MightMakesRight existence was decided by the red blood thirst of a knife blade]]". Living in a small, uncomfortable house is not a problem for Cyril, however, as he is long inured to discomfort.
50	* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', Gringy City is now a good place to live thanks to the efforts of WealthyPhilanthropist Tokiomi Borealis. However, it has a sector known as the Old Cesspit, which is still somewhat slummy compared to the rest of the city, and was even worse back in the city's dark times.
51	* ''FanFic/ThreeGuysGoToABarAndThenTheyBeatYouWithIt'' has Shinsou living in such an area. When Bakugou and Tokoyami go to visit him to discuss their assignment, both are taken aback by the realization that their classmate is living in squalor, and that part of the reason he's such a CombatPragmatist is because of how he's had to fend for himself for so long.
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
55	* ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'', literally.
56	* Tramp from ''WesternAnimation/LadyAndTheTramp'' actually lives on a railroad yard at the edge of the town he and his love interest Lady live in.
57	* In ''Film/OsmosisJones'', Ozzy mentions that he grew up on "the wrong side of the digestive tract." (Really just an excuse for [[ToiletHumor poop and fart jokes]].)
58	* {{Downplayed}} example in ''WesternAnimation/ThePolarExpress.'' [[TheEeyore The last boy]] to be picked up by the Express lives on the other side of the tracks in a poorer neighborhood.
59	* ''WesternAnimation/UnstableFables'': There's a literal set of tracks serving as a boundary line between the pigs' city and the wolves'.
60	[[/folder]]
61
62	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
63	%% * ''Film/EightMile'' takes place in the Detroit ghettos.
64	* ''Film/TheBlindSide'': The housing projects of Hurt Village, where Michael is from.
65	* In the opening sequence of ''Film/{{Caddyshack}}'', Danny rides his bike from his working-class home to the ritzy neighborhood of the country club. The transition from lower-middle-class to mansions is marked by an overhead shot of him bicycling through a railroad crossing.
66	%% * ''Film/CityLights'' (Charlie Chaplin silent movie)
67	* Creator/AkiraKurosawa's ''Film/{{Dodeskaden}}'' explores such a neighborhood in 1970s Tokyo.
68	* ''Film/Europe51'': Irene the rich socialite, with a new instinct for do-gooding, is shocked by seeing tenements where families sleep twelve to a room and riverside shacks without electricity or plumbing. She comes home and tells her husband "I've discovered a world I had no idea existed."
69	* The 1926 silent film ''Film/ForHeavensSake'' opens with a title card that reads, "Every city has two districts -- Uptown, where the people are cursed with money -- and Downtown, where they are cursed without it." Creator/HaroldLloyd plays "The Uptown Boy," who falls in love with, "The Downtown Girl."
70	* Deliberately {{invoked}} in ''Film/FreeGuy''. The living area for the players, all violent criminals, is separated from the peaceful rest of Free City by literal train tracks. If any NPC, like cops, tries to cross the tracks a train will run them over automatically.
71	%% * The French movie ''Film/LaHaine''.
72	* In one skit in ''Film/TheKentuckyFriedMovie'', when Rex Kramer goes Seeking Danger (by [[spoiler: yelling the N-word in the middle of a group of black men]]), he literally crosses over to the wrong side of the tracks.
73	* ''Film/LadyBird'' has a literal case, as going to Christine's working-class home requires her wealthy classmates to cross the railway.
74	* ''Film/ManilaInTheClawsOfLight'': The film is set in the dirty urban sprawl of the Philippines' capital city. The Filipino urban poor are victims of a system that can't and won't help them, but there is a lot of solidarity among them. Julio is often shown caring and generosity from poor construction workers, people who live in slums, prostitutes, and other societal outcasts.
75	* ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' takes it to extremes by sticking its working class on the wrong side of the ground. Their neighborhood is entirely underneath the city proper, as is the machinery they run. The rich live on the upper side and rarely even see the workers they depend upon.
76	%% * ''Film/MidnightCowboy''
77	%% * ''Raisin in the Sun''
78	%% * ''Straight Up'' has Drug City.
79	* ''Film/TheOutsiders'': The main characters live in the poorer, "rough" side of town, which makes them targets for the richer kids.
80	* Literally in ''Film/SaltOfTheEarth'', in which Esperanza notes that while all the Mexican miners' families live in shacks without running water, the white miners living on the other side of the railroad tracks live in better houses with plumbing.
81	* Literally in ''Film/{{Skippy}}'', as the shantytown that Dr. Skinner regards as a public health menace is located on the far side of the railroad tracks. His mischievous son Skippy likes to go play there, much to Dr. Skinner's displeasure.
82	* ''Film/{{Sleepers}}'': Hell's Kitchen, as a crime-ruled, immigrant neighborhood in TheSixties, is of the Modern Ghetto flavor.
83	--> '''Shakes''': ''[narrating]'' Hell's Kitchen was populated by an uneasy blend of Irish, Italian, Puerto Rican, and Eastern European laborers. Hard men living hard lives. ''[a married couple aggressively yelling in the background]'' Few women worked and all had trouble with the men they married.
84	* ''Film/TheyClonedTyrone'': The Glen is a largely dirty and rundown neighborhood full of drug dealers and prostitution. [[spoiler:This is by design. The conspiracy uses clones like the drug dealer Fontaine and the pimp Slick Charles to keep the streets full of violence and misery so that outsides don’t come poking around and uncover the mind control experiments.]]
85	* ''Film/Zombies2018'': Zombietown is where all zombies are forced to live. Zed uses the track metaphor during a song early in the movie.
86	[[/folder]]
87
88	[[folder:Literature]]
89	* Pick a Creator/CharlesDickens novel. Nearly any Creator/CharlesDickens novel. The most outstanding example is the neighborhood in which Literature/OliverTwist is set.
90	%% * ''Literature/ThePrinceAndThePauper''
91	* ''Literature/UpTheDownStaircase'' takes place in this type of neighborhood in the 1960s. The protagonist is an enthusiastic young teacher who tries to SaveOurStudents.
92	%% * ''Film/NoneButTheLonelyHeart ''
93	* Both Peaches and Mickey live in such in Creator/GeneStrattonPorter's ''Literature/MichaelOHalloran'', though Mickey concedes when Peaches lives with him:
94	-->''"If this is slum kids, I like it!" protested Peaches.\
95	"Well, Sunrise Alley ain't so slummy as where you was, Lily," explained the boy.''
96	%% * District 12's Seam in ''[[Literature/{{TheHungerGames}} The Hunger Games]]''
97	* SelfMadeMan Gail Wynand of ''Literature/TheFountainhead'' was born in Hell's Kitchen.
98	* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', the city of Ankh-Morpork is actually a double one, consisting of "Proud Ankh and pestilent Morpork", separated by the River Ankh. Even within Morpork, there is [[TheCityNarrows the Shades]], where it is said that even the criminals are afraid to walk the streets. As the series progresses and the setting slowly transitions from MedievalEuropeanFantasy to GaslampFantasy this becomes a bit less true; Ankh is still a very expensive residential district dominated by OldMoney, but Morpork is home to a growing middle class and most of the city's manufacturing sector, not to mention the seat of government and [[WizardingSchool Unseen University.]] The crime rate also starts dropping considerably in the aftermath of ''Literature/MenAtArms'' once the City Watch get more manpower and a real budget.
99	* The Tenderloin of San Francisco is treated this way in ''Literature/LittleBrother''.
100	* The Rookeries are the poorest, but also the largest and most important district of the Colony in ''Literature/{{Tunnels}}''.
101	* The ''Literature/BarnabyGrimes'' series has the Wasp's Nest, an impoverished, crime-ridden district of the city that all [[LeParkour Tick-Tock Lads]] try to avoid as much as possible. The East Bank is even worse.
102	* In the ''Literature/BekaCooper'' trilogy, the capital city, Corus, has the Lower City, where the lower classes live. Within it is the Cesspool, where the poorest people live.
103	* ''Literature/DaughterOfFortune'': Jacob Todd follows Joaquín Andieta home. He is surprised to see the impoverished neighborhood where Joaquín lives (the streets are so filthy that Joaquín changes into a pair of slippers so that he can keep clean his only pair of shoes for his job).
104	* Annie from ''Literature/AnnieOnMyMind'' lives near one of these in 1980s New York, in contrast with her more affluent suburban girlfriend.
105	* ''Literature/TellMeHowYouReallyFeel'': Rachel and her father live in a poor section of LA. She's embarrassed to bring Sana over because of their house being dirty inside, making a point of cleaning before she comes in.
106	* ''Literature/StarWarsLostStars'': Ciena was born to the poorer valley kindred, as First Wavers on Jelucan are often known from living in its valleys.
107	* ''Literature/TheConstantGardener'' by Creator/JohnLeCarre has a section set in Regina, Saskatchewan, where the Indians and East Europeans huddle in wretched slums while the wealthy Anglos lord it over them in stately mansions. Anyone who's been to Regina knows how ridiculous this is (about the East Europeans, anyway.)
108	* ''Literature/{{Pale}}'' has this in the form of Kennet Below, a magically created version of the sleepy tourist town populated entirely with various characters. These characters vary from somewhat friendly to actively murderous.
109	* ''Literature/YearsOfGrace'': Literally. Jane, youngest daughter of a very rich upper-class Chicago family, has a friend named Agnes from a middle-class family, who lives on the other side of the railroad tracks. Jane's snobby, elitist mother disapproves of Jane seeing Agnes.
110	-->Jane...crossed the Clark Street car-tracks and wondered, as she did so, why they formed such a social Rubicon. Her other friend Isabel never had any opinion of any one who lived west of Clark Street. It was the worst thing they had to say of Agnes.
111	* Merletta from ''Literature/TheVazulaChronicles'' grew up in a charity home in Tilssted, the poorest of the [[UnderwaterCity triple kingdoms]], where any mermaid who swims around at night risks being robbed. She's looked down on by [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer the wealthier mermaids in the Center of Culture]].
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
115	* ''Series/LincolnHeights'' is ''supposed'' to the bad neighborhood; in fact, the show spends an entire season telling the viewers how bad it is. But when you look at the neighborhoods it turns out that it's not as bad as we're led to believe. The 2-story, 3-bedroom house that the Suttons live in is HUGE and perfectly suitable for a middle-class family living in Los Angeles, CA. The main problem is the inner-city gangs, which could be controlled by better policing by the Lincoln Heights police as opposed to their lackadaisical approach to policing in that area.
116	* ''Series/TheWire'''s main setting is the slums of Baltimore, where crime gangs like the Barksdales and the Stanfield Organization reign supreme.
117	** The trope is alluded to by name during the mayoral race in season 4 when Carcetti, who has heard from Rawls that Delegate Watkins is having a falling out with the incumbent Mayor Royce, jumps at the opportunity to get Watkins' backing.
118	* ''Series/TheDropout'': To save costs, Elizabeth opens the office for Theranos in a questionable neighborhood. Sure enough, when parking her car, a stray bullet shatters her window and misses her head by inches. She is so spooked that she calls Sunny despite having broken up with him.
119	* Santana from ''Series/{{Glee}}'' claims to be from Lima Heights Adjacent, which apparently is this trope (she even uses the term "on the wrong side of the tracks"), although she also [[UnreliableNarrator claims that her father is a doctor...]]
120	** It doesn't help that Lima Heights Adjacent does not exist in real life when other Ohio towns -- even those that were only mentioned once -- have real-world counterparts.
121	* A frequently recurring theme in ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'', to the point where there is an episode literally entitled "Wrong Side of the Tracks." Cory comes from a stable, middle-class two-parent household in a good neighborhood, whereas his best friend Shawn comes from an extremely poor and dysfunctional family living in a trailer park. While this is at times played for laughs, it also comes up frequently in much more serious contexts -- the class differences between Cory and Shawn are the subject of multiple disagreements, Shawn struggles with his self-esteem due to the way he believes others view him because of his background, and Shawn at one point [[spoiler:has to move in with his teacher because he is suddenly abandoned by both of his parents]].
122	* [[{{Discussed}} Named-dropped]] in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' to describe the Chicago neighborhood Carla grew up in.
123	* Both the [[Series/ShamelessUK British]] and [[Series/ShamelessUS American]] versions of ''Shameless'' use these places as the setting. The British version takes place in the fictional neighborhood of Chatsworth Estate, a deprived council estate in [[OopNorth Stretford, Greater Manchester]]. The American version takes place in the South Side of UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}.
124	* Downbelow in ''Series/{{Babylon 5}}'' - the place where everyone without somewhere nicer to go, goes. It mostly exists because they didn't have time to finish the station before they had need of it. Played for a mixture of horror and comedy in one episode, where Ivanova has to negotiate with an unusually assholish alien from a race that believes in segregating the genetically unworthy...and thinks Downbelow is a brilliant solution to the problem, going so far as to suggest it officially become part of his own race's law. Ivanova is troubled by this turn of events, to say the least.
125	* [[CountryMouse Rural]] (or semi-rural) version on ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'' in the form of Camden. Although it has a downtown area, it also has trailer parks, such as the Pimmit Hills Trailer Park where Earl once lived.
126	* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': [[Film/TheAvengers2012 "The Incident"]] undid a lot of the gentrification in Hell's Kitchen. Matt and Foggy are able to acquire office space for Nelson & Murdock on the cheap due to it being one of only a few buildings on its block to have escaped major damage in the Incident. Meanwhile, Wilson Fisk has made his rise to power as a crime lord due to skimming on Incident reconstruction contracts.
127	* ''Series/Batwoman2019'': The area where Ryan grew up is a very poor part of Gotham, which we see in the flashbacks to her past.
128	* ''Series/Zero2021'': Omar and his family live in a very poor section of Milan called the Barrio. There are criminal gangs that prey on people, and the poor residents are in danger from eviction if gentrification happens (it turns out they're linked-the developer has hired some criminals to mess the place up so property prices will go down).
129	* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'': The Northside of Riverdale is where the upper and class and rich live, and the Southside is the poor, filled with drugs and dangerous side of the city, full of violent gangs like the Serpents and the Ghoulies.
130	[[/folder]]
131
132	[[folder:Music]]
133	* Hip-hop and rap originally got their start in poorer inner-city areas. Many artists themselves if we are to believe their music as truth.
134	* Similarly, punk originated in the poorer areas of UsefulNotes/{{London}} and [[BigApplesauce New York]] during TheSeventies.
135	* Brazilian Baile Funk is contemporary music from the ghettos. Many musicians perform free gigs in the Barrio, and the next night, at a club on the other side of the tracks, now charging for tickets.
136	* "Rag Doll" by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The girl is from the wrong side of the tracks. The boy loves her anyway.
137	* "Dawn" by Frankie Valli and The Four seasons: The boy is from the wrong side of the tracks; he tells the girl to stay with the other boy. Frankly, the song is drowning in {{Wangst}} bordering on brain-bleeding territory -- the hottest/nicest/most generally awesome girl in town wants him and he's turning her down because she's rich? Or maybe he's just a JerkAss with self-esteem issues.
138	%% * "Tobacco Road" by Tommy Cash
139	%% * "Down in the Boondocks" by Billy Joe Royal
140	%% * "In The Ghetto" by Music/ElvisPresley
141	%% * "Hallowed Ground" by Music/{{Erasure}}
142	%% * "Trenchtown Rock" by Music/BobMarley
143	%% * "Poor Side of Town" by Johnny Rivers
144	* "Leader Of The Pack" by The Shangri-Las ("My parents said he came from the wrong side of town...")
145	* "Substitute" by Music/TheWho ("I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth - The north side of my town faced east, and the east was facing south...")
146	* Parodied by Music/SteelPanther with "Wrong Side of the Tracks (Out in Beverly Hills)". The singer has a mansion the size of a city block, lavish statues, and his name on the side of a plane. But he's considered on the "wrong side of the tracks" because his TrophyWife threw away his Music/{{Dokken}} [=CDs=], he can't figure how to set up Bluetooth to his mansion, and he can't afford a hangar for his plane yet.
147	* The Tracks in question are specifically referred to in "Train" by Neo-ProgressiveRock band Ark, with the narrator eventually making his way ''along'' the tracks rather than across them:
148	-->I was raised surrounded by\
149	The smell of oil and industry\
150	Across the tracks houses stood,\
151	Gardens mocking poverty...
152	* In "Bigger Windows" by Terri Clark, the narrator reminisces about where she grew up:
153	-->Little clapboard house
154	-->Rent always due
155	-->Railroad tracks and factory smokestacks for a view
156	-->No easy street in our neighborhood
157	-->Yeah, it was hard to tell the bad times from the good
158	[[/folder]]
159
160	[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
161	* Wrestling/DeuceNDomino (a tag team with a [[TheFifties Fifties]] greasers gimmick) were billed as hailing from "[[PartsUnknown the other side of the tracks]]".
162	** Their valet, [[Wrestling/KaraDrew Cherry]], has an {{Expy}}[=/=]LegacyCharacter in Wrestling/{{CHIKARA}}'s [[Wrestling/SkylarMarie Blanche Babish]], who is billed from "The Wrong Side of the Tracks." During her match with El Hijo del Ice Cream at ''Hour of Power 14'', commentators Bryce Remsburg and Wrestling/SidneyBakabella made jokes about playing a game of "Deuces and Dominoes" and about the cherry on top of Hijo's mask.
163	[[/folder]]
164
165	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
166	* In the Hudson City setting for ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'', the Southside in general is the Wrong Side of the Tracks, but this is especially true of the violence-ridden neighborhoods known as Lafayette ("'Fayettenam"), Forsyth and Freetown ... and double-true of the section of Freetown known as "The Numbers" which is a WretchedHive even by ''Freetown'' standards.
167	* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'''s Seattle, already a WretchedHive, has a Wrong Side Of The Tracks called The Barrens. It is divided into Puyallup and Redmond, ''both'' of them hellholes.
168	* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'''s ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' setting (and by extension, ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment''), the Hive in Sigil definitely counts. It is poor, run-down, covered in dirt and refuse, and ruled by violent crimie lords.
169	* In ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'', urban Bone Gnawers inhabit the poor, squalid parts of their cities.
170	[[/folder]]
171
172	[[folder:Theatre]]
173	%% * Seymour's neighborhood in ''Theatre/LittleShopOfHorrors'' is Skid Row.
174	%% * ''Theatre/DeathOfASalesman''
175	* ''Theatre/{{RENT}}'' takes place in Alphabet City, a neighbourhood in New York's Lower East Side. A noteworthy depiction, since it portrays people existing in poverty due to economic and social conditions living alongside those who live in poverty due to their unconventional and unprosperous lifestyle choice, with a certain amount of antagonism between the two.
176	[[/folder]]
177
178	[[folder:Video Games]]
179	* ''Videogame/Afterlife1996:'' "The Wrong Side of the Tracks" is an actual punishment for Avaricious souls, explicitly stated to be a bad part of town where even the demons avoid after sundown. The inhabitants will inevitably turn to brutal crime to try and buy their way out, but the "big score" they seek never, ever arrives.
180	* The town of Freejia from ''VideoGame/IllusionOfGaia'' is like this. On the rich side, there's flowers and beauty as far as the eye can see. In the back alleys, the poor are kept out of sight, it's dark and dirty, and slavery is commonplace.
181	* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
182	** The slums of Midgar in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. The slums are located at the ground level of the city while the towns containing the more well off and wealthy citizens live on plates that are above the slums. The train system is the only thing that allows travel between the two.
183	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'':
184	*** The folks of Rabanastre who were driven to poverty by the Archadian invasion live beneath the city in an area called the Lowtown. Movement is freely allowed between the two halves of the city, though, which is how Vaan (a poor orphan who lives in Lowtown) manages to pickpocket from time to time.
185	*** Archades itself has a more complex system of stratification in its city planning. The city consists of several levels, and a special residential permit is required if you want to access the higher ones. Across the river is the poorest sector of the city, Old Archades, which is inhabited by Archadians who could not afford to live in the new city after the empire experienced an economic boom.
186	* [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Wrong Side of the Tracks]] on ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''. It's immediately across the tracks (Which have no trains and don't lead anywhere) from the Right Side of the Tracks.
187	* In ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'', in Lighthaltzen, there is a literally wrong side of the tracks, with crappy slums, corporate guards, and other suspicious things.
188	* ''Franchise/DragonAge'':
189	** Dust Town, the home of the casteless dwarves, in the dwarven city of Orzammar. Practically enforced by Orzammar's rigid caste system. Most residents resort to crime to survive, and if you pick the Origin that starts there, that's exactly what you're doing.
190	** In human cities, elves are forced to live in alienages: walled-off ghettos full of run-down buildings. Even in the beautiful Orlais capital Val Royeaux, its alienage lies in abject squalor. Interestingly, the games note that elves are not ''legally'' required to live in the alienage, but those who buy homes elsewhere are often met with virulent racism from the humans.
191	** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', Lowtown qualifies as the Wrong Side Of The Tracks for the city of Kirkwall, being the former slave quarter of the city. As a refugee from Ferelden, this is where the main character is living at the start of Act 1. Darktown -- the city's labyrinthine sewer system -- might also qualify, but it's closer to being a WretchedHive. And, of course, Kirkwall has its own alienage as well.
192	* In the ''VideoGame/BioShock'' franchise, Rapture has at least two: Apollo Square, in the first game, is notable for having housed Fontaine's Home for the Poor, which became Atlas's base of operations later on. Pauper's Drop, in ''VideoGame/Bioshock2'', was never even meant to be a part of the city; it was [[DingyTrainsideApartment a series of flophouses built underneath the proposed railway]] for its work crew. It started falling apart even faster than the rest of the city, and by the time you arrive is home to, among other fun places of interest, a train car that apparently ''fell in through the roof''. As Augustus Sinclair observes, "[[LayeredMetropolis There ain't a side of the tracks more wrong than under 'em.]]" Bonus points for featuring a literal "Skid Row" as one of its sections, though it's hard to say how that part is more of a Skid Row than the rest of it.
193	* The city of Rogueport in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' would qualify. The place is filled with thieves and bandits and is considered the lowest of the low in terms of living conditions. Of course, the west side of town is noticeably cleaner and less run-down, but that's probably due to the fact that the west side is run by a wealthy mafia and the east side of Rogueport is run by a not-so-wealthy gang.
194	** Flopside in ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' could fall under this category too. It's supposed to be the "dark" counterpart of Flipside, so while Flipside is bright and clean with happy residents, Flopside has a darker color scheme and dilapidated buildings, and morbidly depressing locals.
195	* ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'' has a literal example: in Bullworth, the inner city ghetto New Coventry and the rough blue collar industrial neighborhood Blue Skies Industrial Park are separated from the rich suburb Old Bullworth Vale and the downtown political and commercial district of the town by a railway bridge.
196	* The lower sections of the Hierarchical Cities in ''{{VideoGame/BlazBlue}}'' albeit it has a minor justification -- seithr, a poisonous gas/Mana is denser the lower you are to sea level so the richer citizens live in the higher, cleaner sectors while the poor live in the areas closer to pollution. The NOL who run the world have their bases at the peaks of mountains the Hierarchical Cities are established on.
197	* London's district of Whitechapel in ''VideoGame/SherlockHolmesVersusJackTheRipper'' is portrayed as such, full of low lives, drunkards, and disease-infected.
198	* The district of Sunrise was this in the Laurentia story arc of ''VideoGame/NexusClash''. A world-spanning war and resulting [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything refugee crisis]] combined with a need for cheap labor led the government of [[ShiningCity Laurentia]] to reconsider their [[HiddenElfVillage previous]] immigration policy and admit refugees...who found themselves herded into Sunrise with little to no aid and barred from entering most of the rest of the city. The native Laurentian residents of Sunrise were already this trope and were not consulted on this decision.
199	** That's only in the backstory. Now that its world is over and Laurentia has been pulled into the titular apocalyptic Nexus, ''all'' districts of Laurentia are now equally crammed with human or supernatural enemies who are actively [[EverythingTryingToKillYou trying to kill you]].
200	* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'':
201	** As mentioned in the beginning, Cuphead and Mugman get to the Devil's Casino, which is apparently in Hell itself, by wandering to the wrong side of the tracks. We [[BrickJoke later learn]] that the entrance to the casino is literally on the opposite side of the Phantom Express' tracks.
202	** Ribby and Croaks say that they're from "the wrong side of the lily pad."
203	* The ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' series has the eponymous neighborhood of Stilwater[[note]]which [[ArtifactTitle hasn't been present in any game after the second]][[/note]]: in the [[VideoGame/SaintsRow1 original game]], it is a dilapidated slum overrun by gangs and homeless squatters, and it also features the Projects 'hoods (Shivington and Sunnyvale Gardens), which are just as poor and crime-infested. Both 'hoods produce their vigilantes-turned-crime-empires: Vice Kings came out of Sunnyvale in the BackStory, while the first game chronicles the rise the Third Street Saints out of the Row. In ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'', by contrast, only the Projects still qualify for this trope, since the Saints Row is bought wholesale and rebuilt from the ground up into an ultramodern capitalist utopia by the Ultor MegaCorp ([[spoiler:who turn their attention to the Projects next, as it turns out]]).
204	* Deconstructed in ''VideoGame/ClamMan''. Clam Man lives in a very poor part of the city. The buildings are all broken and run down, crime is frequent, and it's implied that many inhabitants of the area are homeless. As it turns out, [[spoiler:many people in other parts of the city have complained about how that one area makes the rest of the city look bad, so Mayor King is plotting to demolish the whole area to maintain his PR.]]
205	* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'': Night City has two wrong sides of the tracks, conveniently located to the north and to the south of the city center, with both being former corporate pet districts. The Watson district to the north is an IndustrialGhetto, with most of its factories shut down and overrun by gangs since the latest economic downturn, -- this is also where the PlayerCharacter V lives as a merc, as well as where all of Act I takes place, thanks to the NCPD routinely cordoning the whole district off from the rest of the city. The Pacifica district, meanwhile, is so bad that even the NCPD refused to patrol it, so the mayor eventually declared it an independent town, reducing crime in Night City (on paper) by 3%.
206	* ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'':
207	** Website Website/{{Reddit}} is portrayed as a NotSoSafeHarbor. At first, the place appears to be a classic PortTown, then you discover that those who lacks upvotes are forced to live in the downtrodden, crime-ridden Downvoting Lane located in the back alleys of the city.
208	** [=YouTube=] is modeled after Rogueport from ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' and displays a very similar layout: The West Side features an open air market and the Arena and is in much better shape than the dirty, rundown East Side where a stripper club (only accesible at night) and the entrance to the AbsurdlySpaciousSewer that represent the site's comment section can be found.
209	* The city of Los Santos in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' is divided by a railroad that intersects through the city. The western side of the tracks is the downtown area which has more high end stores that sells a large variety of products, the homes are better maintained and have higher property value, and there's a large beach with a boardwalk. The eastern side has more run down homes and ghettos that are rife with gang violence, the businesses are far fewer and sell cheaper goods, and there's industrial areas like warehouses and docks. It's also very notable that only the eastern side of Los Santos is affected by [[spoiler: the riots caused by the people that are upset at [[BigBad Tenpenny]] effectively getting a not guilty verdict for a "lack of evidence" for his crimes. The richer neighborhoods aren't affected by the riots.]]
210	[[/folder]]
211
212	[[folder:Webcomics]]
213	* ''Webcomic/KarateBears'' [[http://www.karatebears.com/2011/09/wrong-side-of-tracks.html are from the wrong side of the tracks for sure!]]
214	* In ''Webcomic/BlueYonder'' [[http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1201813/blue-yonder-chapter-1-page-13/ Claremond Apartments is in a rundown neighborhood where the cops have given up]]. Jared thinks it's a WretchedHive. Lena assures him it's a community. (Having a lot of capes, even washed-up capes, about helps.)
215	* "The Estate" chapter of ''Webcomic/ScaryGoRound''.
216	* the Farrell's Row district in ''Webcomic/AutumnBay'', also known as "Purgatory". It is described as "pretty much the national centre of urban decay, like the very concept itself erupted onto the city streets".
217	[[/folder]]
218
219	[[folder:Web Original]]
220	* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', prior to the Extermination arc, the city was relatively evenly divided between the prosperous and tourist-friendly Boardwalk and the ghettos of the Docks.
221	* WebAnimation/{{RWBY}} has the Kingdom of Atlas, which is ''vertically'' divided. The kingdom's original city of Mantle lies literally in the shadow of its sister city Atlas, which is built on an artificial FloatingContinent. Atlas is a beautiful, shining city, home to the Kingdom's [[AcademyofAdventure Huntsman Academy]], military command and the wealthy and elite. Mantle is grubby and neglected, with a sizeable industrial ghetto in the Crater, and decaying defenses against the [[AnimalisticAbomination Grimm]].
222	[[/folder]]
223
224	[[folder:Western Animation]]
225	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arcane}}'' revolves around the trope with the city of Piltover, which is a case of Wrong Side of the Strait. On one end of the bridges lie gleaming buildings, wealth and innovation. On the other side is poverty, pollution, and rampant crime.
226	* A number of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episodes have featured the Wrong Side Of The Tracks district in Springfield. In one episode, Bart literally walks past Mr Burns' opulent mansion, across a set of railroad tracks, and into a dilapidated slum. ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsHitAndRun'' even has a [[MoodMotif song]] called "Wrong Side of the Tracks".
227	%% * ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': The Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.
228	* In the infamous episode "The Mask" from ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'', Kitty and Bunny are explicitly said to come from "the wrong side of the tracks." Sure enough, Mad Dog's apartment is just on the other side of the titular tracks.
229	* Played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''; the town is so small that Kenny is able to live on the wrong side of the tracks and still be next-door neighbors with the other boys.
230	** Seen in the episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS2E10Chickenpox Chickenpox]]", where the boys literally cross train tracks to get to Kenny's house, complete with Cartman singing [[Music/ElvisPresley "In the Ghetto"]].
231	* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': In "The Big Scoop", a literal set of tracks serves as a boundary line between the trailer park where Chester [=McBadbat=] resides and the land where Chester's well-off friend A.J.'s home is located.
232	* Griffonstone, the homeland of the griffons in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' became this after the Idol of Boreas was lost. Once a powerful and rich kingdom, now a rundown place with poorly-constructed houses and nests, unfriendly, surly citizens, and where businesses rip-off customers with impunity. [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Gilda]] admits the only reason she stays there is because she needs to make enough money to [[RagsToRiches get out]].
233	* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': While riding a bicycle from school to home, Mitch crosses a set of tracks and the other side has a trailer park.
234	* ''WesternAnimation/GreenEggsAndHam2019'': Train tracks separate the cheerful suburbs of South Shvizelton and the gloomy industrial town of North Shvizelton. The residents' attitudes even change based on what side they're on--when Gluntz pushes a South local across the tracks, he turns from a neighborly fellow who doesn't like to gossip into a shifty, mad-eyed gossiper.
235	[[/folder]]
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Context Main / WrongSideOfTheTracks