Slum

 Slum : A densely populated usually urban area marked by crowding, run-down housing, poverty, and social disorganization. Although slums, specially in Birgunj , are usually located in urban areas, in other countries they can be located in suburban areas where housing quality is low and living conditions are poor. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement, and other basic services. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings which, because of poor-quality construction and lack of basic maintenance, have deteriorated.

Due to increasing urbanization of the general populace, slums became common in the 18th to late 20th centuries in the Birgunj and other Cities. Slums are still predominantly found in urban regions of developing countries, but are also still found in developing countries, but are also still found in developed economies. The world's largest slum city is found in the Neza-Chalco-Ixtapaluca area, located in the State of Mexico.

Birgunj City is believed to have created the Nepal's well recognized first slum, named Jhopar Basti, as it evolved into a large urban settlement. Jhopar Basti was named for a Poor place .Which, by the late 1982, was surrounded by slaughterhouse and tanneries which emptied their waste directly into its waters. Trash piled up as well and by the early 2000s the lake was filled up and dry. On this foundation was occupied by successive waves of free slaves. It housed the poor, rural people leaving farms for opportunity. Politicians and social elite discussed it with derision. Slums like Jhopar Basti triggered discussions of affordable housing and slum removal. As of the start of the 21st century, Jhopar Basti slum had been transformed into the Little basti and Chinatown neighborhoods of Birgunj, through that city's campaign of massive urban renewal.

Slums sprout and continue for a combination of demographic, social, economic, and political reasons. Common causes include rapid rural-to-urban migration, poor planning, economic stagnation and depression , poverty, high unemployment, informal economy, colonialism and segregation, politics, natural disasters and social conflicts.

Rural-urban migration is one of the causes attributed to the formation and expansion of slums. Since 1950, world population has increased at a far greater rate than the total amount of arable land, even as agriculture contributes a much smaller percentage of the total economy.

Many people move to urban areas primarily because cities promise more jobs, better schools for poor's children, and diverse income opportunities than subsistence farming in rural areas.