The name "Skid Road" was in use in Seattle by 1850s when the city's historic Pioneer Square neighborhood began to expand from its commercial core. Mill Street, now Yesler Way, was the original "Skid Road" in Seattle, Washington. The term Poverty Flats is used for some Western US towns. Areas in the United States and Canada identified by this nickname include Pioneer Square in Seattle Old Town Chinatown in Portland, Oregon Downtown Eastside in Vancouver Skid Row in Los Angeles the Tenderloin District of San Francisco and the Bowery of Lower Manhattan. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest. The term skid road originally referred to the path along which timber workers skidded logs. Used figuratively, the phrase may indicate the state of a poor person's life. Urban areas considered skid rows are marked by high vagrancy, dilapidated buildings, and drug dens, as well as other features of urban blight. In general, skid row areas are inhabited or frequented by individuals marginalized by poverty and also drug addicts. A skid row may be anything from an impoverished urban district to a red-light district to a gathering area for homeless people and drug addicts. This specifically refers to poor or homeless, either considered disreputable, downtrodden or forgotten by society. A skid row or skid road is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people " on the skids".