what is a shanty town

A shanty town, also known as a squatter area or squatter settlement, is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood. They are often constructed on the fringes of cities, and are built on land without a permit and often have no roads, numbered streets, electricity or telephone lines. Shanty towns tend to begin as improvised shelters on squatted land, and people build shacks from whatever materials are easy to acquire, for example wood or mud. There are no facilities such as electricity, gas, sewage or running water. While most shanty towns begin as precarious establishments haphazardly thrown together without basic social and civil services, over time, some have undergone a certain amount of development. Often the residents themselves are responsible for the major improvements. Community organizations sometimes working alongside NGOs, private companies, and the government, set up connections to the municipal water supply, pave roads, and build local schools. Shanty towns can be small informal settlements or they can house millions of people.