Cardboard city

Cardboard city (Serbian: Картон сити, Karton siti) was an informal settlement, or locally classified as unhygienic settlement, basically a slum in the capital of Serbia. It was located in Belgrade's municipality of Novi Beograd. The settlement was completely evicted and cleared in 2009.

Settlement

Most of the houses in the Cardboard city were built, as its name suggests, from cardboard or other non-building materials, like plywood or nylon bags. The settlement had no communal infrastructure (roads, running water, sewage, electricity).

The settlement was located beneath the bridges Gazela and Stari železnički. The settlement was just a few kilometers away from the downtown Belgrade, close to the Block 19 and Block 20, and in contrast to five-star hotels Hyatt Regency Belgrade and Continental Hotel Belgrade.

There were 986 people living in the Cardboard city (501 men; 485 women) of whom 278 were children living in 237 "households" according to the census taken by the city authorities in August 2007.

Cardboard City (London)

Cardboard City was the name for an area of cardboard boxes near Waterloo station in London, England, lived in by homeless people from 1983 until 1998.

In the mid-1980s the site, in the pedestrian underpasses under the Bullring roundabout, was home to up to 200 people sleeping in cardboard boxes. By early 1998, fewer than 30 people remained there. These were officially evicted by the London Borough of Lambeth in February 1998, and forced to leave before the end of March 1998. All were offered free housing by the Borough, although there was concern as to whether the residents would be able to cope with housed life. The area is now the site of the London IMAX cinema.

The main character of Rebuilding Coventry by Sue Townsend lived in Cardboard City for a time.

The song "Cardboard Box City" by The Levellers (on their first album A Weapon Called the Word from 1990) is about this site and most people's ignorance towards those social living conditions.

See also