other side of the tracks
Wrong part of town
The other side of the tracks refers to a poorer or less respectable part of town, from the days when railroad tracks often divided prosperous neighborhoods from working-class ones.
The phrase implies social division and class difference: He grew up on the other side of the tracks.
Someone from the wrong side of the tracks comes from humble or disreputable origins.
- dividing lineBoundary between regions
- bad part of townDangerous urban district
- skid rowImpoverished urban district
- underprivilegedLacking usual social advantages
- divisionSplitting into parts
railroad · working-class · blue collar · stigma · class divide · social divide · partition · alienation · figure of speech · exclusion · systemic inequality · symbolic meaning · housing projects · ghettoization · marginalized communities · social stratification · class warfare · economic hardship
other side of the tracksaffluent neighborhood
Prosperous residential area
other side of the trackshigh society
The social elite
upper crust · privileged class · old money · the elite · polite society
other side of the tracksupscale neighborhood
Prosperous residential district
affluent area · gated community · Beverly Hills · leafy suburb · gentrified area
other, others, otherwise, sides, sidelong, sideways, track, tracks, tracked