A skid row, also called skid road, is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people "on the skids". This specifically refers to people who are poor or homeless, considered disreputable, downtrodden or forgotten by society. A skid row may be anything from an impoverished urban district to a red-light district to a gathering area for people experiencing homelessness or drug addiction. In general, skid row areas are inhabited or frequented by impoverished individuals and also people who are addicted to drugs. Urban areas considered skid rows are marked by high vagrancy, dilapidated buildings, and drug dens, as well as other features of urban blight. Used figuratively, the phrase may indicate the state of a poor person's life.

The term skid road originally referred to the path along which timber workers skidded logs. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest. 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. The term Poverty Flats is used for some Western US towns.

The term "skid row" may often be interchangeable with the term tent city.^{[citation needed]} A tent city may exist on the premises of a skid row, but many tent cities are in areas not known as skid rows.

The term "skid road" dates back to the 17th century, when it referred to a log road, used to skid or drag logs through woods and bog. The term was in common usage in the mid-19th century and came to refer not just to the corduroy roads themselves, but to logging camps and mills all along the Pacific Coast. When a logger was fired he was "sent down the skid road".

The the term "skid road" is generally identified as originating in Seattle and Yesler Way.

International District, Albuquerque, New Mexico, specifically with some areas off Central Ave, especially intersecting Louisiana, Texas, and Rhode Island Streets, have high homelessness rates, as well as a higher than average rate of public drug usage and high property-related crime and violence. The area is colloquially known as the "War Zone". Albuquerque had a rising murder rate in the early 2020s, with the murder rate surpassing 20 per 100,000 people, as well as a surge of visible homelessness especially in the ID area. In the 1990s, some years the neighborhood would account for over half the city's homicide count, despite being 1-2% of the city's population.

Fourth Street in Downtown Anchorage has a homelessness and drug abuse problem. In 1978, a descriptive analysis document compiled by a Department of Health facility in Anchorage, regarding downtown Anchorage's social issues and vagrancy described parts of Fourth Street as "Skid Row". Today, the name is not as used professionally, but still has issues of homelessness, especially affecting Native Americans and Native Alaskans. Forty-five percent of Anchorage's homeless population is Alaskan Native, as compared to less than 15% of Anchorage's population being of Alaskan descent. 1,100 Anchorage residents were homeless in 2019, over two percent of the city's population. However, this figure may include those people periodically homeless at some point that year, as opposed to average counts where homeless people are counted on a given day, which usually increases the percentage.

Sixth Street in Downtown Austin has issues with homeless individuals camping (which led to a proposition passing to ban public camping in most city areas) and public crime and drug use.