In many cities, “skid road” or “skid row” is the designation of a very poor part of town. The term originally applied to an area around the docks where cargo was transported on skids such as these. The skids were useful in winter, of course, because they would slip over snow-covered ground. During the rest of the year, the dock area roadways were deep mud and wheeled wagons got stuck. Not so the cargo skids. If you were poor, you lived around the dock area. When you made money, you moved “up town,” the same term today meaning you’ve made the bucks necessary to, well, ‘move up’ in the world.