A string from the door is the symbol of the cozy Dutch working-class neighborhood of yesteryear. The same was true of the Schilderswijk in The Hague. But at the same time, the neighborhood has had the reputation of a notorious slum for almost a century. Myth or reality? And what is true of the idea that the character of the Schilderswijk changed completely when colonial migrants and guest workers came to live there from the 1960s on? In this book Diederick Klein Kranenburg goes in search of the historical reality behind the image. On the basis of, among other things, dozens of interviews, he shows that even before the 1980s the neighborhood was far from homogeneous. It was a dynamic district with a constantly changing population. However, the stayers did develop their own subculture and over time increasingly turned their backs on society. Through its historical approach, this book changes our view of the phenomenon of the slum.