Vel Run

Vel Run is not the worst slum in Abhari-the air isn't toxic, anyone looking to use you for raw materials probably has the good manners to kill you first, and the monsters mostly where human skin.
It's not even the second worst slum-the causes of violence are more or less obvious, there are fairly few explosions and fires, and the ruling gangs aren't famously cannibals or berserkers.
The Carabinieri aren't going to following you into the Run unless you've got a bound demon or the Viceroy's favorite daughter.
Those are the sum total of Vel Run's virtues. A former slave work camp turned shantytown, built over a natural sink for the region's torrential rains, and utterly dominated by the soft but ruthless grip of the Society of Echoes-the Run is not a place anyway stays if there's hope of a better option.

Demographics

At one point, the Run was entirely Chausami-it was, in face, the first Chausami neighborhood in the City. While they remain a healthy majority, it's grown steadily more cosmopolitan since-as the general destination of anyone who finds themselves poor and disliked but not terminally impoverished or despised, and a realm whose inhabitants near-universally desire escape, the Run sees a significant shift in inhabitants over any given year.
In terms of profession, the majority of households are supported by a variety of petty artisans-weavers, bakers, cobblers, carpenters, masons, and the like. Most struggle, with no organized guild or union provides support when times are hard. Predictably, a significant minority moonlight with one petty gang or another-and a good fraction of the population falls into the more lucrative businesses full time.

Industry & Trade

The Run's chief export is labour-the Foundries eat through their workers at a steady clip, and most inhabitants are desperate enough for the work to take it, either waking hours before dawn every morning to walk to their shift or setting aside the better part of their wage for company housing. More than a few enterprising merchant adventurers and ship captains likewise sweep through the Run looking for crews.
The second business of the Run is crime-though generally more petty than grand. More than a few aspiring chemists and distillers ply their trade here-though the better seldom stay long. More reliably, a great many pickpockets and thieves are happy to relocate wealth from the rest of the city to their own pockets and then to the various bars and dens that dot the district.
The majority of the Run's inhabitants do at least try to make an honest living, but they generally serve each other with various artisanal works-the cheapest flour doesn't make bread those with other options are likely to pay for, and so on.

Infrastructure

Having grown organically and anarchically over the last thirty years, the Run has no utilities, let alone any sort of centrally guided structure. Streets are uneven, winding, irregularly paved, lack any signposts or directions, and often times are just a few lengths of hardwood lain on the ground to help with the mud.
A few particularly well organized groups secure areas to use as community gardens, taking advantage of the rich soil and plentiful rainfall. They're watched constantly, and are usually protected or claimed by at least one petty street gang-the groups that create them inevitably become one to protect what they have, if nothing else.

Guilds and Factions

On the day-to-day level, life on the Run is governed by small and medium sized street gangs-not anything organized or formal for the most part, simply fraternities operating on basic eye-for-an-eye collective self defense in the absence of anything keeping the peace. More time and effort is spent feuding amongst themselves than actually victimizing the populace, really. There's an especially vicious divide between those with a tenement to call home and those who are forced to live 'in the trenches' (muddy, moist and miserable) full time.
Over them all, ruling with a light but unquestioned hand, is the Society of Echoes. The Wraiths have no interest in the minuscule amounts of wealth flowing around the district-no one does, it's why they enjoy such an unchallenged hold.
The Society has a deeply entrenched and multifaceted network of safehouses and fronts in the Run, certainly. And they're happy to grab some local talent for muscle or basic retrieval jobs that aren't worth any special effort. But what they're really interested in is the available raw materials-soulstuff. So they establish a basic rule-when anyone dies in the Run, they receive a blood price or the corpse within three days. It's not perfectly enforced, of course-people have gotten very good at hiding the bodies and burying them quickly. But the Prospect's given the rather miserable duty reap more than enough to supply the Society's everyday needs. And when someone publicly refuses the rule-well, they find out just what all that bound spiritual power can be rednered into. It's usually rather memorable for any bystanders.

Architecture

There are two ways to live in the run, generally speaking-communally or miserably.
On the one hand, there are the tenements-built on ancient stone foundations found buried in the loam, these unsteady apartments of baked clay are built until they start teetering in the sky (and more than one usually collapses when a bad storm hits). With entrances elevated four or five feet off the ground and thick, densely packed walls extending down deep into the earth, these buildings are usually at least safe from flooding or being swamped in the everpresent mud and sewage. A lucky few even include (vigorously and viciously protected) low stone walls enclosing gardens (often doubling as illegitimate cemeteries).
The buildings are universally cramped far tighter than anyone better off would consider reasonable-multi-generational households often share a small room or two, and stoves are shared between three or four families. Hence the 'communal'-else the knives come out soon enough.
Just how worn out and dull the usual coats of bright, vibrant pain on the walls have become is a subtle way of measuring status for those with the time to care.
The miserable have a rather less cushy existence. The rich, thick soil the Run is built on absorbs water wonderfully-not an especially pleasant occurrence when your small home or shop of wood and clay is resting in or on top of it. Flooding is a yearly occurrence when the rains begin occurrence, and keeping goods and bedding from getting completely spoiled is as much a matter of luck as anything else. The raw sewage freely mixed with the mud doesn't help matters. Sickness, infection, and vermin infestation are all common.

Geography

Vel Run spills out onto the lowlands on the western edge of Abhari, pressing up against the caravanserai and railyards at the southern tip-having effectively annexed the worst and cheapest boarding houses for travelers as an outskirt of itself.
The fact that the entire city can fairly literally look down on it, and it's thick, absorbent layer of soil, makes the Run a natural drainage area for when the rains really start to fall and the city would otherwise flood. Thankfully, modern engineering keeps the Tamar itself from actually spilling over (barring something truly apocalyptic), but the Run still gets more than its share of half the city's rain (and a decent fraction of the poorer part's sewage). This leave truly excellent farmland and an utterly miserable place to live.

Type

Neighbourhood

Location under

Abhari

Owning Organization

The Society of Echoes