District X, also known as Mutant Town or the Middle East Side, is a fictional location appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It is a neighborhood in New York City primarily populated by mutants, first seen during Grant Morrison's run on the series New X-Men in New X-Men #127. The ghetto was established in Alphabet City, Manhattan (also known as Loisaida), a neighborhood in the East Village (located between Avenues A to D, and between Houston and 14th Streets). This would fall within New York's 12th congressional district and the New York City Council's 2nd district. According to the front cover of X-Factor #31, it had a population of 743, having been much reduced by the Decimation. District X also refers to a comic book series about the neighborhood and its inhabitants. Written by David Hine, the series was a police procedural, starring Bishop and Ismael Ortega, who investigated crimes committed by and against the ghetto's mutant residents. The series also explored Ortega's complicated personal relationships and gradual descent into drug abuse and adultery. It ran as District X for 14 monthly issues beginning in May 2004, then as Mutopia X as part of the crossover House of M event for five monthly issues beginning in July 2005. District X: The area The rise in Manhattan's mutant population, coupled with racism among normal humans, led to mutants forming their own community in Manhattan's Lower East Side (described as the fictional 'Middle East Side' in Peter David's X-Factor). Although humans lived in this neighborhood, they formed a minority. NYX established that District X is an official title for the region. The neighborhood was poor, overcrowded and violent, with a high crime rate and warring mutant gangs. Most of the residents regarded it as a ghetto. It was described in District X as having the "highest unemployment rate in the USA, the highest rate of illiteracy and the highest severe overcrowding outside of Los Angeles", even though New York City as a whole had seen a decrease in violent crime. (These figures would suggest a large population.) It also had the highest crime rates in the country for narcotics, prostitution, and burglary. Many of its inhabitants had mutations more akin to curses than gifts, further exacerbating the neighborhood's poverty and disadvantage. It also had a large 'underground' population, inhabiting tunnels beneath the neighborhood and living in homeless squalor. Many