The Undercity is the decaying remnants of old New York, concreted over to build Mega-City One, and the polluted "Big Smelly" Ohio River. (A few buildings were moved up for the tourist trade)[1]
It is infamously a hellhole full of fugitives, mutant troggies, and stranger creatures like werewolves. Mega-City Judges take The Long Walk into its depths to bring law to the lawless, and rarely survive very long.
More than one Undercity exists under Hondo City. These Undercities are predominantly Japanese cities ravaged in the Atomic Wars and since built over. Their equivalent of troggies were named "oni", after the mythical demons, as a way to dehumanise them and their homes. The 'norm' inhabitants, the johatsu (disappeared people), who officially didn't exist in Hondo: the homeless, people fleeing yakuza, and infants abandoned for violating birth control regulations. In 2116, Shimura pursued yakuza lord Sagawa into an Undercity and run afoul of his ally, the ronin No Dachi.[2]
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- It's never stated in canon when old New York and the Ohio River were built over. By the 2050s set Judges novels, it still hasn't happened!