The fourteen districts of the urbs did not offer that sharp contrast between working-class and wealthy districts which may be seen in modern capitals, and there was the same kind of accidental egalitarianism in the Rome of the Caesars as there was later in the Rome of the Popes, with wretched apartOJent houses and magnificent palaces built next door to each other, and millionaires and men of modest means living on different floors under the same roof.

XREF: Connects to urban studies and historical geography on how modern zoning and class segregation contrasts with pre-industrial cities.

XREF: Connects to urban sociology and gentrification debates about whether class segregation is a modern phenomenon driven by transportation and zoning.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 224