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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians, and courtesans."''
|'''Kvothe''', ''[[The Name of the Wind]]''}}
{{quote|''"For every city, however small, is, in fact, divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another."''
|'''Plato'''}}
Real-life cities are vast, diverse mishmashes of different cultures and social groups.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] ==
* In ''[[GetBackers]]'', the limitless fortress(where most of the important stories take place) is separated into 3 levels: Lower town, which is basically a slum and is home to all the "normal" residents. People in this town often wear rags for clothes. The belt line, which is basically the "middle class" of the fortress, mostly houses supernatural monsters who exist only to terrorize residents of lower town. And finally there is Babylon City, the top level, home to the most power beings in the Getbackers universe. The top level is basically a palace.
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** The whole setup screams [[An Aesop|Aesop]] about not forgetting history: The laborers get taught only how to obey rules and do jobs (the few who can read are regarded as troublemakers), and believe in Level 80 as a sort of fairy tale ("be good and someday you might get to go there"), the elites have forgotten that there are even laborers living beneath them (they think it's all machinery), and those outside the city don't know about anything ''within'' the city, and once they find out, realize there's nothing they can do to fix things. The only people who know what's truly going on are the few who making up the ruling class and law enforcers, and even they seem to have a communication problem.
* The Expanded Universe novels for [[Star Wars]] brought to light that Corsucant was a planet-sized example of this trope. The topmost layers were where the rich and powerful dwelled while the rotting layers of city beneath were filled with criminals, vagrants and mutated creatures where no 'civilized' person would dream of going.
* ''[[Bored of the Rings]]'' parodies this by making Minas Troney (the Minas Tirith knockoff) have nine city levels, each with better life quality than the previous ones. The people of the higher levels keep throwing their garbage to the lower ones, and on the lowest level people are so poor they have to eat it to survive.
** So it's basically a giant wormery?
* In the unnamed city in ''[[Swordspoint]]'', the nobility lives on the Hill while the poor and the criminals live in Riverside.
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* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Gridlock", it is revealed that the poor people of New New York live in underground slums, while the rich live above ground. {{spoiler|Or they would, if the latter weren't all dead.}}
* The title station in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' is mostly a very clean place with lots of shiny metal architecture. Then there's Down Below, a grimy crime-ridden section filled with petty criminals, gangsters, and the just plain luckless who got stranded on the station when their money ran out.
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* Needless to say, this happens in real life. Virtually every city big enough to have seperate neighborhoods will have posh residential districts and places to avoid after nightfall.▼
* Tel-Aviv, Israel used to (and in many ways still does) fit this trope. There are rich neighbourhoods (some of the richest in the country) and expensive residential towers in the north, industry and slums in the south (now housing a very large illegal immigrant community), and a cosmopolitan commercial center.▼
* The Northsides of Cork and Dublin are poor, their southsides posh.▼
* Not within a city but a metro area: [[Motor City|Detroit]]'s northern limit is Eight Mile Road. Things get much, much nicer about a mile north of that.▼
* There are exceptions, but property values in [[Flyover Country|Omaha, Nebraska]] take a sharp jump once you cross 72nd Street.▼
* This is a general rule for [[The Windy City|Chicago]] as well - north of the Loop is generally rich, south of the Loop is generally poor. There's a racial aspect as well: if you ride a Red Line train from one end to the other (it runs north-south roughly near Lake Michigan), you will see the racial composition of the train's passengers go from mostly white to mostly black or vice versa.▼
* This is also how most medieval European towns (especially those founded according do German law) were organized. City center housed Town Hall, townhouses of rich burghers and town square that was equivalent with [[City of Adventure]] "Merchant District". Artisans lived nearby and poorer inhabitants lived on the periphery, usually close to the city walls. Also clergy lived in separate part of the city, usually close to church or cathedral. Additionally, in cities with several lines of walls the richer the people the closer to the innermost city they lived as peripheral "rings" were more likely to be overrun and demolished in the case of war.▼
**There was commonly a foreign community there as well set up to service visiting merchants. This was known in antiquity and was common practice well into modern times. Sometimes this was for all practical purposes extraterritorial. This could at times, especially when one ethnic group dominated local trade, amount to a colony. The [[Hanseatic League|Hansa]] had a section like that in London. In the early 1800s, Canton had a section dedicated to Western merchants, while the homegrown variety bid for a place in the ''Cohong'' or the local merchants guild who were the only Chinese allowed to trade with them. Later as Westerners [[Gunboat Diplomacy|gained more influence]] several port cities allowed them a great deal more privileges.▼
* Phoenix, Arizona and its surrounding metropolitan area has the richer denizens living in the north and eastern parts of town, while the less-well-off tend to live in the south and western parts of the valley. There are of course some exceptions, but everyone generally can agree that south phoenix is the poorest area.▼
* Many if not all "Gated Comunities" count.▼
** This may be a misperception at least for all but the most upper class and exclusive communities. Generally, while such things as crime decrease when a community is first opened, over time, the community statistics will normalize to the surrounding due to things like the pizza guy needed the gate code (which in turn allows less savory types to get the gate code). Thus, ironically, eventually people believe their community is in fact much better than it actually is.▼
*** Also gated communities have fewer bystanders hanging around, reducing the chance of samaritanism and helpful witnesses. The security measures are also unfortunately effective at delaying the response time of police, firemen, and paramedics.▼
* In the city of Atlanta, northern Atlanta and the Buckhead area tends to be more well of than south Atlanta (or the "swats"). In the metro ''[[Atlanta]]'' area it is pretty much common knowledge that the northern counties(North Fulton, North Dekalb, Cobb, Cherokee, etc.) are generally richer and usually has more white people than the southern areas (e.g. South Dekalb, Clayton). Knowing this, when a majority white northern part of Atlanta split off into the city of Sandy Springs in 2005 (and is even considering splitting off from Fulton County itself), this has caused many black leaders to accuse them of racism to sue the city and [http://www.ajc.com/news/lawsuit-seeks-dissolution-of-888729.html demand that the town be dissolved].▼
* If you take the 4, 5 or 6 train in the New York City Subway uptown, you'll cross a border from some of the richest neighborhoods in the country - the Upper West Side - to some of the poorest urban neighborhoods in the country - East Harlem and the South Bronx. The division is stark enough that you can witness the demographic shift at the 86th street stop.▼
** Interestingly enough, if you keep riding north in the Bronx, the neighborhood will actually improve as you get into Riverdale and closer to Westchester County.▼
* Contrast the districts of Makati and Pandacan in Manila.▼
* Rio De Janiero's famous skyline has favela's, which are quite poor and often full of drug-related crime, contrasting sharply to luxury suberbs.▼
* In [[Istanbul]] during the days of the Ottoman Empire much of the city was like this. Part of the reason was the ''Millet'' system in which different ethnic and religious groups had neighborhoods set aside for them with leaders that answered to [[The Government]]. In some ways this was pre-Ottoman. During the conquest in 1453 some neighborhoods were able to avoid [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]] by forting up and then making a separate peace; just forcing the invaders to stop and take a breath before continuing the sack was sometimes enough to save a neighborhood.▼
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
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** It gets even more complicated in Petropolis, a subsector capital where much of [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Ravenor]]'' series takes place. Wealthy and powerful there live ''in the center'', as Eustis Majoris, the planet is sits on, is so polluted that acid rain is a significant threat on the upper levels, and underhive is a usual wretched den of gangs and criminals, as in most imperial hive cities.
** In [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s ''[[Dark Heresy|Scourge the Heretic]]'', Icenholm is not a hive city—but it has the same effect, being a city suspended over a (deep) mine, with status rising as you rose.
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', naturally, has attempts to get medieval on the map all the time.
* In the ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' campaign setting ''[[Eberron]]'', Sharn, the city of Towers, is divided in multiple wards and levels. Like the 40k hives, the lower you are, the poorer you are. In decreasing level of prestige, the levels are: Skyway, High City, Middle City, Lower City & the Cogs. In fact, Sharn takes things a step further than usual. The High City is the tops of the towers, but it's only for the independently wealthy. If you're ''obscenely'' wealthy, your entire Skyway estate ''[[Floating Continent|floats]]'' above the entire city.▼
** ''[[Planescape]]'' has at least Sigil mapped - Lady's Ward (where most of the official functions are, except many faction headquarters), Lower Ward, Hive, or in another side, Market Ward (with the [[Bazaar of the Bizarre|Great Bazaar]] in the middle, of course), Guild Hall Ward, Clerk's Ward — and the Hive. All further subdivided to districts.
** ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' have many large cities split to wards. Calimport, for one, is split to 17 walled Wards and further to 53 Sabans (it still repeatedly burned, of course) — each with its own Sultan, guards, markets and wells; Palace Ward, Jewel Ward, and Grand Ward are so posh those living there use elevated stone "streets", seeing the ground as fit for slaves and poor, Emerald Ward is the habitat of choice for merchants who "outgrew" Trades Ward, but aren't rich enough for the inner city, Maker's Ward is for artisans (except smiths, who have separate Hammer Ward), while Shackles Ward, as the name suggests, holds slaves and slavers (plus paupers) and is the sort of a place thieves don't bother to visit.
▲** In
* Some sourcebooks for ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' point out that if player characters are part of the [[Deadly Decadent Court|Camarilla]], they should actively ''encourage'' this state of affairs as a part of their need for blood. Rich people, the reasoning goes, are bored and decadent and prone to do mind-numbing things in strange places with strange people, while poor people are isolated, powerless, and ignored by authorities. Both make them good prey for vampires bent on enforcing the title [[Masquerade]]. When cities are full of content middle-class professionals who go home to the suburbs before sundown, vampires go hungry.
* In ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'''s Ravnica block, [[City Planet|Ravnica]] is implied to have urban segregation like this. Again, the rich and the prestigious guilds (Selenya, Izzet, Azorius) live on top, while the poor and the guilds more associated with manual labour (Golgari, Rakdos, Boros and Dimir if it existed, which it does not) live closer to street level.
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** Then you have the [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]s, which are home to madmen and people who need to stay even farther off the radar than the people living topside.
* ''[[Illusion of Gaia]]'' has the town of Freejia, with a very well-kept neighborhood on the side facing the main entrance... and a back-alley slum with ''slave laborers'' on the other side.
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'', the title city is divided into six sections (which can get annoying to navigate due to the city having double walls), based more on geography than anything else - the districts flow into each other, rather can being completely self-contained. The sequel, ''Shadows Of Amn'' decided to make ease of navigation more important than complete
* Bowerstone in ''[[Fable]]'' is divided into three sections, a rich, a poor and a docks section.
** In the sequel, Bowerstone has a pretty average area which is either the lower or upper class based on your earlier actions. Old Town can be an up market area with expensive, but well stocked shops or the most [[Wretched Hive|wretched hive of scum and villainy this side of the Wraithmarsh.]]
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* The city of [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|Springfield]] from ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' underwent that when the city adopted new area codes. 939 was the poor area while 636 was the rich area and a wall was built between the two areas.
** Which was more like the inner german wall in Berlin making 939 the East and 636 the West.
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* Needless to say, this happens in real life. Virtually every city big enough to have seperate neighborhoods will have posh residential districts and places to avoid after nightfall.
▲* Tel-Aviv, Israel used to (and in many ways still does) fit this trope. There are rich neighbourhoods (some of the richest in the country) and expensive residential towers in the north, industry and slums in the south (now housing a very large illegal immigrant community), and a cosmopolitan commercial center.
▲* The Northsides of Cork and Dublin are poor, their southsides posh.
▲* Not within a city but a metro area: [[Motor City|Detroit]]'s northern limit is Eight Mile Road. Things get much, much nicer about a mile north of that.
▲* There are exceptions, but property values in [[Flyover Country|Omaha, Nebraska]] take a sharp jump once you cross 72nd Street.
▲* This is a general rule for [[The Windy City|Chicago]] as well - north of the Loop is generally rich, south of the Loop is generally poor. There's a racial aspect as well: if you ride a Red Line train from one end to the other (it runs north-south roughly near Lake Michigan), you will see the racial composition of the train's passengers go from mostly white to mostly black or vice versa.
▲* This is also how most medieval European towns (especially those founded according do German law) were organized. City center housed Town Hall, townhouses of rich burghers and town square that was equivalent with [[City of Adventure]] "Merchant District". Artisans lived nearby and poorer inhabitants lived on the periphery, usually close to the city walls. Also clergy lived in separate part of the city, usually close to church or cathedral. Additionally, in cities with several lines of walls the richer the people the closer to the innermost city they lived as peripheral "rings" were more likely to be overrun and demolished in the case of war.
▲**There was commonly a foreign community there as well set up to service visiting merchants. This was known in antiquity and was common practice well into modern times. Sometimes this was for all practical purposes extraterritorial. This could at times, especially when one ethnic group dominated local trade, amount to a colony. The [[Hanseatic League|Hansa]] had a section like that in London. In the early 1800s, Canton had a section dedicated to Western merchants, while the homegrown variety bid for a place in the ''Cohong'' or the local merchants guild who were the only Chinese allowed to trade with them. Later as Westerners [[Gunboat Diplomacy|gained more influence]] several port cities allowed them a great deal more privileges.
▲* Phoenix, Arizona and its surrounding metropolitan area has the richer denizens living in the north and eastern parts of town, while the less-well-off tend to live in the south and western parts of the valley. There are of course some exceptions, but everyone generally can agree that south phoenix is the poorest area.
▲* Many if not all "Gated Comunities" count.
▲** This may be a misperception at least for all but the most upper class and exclusive communities. Generally, while such things as crime decrease when a community is first opened, over time, the community statistics will normalize to the surrounding due to things like the pizza guy needed the gate code (which in turn allows less savory types to get the gate code). Thus, ironically, eventually people believe their community is in fact much better than it actually is.
▲*** Also gated communities have fewer bystanders hanging around, reducing the chance of samaritanism and helpful witnesses. The security measures are also unfortunately effective at delaying the response time of police, firemen, and paramedics.
▲* In the city of Atlanta, northern Atlanta and the Buckhead area tends to be more well of than south Atlanta (or the "swats"). In the metro ''[[Atlanta]]'' area it is pretty much common knowledge that the northern counties(North Fulton, North Dekalb, Cobb, Cherokee, etc.) are generally richer and usually has more white people than the southern areas (e.g. South Dekalb, Clayton). Knowing this, when a majority white northern part of Atlanta split off into the city of Sandy Springs in 2005 (and is even considering splitting off from Fulton County itself), this has caused many black leaders to accuse them of racism to sue the city and [https://web.archive.org/web/20120824194024/http://www.ajc.com/news/lawsuit-seeks-dissolution-of-888729.html demand that the town be dissolved].
▲* If you take the 4, 5 or 6 train in the New York City Subway uptown, you'll cross a border from some of the richest neighborhoods in the country - the Upper West Side - to some of the poorest urban neighborhoods in the country - East Harlem and the South Bronx. The division is stark enough that you can witness the demographic shift at the 86th street stop.
▲** Interestingly enough, if you keep riding north in the Bronx, the neighborhood will actually improve as you get into Riverdale and closer to Westchester County.
▲* Contrast the districts of Makati and Pandacan in Manila.
▲* Rio De Janiero's famous skyline has favela's, which are quite poor and often full of drug-related crime, contrasting sharply to luxury suberbs.
▲* In [[Istanbul]] during the days of the Ottoman Empire much of the city was like this. Part of the reason was the ''Millet'' system in which different ethnic and religious groups had neighborhoods set aside for them with leaders that answered to [[The Government]]. In some ways this was pre-Ottoman. During the conquest in 1453 some neighborhoods were able to avoid [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]] by forting up and then making a separate peace; just forcing the invaders to stop and take a breath before continuing the sack was sometimes enough to save a neighborhood.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:The City]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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