most roman cities woulda looked & smelled like shit. buildings that come down to us look nice but they were state-funded & rich people shit. regular buildings would be p disappointing. it would be super cool to live in a bustling hive like Rome when it wasn't having a plague tho, walkability + high density = good time.
aesthetic consistency was certainly more of a thing; today you can find dozens of beautiful buildings in a city but many are beautiful in different ways.
a whole city built in art deco or brutalism for instance could easily look better than palmyra, so its not like people forgot how to make things look nice. cities have just grown fast & art movements change fast so we get smatterings of good in basically every city along with tonnes of shit. places like Paris too have their share of ugly outside of the imperial bits.
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most roman cities woulda looked & smelled like shit. buildings that come down to us look nice but they were state-funded & rich people shit. regular buildings would be p disappointing. it would be super cool to live in a bustling hive like Rome when it wasn't having a plague tho, walkability + high density = good time.
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aesthetic consistency was certainly more of a thing; today you can find dozens of beautiful buildings in a city but many are beautiful in different ways.
a whole city built in art deco or brutalism for instance could easily look better than palmyra, so its not like people forgot how to make things look nice. cities have just grown fast & art movements change fast so we get smatterings of good in basically every city along with tonnes of shit. places like Paris too have their share of ugly outside of the imperial bits.