Fact for the Day

In the Le plus ça change department, I came across this interesting snippet in Antony Kamm's The Romans:

When, after the great fire in Rome [in A.D. 64], Nero had residential areas rebuilt at his own expense to a proper grid pattern, with broad streets and open spaces, people complained that they missed the cool shade of the old, narrow alleys and the towering, ramshackle apartment blocks.