From the Zoo to the C's Apartment and Back to the Hotel

The large building slightly to the left of center is the hotel.  The smaller buildings downhill of the hotel were in disrepair and the area across the street was used as a dump, probably by local residents.  It is directly across the street from the buildings pictured in the previous three photos.

After the zoo, D drove us to the C's apartment( R's colleague's apartment) where C and W played legos and D, H, S and I visited.  D dropped M off at the hotel as he wasn't interested in lego play or girl talk!  After our visit we walked back to the hotel.
 In the areas of the United States that we have lived in, we are accustomed to zones, I imagine cities are more similar to what we see here.  Instead of a residential area and a business area, everything here seems to be multi use.  The bottoms of many buildings have shops and restaurants whereas the upper floors are apartments or office buildings.
Also, in the USA most of us would understand what the phrase wrong side of the tracks means, for any non native speakers of English it means the poor part of town, the origin of the words stems from the fact that the neighborhoods that the poor people live are on one side of the railroad tracks, closer to the factories and pollution.  Here, I don't see that distinction, next to a small, rundown house there is a large, beautiful home.
I think both of these things are refreshing to me. . .although I am not sure I can articulate why.