Life in Rome "Was Rome a pleasant city to live in?" Well, writers who wrote about it say that they didn't think so. This is based on survived writings. One big reason why life was not that good was the plan of the city. To many buildings were being built. Emperors were building too many impressive, marble temples. Then in the residential areas were the insulae. They are unplanned blocks of poorly built apartment buildings. These buildings were for the ordinary Roman. They were built very closely, and building collapse was common. Nero made a more systematic reconstruction of the buildings. He used brick concrete instead of wood. Even