Quito is difficult to describe accurately, even if you have visited. The best way to describe it is to take a large city in America, (like Chicago) and imagine cutting it up into itty bitty pieces, then sticking it all back together with no regard to order or place; that is Quito. Small pieces of middle-class or upper middle class sandwiched between a slum building or an underground nightclub or a hole in the wall shop. And then often buildings will have a business in them, say a gym or health clinic, and will also have apartments or a full house squirreled away somewhere within their hallways. Houses are built on top of other houses, jenga-ed together in very inventive ways. Also, you can't tell by looking if a house is poor or well off. There is a law that when you finish building a house or building, you have to pay a tax. For this reason, many people live in houses that are half finished. The bottom one or two levels may be complete, but the upper levels may be nothing more than concrete, open to the air without windows or doors. My house has rebar sticking out on the roof, as do the majority of buildings in Quito. This way, people can say that they're not done building a house, they still need to add a floor or two. (Even if they have no intention of doing so) It makes it very hard to know if a house is being built, falling apart, old, new, or even inhabited.
A three level house that also utilizes the roof of a store off to the side; notice that the stairs are outside.
Across the street from my house. The back is a house, the blue part is a nightclub, and the front (other street) is several shops for mechanical parts.
