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[Urist McArmok]

Now that (just?) cities will/already have sewers and catacombs, could they have underground sections too? The surface could be the main city, and it could have a ghetto or mines (or fortresses?) or the like built underneath.

No idea how/if it would work, but it seems like it would be pretty cool to get a quest to go down into the Underhoods or something and help fight off the monsters from the sewers.

[Dynastia]

I think if humans tried shaft-mining or digging out residences underneath their city like that it would quickly lead to fun... And for dwarfs... ; shouldn't the ghetto be aboveground and the sweet digs below?

[nil]

There's been talk (suggestions + a very encouraging answer from Toady) in the FotF thread about generating cities for the different races from raws with different parameters... would allow both awesome modding potential and easy-to-implement cultural variation within a given entity, hopefully, imo, so far as to allow the OP.

[NW_Kohaku]

There's been talk (suggestions + a very encouraging answer from Toady) in the FotF thread about generating cities for the different races from raws with different parameters...

I don't suppose you could link that encouraging answer from Toady.  I would be interested in seeing that response.

[Quietust]

The only underground stuff one would expect in a city (aside from sewers and catacombs) would be, well, basements (e.g. storage cellars), and those typically don't go very deep.

[Neonivek]

Well Undercities have existed in real life, just ask France.

[thobal]

I think if humans tried shaft-mining or digging out residences underneath their city like that it would quickly lead to fun... And for dwarfs... ; shouldn't the ghetto be aboveground and the sweet digs below?

Hehe, typically I have a migrant ghetto on the surface and a tradegood's stockpile in a "dwarflock". There is some traffic, but not much. Pity the surface dwarves. Good only for toil and suffering.

[Fearless Son]

I suppose one variation on this would be if a city was depopulated by some lore event during worldgen, and then later resettled, with newer buildings being constructed over the ruins of the old ones.  Assuming that the location was still good, that would make a lot of sense, and would also allow warrens of half-collapsed ruins beneath most of the city, giving prime areas for adventuring and dungeon crawling. 

[Geesuv]

Edinburgh's Old Town had some crazy undercity going on. People would just keep building on top of existing streets so you would end up with streets 2-3 layers deep. All the dispossessed would end up down in the lower streets while the rich and well off lived at the top.
You can get tours in the accessible vaults now and they are supposed to be some of the most haunted places in Britain. Fun?

[Virex]

Paris was partially build on stone quarries and a lot of tombs. Those served and still serve many people who prefer to stay out of the daylight for the better part of the day, for whatever reason...

[Bohandas]

And for dwarfs... ; shouldn't the ghetto be aboveground and the sweet digs below?

That sounds about right, and it has a literary precedent in the form of a recurring theme in several Discworld novels

[Fidna]

'Undercities' really aren't uncommon. Geesuv's reference to Edinburgh's is only one example. At one time it was actually rather common to simply keep building on top of prexisting structures, using them as foundations. In that manner, a lot of old towns and cities end up with subterranean portions in places, where once those portions were on the surface. A lot of it has to do with erosion and the like too, though, many places; they weren't necessarily deliberately TRYING to make underground dwellings and so on, but it just kind of happened that way over time as they continued to build and remanage space. There are places like this in not only many major medieval European cities, but in Middle Eastern and Asian cities, and even some modern cities, like New York City, actually have underground buildings that were originally on the surface but eventually just got built over rather than demolish or remodeled.

[Starver]

And for dwarfs... ; shouldn't the ghetto be aboveground and the sweet digs below?

That sounds about right, and it has a literary precedent in the form of a recurring theme in several Discworld novels

Not only the dwarfish inversion, but the whole Undercity concept.  The earliest explicit employment of the idea was in MAA.  A dwarf was involved, but he was a surface dwelling local lad, and probably wasn't as familiar with the underground as the Deep Dwelling dwarfs as seen in T!.  Mind you, he was also capable of sparking up a friendship with a troll, so certainly untraditional enough.

Even earlier, in G!G! at the latest (possibly even TCOM), Ankh-Morpork had been described as not being built upon bedrock, but upon loam and flood-silts, thus some surprise as to there being a huge hunk of rock to chain a 'maiden' to, which was probably part of an old buildding.  Or, back to the theme of an Undercity, it was otherwise described in the (paraphrased) quote "Ankh-Morpork is mostly built upon Ankh-Morpork".

(Erm, just realised my abbreviations might need expanding.  They're Men At Arms, Thud!, Guards! Guards! and The Colour Of Magic, respectively.  Although people who didn't need the abbrevs expndng can probably counter-quote me, give more accurate information or just downright correct me, anyway. )

[Niyazov]

I hope that Toady won't forget that staple of classic fantasy, the rat warren!

[nil]

There's been talk (suggestions + a very encouraging answer from Toady) in the FotF thread about generating cities for the different races from raws with different parameters...

I don't suppose you could link that encouraging answer from Toady.  I would be interested in seeing that response.

I couldn't find it.  Either it's buried somewhere in one of the last two DF Talks (and doesn't include any of the keywords I searched for) or, more likely, it was all a dream.