I'm looking at an early 17th century depiction of Paris. Imagine that I want to live in one of the buildings in the background part of that picture (not the palace itself, but something reasonably close to it). Perhaps I'm a skilled craftsman, businessman, or lawyer; someone with above-average income by urban standards, but not royalty, nobility, or of "extreme" riches.
I know that in the countryside or smaller towns, the wealthy tended to buy mansions or at least single-family homes, but I imagine even a well-off individual might not be able to afford an entire building in a prime location of the nation's capital, such as one of those depicted in the picture.
Did Paris of that time have a concept of "strata", co-operative ownership, or otherwise ownership of a single apartment? If so, could I take on a "mortgage" to buy an apartment, or did I have to pay in specie in full? Or was renting (from someone who owned the entire building) the only option available to me? And what would I do if there was a problem in a shared part of the building, like a leaky roof?
Followup question: As an "bourgeoisie" apartment dweller as described in the post, what social services were available to me at the time? Would fire protection or garbage pickup be part of what I could expect living in one of those buildings? Before the advent of modern policing, what protection against burglary could I rely on? And would I send my kids to a dedicated "school", or are church schooling or private tutoring the only education options available?
I'm curious about these topics because based on a common narrative, "modern" city services and mechanics (police, fire departments, strata ownership, etc), is only considered to emerge in the 19th century. It's easy, therefore, to imagine cities before that as being archaic, unorganized population centers.
But looking at the picture above (early 17th century, i.e. of The Three Musketeers era), the city strikes me as a fairly complex and organized apparatus that would necessarily involve urban planning, building codes, civil engineering, and a bureaucracy to manage all that. So I wonder what other services and mechanics modern urban dwellers take for granted were in fact well-established in Paris or other capitals as early as the 17th century (or perhaps even earlier), but not well-recognized nowadays.
