Spiritual emanations are attracted upwards or downwards

In the lives of cities as of men spiritual emanations are attracted upwards or downwards according as there is good or evil in the deeds done in them.

A City in Hell

In a city in Hell life is in no way different from the earthly life at the time when it was in the full zenith of is power and when the particles thrown off from its material life were drawn down by the force of attraction to form its spiritual reflection.  This city's buildings are fit dwellings for its inhabitants and we see in its more modern appearance how it has been added from time to time by the same process which is going on continuously.  The spirits here fancy themselves still in the earthly counterpart and wonder why all looks so dark and foul and dingy.  

Franchezzo describes his first impressions of this ancient fortified city of the old Roman Empire –

We were now traversing a wide causeway of black marble, on either side of which were deep, dark chasms of which it was impossible to see the bottom from the great clouds of heavy vapour that hung over them. Passing and repassing us on this highway were a great many dark spirits, some bearing great heavy loads on their backs, others almost crawling along on all fours like beasts. Great gangs of slaves passed us, wearing heavy iron collars on their necks and linked together by a heavy chain. They were coming from the second or inner gate of what was evidently a large fortified city whose dark buildings loomed through the dense masses of dark fog in front of us. The causeway, the style of buildings and the appearance of many of the spirits made me feel as though we were entering some ancient fortified city of the old Roman Empire, only here everything gave one the sense of being foul and horrible, in spite of the fine architecture and the magnificent buildings whose outlines we could dimly trace. 

In like manner this same city has its spiritual prototype in the higher spheres to which all that was fair and good and noble in its life has been attracted and where those spirits who were good and true have gone to dwell. 

And as the deeds done in this city of Hell have in evil far exceeded those which were good, so this city is far larger, far more thickly peopled in this sphere than in those above. 

In the ages to come when the spirits who are here now will have progressed, that heavenly counterpart will be fully finished and fully peopled and its hellish counterpart will have crumbled into dust and faded from this sphere.