White City

For the longest time - ever since the first grape farmers arrived to be specific - the social gap between social groups has been rising. Since then, the city core has changed ownership from mostly sheep farmers and lime miners to rich wine makers and nobles from the surrounding areas that hold a winter house in the city.

The white city lives of trade. Besides the lime that is mined in the surrounding hills, agricultural produce secure the wealth of the city.
Whilst much of the wine is exported, other produce such as felted wool items and fermented sheep's milk are commonly sold at the market to visiting travellers.

The white city began as nothing more than a settlement of some farmers. They probably chose the spot because of the easy acess to green meadows for their livestock and cause it was simple carve a small place to live out of the soft stone. Over time the population grew and it became a small town with its own market. At that time the mining and selling of lime began and quickly became the main occupation of most of the population. 
By this some highborn nobles became aware of the special looks of the white buildings and took a liking to it. Whithin few years the city core was almost entirely owned by lords and such folk. The many separate houses became an interconnected system of few palaces. For a short time it even became sort of a competition as the hilltops of lime are limited in number and everyone wanted to own one.

The common folk mostly shook their heads and continued their lives. Those that used to have their houses in the hills themselves sold them for quite some money and built new homes further out, still having quite enough money to by some more animals for their herds.
But with the nobility moving in, demand after a better brew than the local fermented sheep's milk grew, and soon the first vineyards sprung up. Ever since then, rivalry between sheep farmers and winemakers has been growing, somethimes even into open feuds.

Travellers and artists have always been drawn to the green hills and its white houses. During peaceful times of wealth and safe roads, summers in the white city become crowded even, with rich travellers strolling down the roads, tasting wine and buying felted trinkets, the bravest even daring to taste the fermented sheep's milk which the local farmers drink.

The eye-catching feature and cause of many nobles living here and many travellers visiting is the architecture. Especially in the oldest part, all houses and other buildings are built into the stone, the excess material used to either build upper levels or sold off.
The younger houses surrounding the city are often built from this excess limestone, where digging in the ground is not possible.
The newest builtings on the outskirts of the white city are often even made from wood these days, only some of them with a thin white layer hiding the brown wood underneath.

In the numerous poems and songs written about these cities, everything is made from white stone that shines golden in the light of thousands of candles every night. This might still be true for the better parts of the city but it certainly does not speak true of most places there. Overall, the houses and palaces hewn into stone that shine brightly have a certain beauty. But even the other buildings built of the stone or those simply having white-washed walls give the whole place a clean appearance.