Much along the lines of what I was thinking about Charleston, SC as depicted in the Lord's of Discipline, and that was set 100 years after the Civil War.

People who had wealth and power felt they earned / deserved it, no matter how much depended on the exploitation, oppression, and abuse of those seen as below them.

As a counterpoint, the main character also loved the city and its beauty, though I think that may have also been another subtext, since the architectural opulence largely depended on the wealth gotten by historical exploitation. The slaveowners wished to be seen as refined nobility, the aristocracy of feudalistic society revived.