Dumb noob question on buildings

Ive played a few games of civ 4, but havent really broken it down to analyze why things happened. One quick question, in civ 3 buildings in your cities usually had a fee once they were built to operate them. Is this gone in civ 4?

My understanding is that the per-building maintenance cost has been replaced by a per-city cost. As the number of cities increases, so does the cost per city. (If I got that wrong, someone please correct me.)

I beleive that is basically the jist. Yes, there is no more per-building fee. I am not sure how they calculate the city cost. Anyone out there know? I am curious as to the breakdown myself.

Apparently this was done to decrease the superiority of building the biggest amount of cities and make it more valuable to have fewer and more developed cities.

I like it.

Edit: I guess it's the same thing with the new cultural victory condition.

Buildings do not have any cost. (except opportunity cost of building it)
City maintenance is based on the civics you are using which itself has a population component, the number of cities you have in your empire and the distance of the city from your capital. I believe that's it for city maintenance but if anyone else knows something I've forgotten please post it.

City costs have two components, the first being based on the total number of cities you have and the second based on the city's distance from your capital, Forbidden Palace or Versailles - whichever is nearest. Only the second component can be reduced by building a Courthouse, I find. To see the breakdown, just mouse over the 'gold' icon, top left of City Screen: to see breakdown of your total costs, mouse over the icons in the Financial Advisor screen.
In fact, running your mouse over practicall any icon will reveal something. Sometimes a click is also needed, but be careful this doesn't send an overlooked selected unit to its death.