City Hall

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Nice idea

Will read through thread to see if there be any areas left I might be interested in.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Nice idea

Will read through thread to see if there be any areas left I might be interested in.

Most of the working class estates south of the half completed ring road are free.

Excellent

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XVI seems to be free. So I'll take that. A name, and information, soon

I'll probably base it on Maes-G.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Zwarte Vallei

As a political entity, Zwarte Vallei is an artificial construction brought into being by centralising bureaucrats in the early 1970's. It is largely made up of 19th century mining villages, the largest of which is Grijzeberg, but also includes the giant Sombergebied estate. Zwarte Vallei is solidly working class, overwhelmingly white and has a largely industrial economy based around metal working (an industry still dominated by relatively small workshops), mining (three mines are still active in the area) and light industry. Large numbers of people also commute to the larger industries found elsewhere in the city and to low paid service sector jobs in the city centre. Sombergebied has its share of social problems, but it is not as troubled as many other giant estates in the city. In fact the poorest community in Zwarte Vallei, Vuildorp, is one of the old mining villages.

Grijzeberg:



Vuildorp:



Sombergebied:



Might work out a map of the area and post more detail.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Parties in local government tend to represent, to some degree or other, local interest groups. Might seem obvious but is, I think, very important. If this game works well some form of party system is inevitable (even if it turns out very loose). Probably best to let things create themselves.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What are Dutch-Flemish place-names usually based around [qm]. Churches, geographical features, people [question mark]

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An attempt to get a feel for the area. Also created a few "issues" (most of which revolve around distance, in more ways than one, from the rest of the city). Didn't add roads or anything because I'm sort of tired so...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Coleshill.

In real life a rather dull Birmingham commuter town!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

People in the various communities that make up the Zwarte Vallei have long memories. We remember what happend when the motorway was built; how, to pick the worst examples, a quarter of the Sombergebied Estate, about a fifth of the town of Ruwestad and the entire village of Weinigsteen were demolished without the consent of their inhabitants. The destruction of Weinigsteen was especially pointless as the motorway doesn't even run that close to where it once stood. So where there was once a small community there is now a large field.

Anyway... two things to note about the metro extension plans for the area...

1. They would require the closure of the Rivieroever Colliery, a major source of employment in the town of Donkerestroom.

2. There are rather a lot of old mine shafts, many of which are actually flooded, in the area. Plenty of other geological and etc. problems related to our industrial past, and present, exist as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Welfare & Housing and Planning & Development methinks.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...well... that district could always be divided in a way that leaves one of the two divisions there still, geographically, very large.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Or you could be chief of police. Or the head of the city's civil service. Or etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If there are too many people on planning, I'll take public works instead.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also, I want to assure that no more high rises are built.  Breeding grounds for poverty, they are.

For that you should probably be on the housing committee

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also, I want to assure that no more high rises are built.  Breeding grounds for poverty, they are.

For that you should probably be on the housing committee

They can't be built without being zoned, can they?

Well, that depends how much power each committee has. It would likely be wrong to make any of them all-powerful (and planning & development is most likely to head that way) over the others IMO.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

List:

Transportation: 6
Hashemite
Afleitch
Verily
Xahar
Exnaderite
Cookies and Milk

Public Works: 5
Afleitch
Xahar
Ernest
Exnaderite
Polnut

Planning and Development: 7
Hashemite
Verily
Fezzyfestoon
Evilmexicandictator
Al
Bacon King
Supersoulty

Welfare and Housing: 6
Sam Spade
Al
Evilmexicandictator
Ernest
Colin Wixted
Polnut

Business and Enterprise: 6
Fezzyfestoon
Sam Spade
Bacon King
Colin Wixted
Cookies and Milk
Supersoulty

I'm happy to swap planning and development for public works.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah - what's the go?

Andrew's awau for the week.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Cric... no. actually. don't mention cricket. bad. bad. bad. all is pain...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Crickets continue to chirp. A shame really.

Andrew; be this dead? Because if it is, I'll setup something else based on the same general idea though in a different imagined city.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What's your idea Al? I certainly wouldn't mind cannibalising this...

The city itself would be quite different (based very loosely around Birmingham and the western half of "Sandwell"... perhaps Solihull as well), though with interesting elements from other cities also) and the starting point of the game would be a large (and resented by the places being absorbed) expansion of city limits. So you'd have a (at least) three-way conflict of interest on the council between the inner city, the better off suburbs and the old manufacturing towns (with none of the three strong enough to totally dominate). An ethnic element could be added as well. I'd also head down the route of making people adopt or invent characters, while also having various NPC roles. Various forms of corruption would be endemic, obviously, though the sort of corruption would depend on the sort of character. And so on.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You could rewind the clock a bit to the 50's/60's and have the old Victorian city the subject of the great post-war planning experiment,

Tempting. Yes. Very tempting. And, of course, doing that means that the ethnic element can be suddenly injected into the game, upsetting the balance of things in the way it did (and does in real life).

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Yes... but I think that that should be fairly easy when issues are presented in a certain way (ie; building houses quickly = vote winner).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In Glasgow it has emerged that some councillors of a certain political persuasion were able to manipulate planning laws and build say 2 stonking working class tower blocs on spare land in Glasgow suburbia. Their marginal ward became safer..and safer still as suburbia uprooted and moved away (read - Cathcart)

lol

Not surprising at all, but amusing despite that.

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Yes... yes... it would...

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The curious thing about Brum is that many of those people were members of the Liberal Party (grouped around "Governor" Wallace Lawler).

Anyway, I might go off and doodle a few test maps or something now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Have you settled on a name? That's what stalled mine from the start

Tempted to go with Chamberlain, but I'm not sure if everyone would get the joke... Arden seems possible though. Could add a generic place name ending to that; Ardensley, Ardenby, Ardenham, Ardenton, etc.

A (very) rough map of the city just to get a feel for things...


Map just shows the boundaries of the city, plus those of the boroughs that it's about to swallow up (much to the anger of people in those three boroughs). It also shows the location of the CBD and the "inner city". It's obviously like Brum, but isn't quite...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, I can see the resemblance And Chamberlain would be a good name though it may prompt the need for say Gisella Park or something It makes it easier of course when it comes to the feel of the city. If it's the same layout as Birmingham, I could live in the blue bit, but that might be too much even for me. The south part of the city proper would probably be more to my liking.

I would have thought more inner south, than outer south. Outer south is mostly white flight suburbia.

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There's a curious stability that comes from instability. A certain party is in power most of the time, but always loses office when it happens to be in power nationally. And most wards are competitive except in exceptional years (a '68 or a '95). And the main strongholds of the respective parties tend to stay the same for ages.

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It will be included it's just a matter of working out where to draw the line, so to speak. I'm not sure how far out into darkest suburbia the boundary should go, and I'm not sure whether to include a "Chelmsley Wood" or not... no... that's stupid. Chelmsley Wood is a '60's estate. Aha...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As a suggestion for the game, it would probably make things more interesting if we could be "voted out of office" somehow, as well.

Yes; I was thinking of making defeat (in both elections and selections) an occupational hazard. Though alternative (and complementary) power centres is something that might work as well (ie; Trades Council, Chamber of Commerce, etc)

More on this at a more decent hour.