Pulaski County Virginia

[andrewcocke 0]

Pulaski County Virginia

Welcome to my city journal for Pulaski County Virginia.

Although my version of Pulaski County is fictional, there really is a Pulaski County in the state of Virginia. It is located about 2 miles off of I81 off of mile marker 94.

The county is actually a region as a whole. The region represents the county. Most of the names of my cities within are taken from actual communities in the real Pulaski County of Virginia. Some however are from surrounding communities in the region, and others I just made up.

In the real life Pulaski County, there are two towns and several unincorporated communities, the two towns include: The Town of Pulaski, and the town of Dublin. Pulaski is the county seat, however much of the recent commercial development is located outside the Dublin corporate limits, due to it’s proximity to the interstate. Other real life, unincorporated communities in Pulaski County, include, Fairlawn, Parrott, Newbern, Snowville, Hiwassee, Allisionia, and Draper, to name a few. Each of these communities also exist in my sim city version of Pulaski County, however mane of the smaller communities have grown much larger than their real life counterparts due to my own game play. The population of real life Pulaski County is about 30,000, where as, the sim city version currently stands at a little over 90,000 and growing daily.

My simcity version of Pulaski County’s municipal system is modeled much like the way the real life municipal system of Virginia is set up. In a nut shell, there are three levels of government in the commonwealth, town, city, and county.

In Virginia, towns are located within a county. Town residents are also county residents, and may vote in county election, and share in services offered by the county, such as public schools, court system, commissioner of revenue, etc, where as incorporated cities in Virginia are independent of any county, which means that they have their own school system, court system, etc. Anyone who lives or does business in a town in Virginia has a tax liability to the town, and the county, where as, those who live or do business in independent cities, only owe the city any taxes. This is why city tax rates in Virginia tend to be higher than towns, however city residents do not have to pay county taxes.

In real life Pulaski County, the closest independent city is Radford City, located north of the New River, right on the border of Pulaski County. Radford City was annexed out of neighboring Montgomery County a long time ago, however I have included the city in my Sim City version of Pulaski County. The community on the Pulaski County side of the river is Fairlawn. Fairlawn shares the Radford post office, so both communities have a Radford address. In my version of Pulaski County, both Radford City and Fairlawn are in the same “city playing board”. Using the signs tool, I mark the City Limit location on all outgoing roads.

In my version of Pulaski County, both Pulaski and Dublin are still towns, and Pulaski’s population is almost the same as real life Pulaski, however in my version, I have deemed Dublin the county seat, since it is my opinion that is the direction real life Pulaski County is going.

In addition, I have also added another independent city to my version, Newbern. In real life, Newbern was the original county seat of Pulaski County, until the court house burned down about a century ago, and it was moved. In my version, Newbern was never the county seat. In real life, Newbern is not an incorporated community at all.

The cities and towns I am growing are a far cry from what the real Pulaski County is, plus I do think that if you were to scale the actual size of my region to the size of Pulaski county, my region would be bigger. But it’s all in the fun of the game.

Regarding my style of game play:

I enjoy playing mountainous regions. I flat terrain is just to boring for me. I enjoy terra forming, and cutting roads through difficult terrain. I try not to just “paint roads” across the landscape, but actually terraform them. Filling in small valleys and flattening out small hills.

At one time I had downloaded a lot of custom buildings, however it started to cause problems in the game. It began with those brown boxes, where I had to download all kinds of add ons to make just one building work. Suddenly my plug in folder was huge, and the whole game was rather messy. My menus were all jacked up. Finally I downloaded some town hall building, that doubled as a police station. It caused problems with the effective coverage area of the police stations. It created a serious problem, not even re installing the game fixed it. It finally corrected itself. But I vowed from that day on to stick with mostly stock buildings.

I have however installed the newest network add on mod, which I feel is a must have. I also have the canal add on installed. But that’s it, everything else is basic. But I still enjoy the game.

I name all of my municipal buildings, schools, rewards, even bus stops. So there is a level of detail in the city, even it it’s not evident on the surface.

My cities are not designed to be perfect. They are designed to be real life, sort of, meaning that abandoned buildings are not a bad thing, as long as your city isn’t covered in them. All cities have their shady spots. All cities have a certain level of unemployment. I try to build all new roads so as not to bull doze existing, buildings as not to upset the owners of the buildings.

Please enjoy this as it is a work in progress.

Regards,

 

 

Andrew C Cocke

[andrewcocke 0]

Spotlight on the Town of Allisonia

(Note: No Cheats were used in the creation of this town)

(This document represents fictional Allisonia)

It was almost a town that never was. Allisonia, founded in 1847 by the Allisonia sand company, it was the site of one of the few sand pits in the region. The sand was used for several purposes, but most commonly, as a use to help the trains of the day climb the steep grade into Big Gap, and further into the West Virginia mountains. A small community of around 800 people sprung up around this sand pit.

Times slowed when the Western VA rail company began purchasing it’s sand at another location about 50 miles south, however the Allisonia sand company still managed to find buyers for what small amount of sand they continued to mine, much of the sand was used in the mortar and sidewalks of neighboring towns and communities. However, it couldn’t last forever, and about the same time the Millsworth Asbestos Plant began production, the sand pit was finally closed. A short time later it was converted into a land fill. It was the 1890’s, and with the production of the Asbestos plant in full swing, the community of Allisonia swelled to just under 2,000. The town needed a population of 2,000 to petition the General Assembly of Virginia for a town charter, and that was the goal, of about 8 activist in the community.

The activist were about 30 people shy of their goal when disaster struck. In 1899, one of the old Allisonia sand company’s storage buildings full of explosives exploded and set the town on fire. Virtually every building in town burned to the ground, all but the Asbestos plant, after all, Asbestos is somewhat flame retardant. Almost 900 of the communities 1,970 residents perished in the disaster. About 700 of the remaining population moved to other areas, leaving only about 300 people left in the community.

By 1930, the population of Allisonia was having trouble coming up. In fact, there were several unexplained deaths in the area in the years to follow. Nobody could figure out why, after about 20 years of living in the Allisonia area people were coming down with strange deadly lung illness. It was later concluded that something in the air here was unhealthy, and the reputation of the community plummeted, the last family left their home, after the lady of the house contracted the strange lung disease that ended her life. The population of Allisonia was officially at zero. For some reason, people working at the Asbestos plant were having short life spans, and as a result, the Asbestos plant shut down in 1932.

The town was dead.

As the years passed, the environment handled the asbestos dust that was causing such a health problem, and in the early 60’s, the Virginia rail way company was wanting to run a new rail road that would require fewer grades. The new route took the rail way away from the old Allisonia town site. At the bottom of the hill. When this rail way was completed, a new company, was looking at setting up in an unincorporated portion of Pulaski County. It was later discovered that it was the asbestos that was causing all of the health problems in the town, and the investor and Pulaski County worked together to clean the site up. The old asbestos plant still stands today, however it is sealed up. In 1972 the newly formed, “Allisonia Industries” went into production producing ball bearings. Residents and businesses began to set up in the new Allisonia community. The new community was located about one mile east of the old location.

In 1986 the entire valley in which the new community was built was full, and expansion began up the hill towards the old site. Major grading took place to level out about 100 acres of land, and the community finally obtained it’s town charter with a population of just under 4,000. By the mid 90’s the town had grown to about 16,000 inhabitants, a radio station was built, and more land was annexed to the town.

A new university, and community college was built, towards the end of the 90’s, along with a small landing strip, and advanced research center.

Today, Allisonia is almost as big as Radford, with a population of about 23,000, it is the largest town in Pulaski County. Impressive as it is no where near an interstate, also impressive as it is also one of the youngest towns in the county. With not even a single US highway running through it’s limits, all roads are state primary roads. It now has 4 lane access to Pulaski and Newbern. And community leaders are contemplating a new 4 lane road to the Big Gap area.

Town of Allisonia Municipal Building, located in the corner of town, near the historic district.

The New Allisonia Train Depot, to the left is the edge of Allisonia Industries, the group that put Allisonia back on the map.

The Allisonia road map, shaded in blue is the town limits of Allisonia. The major throughfares are highlighted, including Rt 99 and Rt 98, as well as the Dublin Allisonia Turnpike.

The Allisonia Municipal Landing strip. This is located on the west side of town. Pictured here as well is the Allisonia mall, under development.

Allisonia Univeristy, pictured here also, is the Allisonia Farmers Market. This particular part of the town is situated on the origional community of the 1800's. Just below the picture, out of sight is the old asbestos plant.

The Allisonia Stadium and new Casino (our newest addition)

[spore415 5]

Sounds Good!!!!! while i can't see any pictures (issues with my computer) from what i can read, this sounds like a really good CJ on its way!!!! welcome to the world of CJing

Best of Luck,

Spore415

[jacqulina 162]

great start and intro my friend,great region view,and nice first pics

[fabsies55 5]

your terrain is ok, your region has too many hills and mountains and stuff,

your cities..... yea, you have some custom content which is good but it just doesnt work,

and you need some nature so trees in your region

for me its a 3 outa 10 star but keep working on it and you'll get there like i've done slightly.

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Cool! I was just there last weekend!

Courthouse, Pulaski County VA

Your version is cool, though you may want to plop some trees on the mountains.

[Artur_001 4]

Hehe... Kazimierz Pulaski was from Poland -  my country.

Great start. You need only some new buldings, because I see you're using only basic things from Maxis? Try to find BATs by SPA on the STEX. There is also very nice "small town" collection, but I don't know who have made it.

[Raysfan16 5]

Hey, I like that CJ! The city looks very cool and I'm looking forward to seeing more! I was actually planning on making a fictional CJ with real county terrain.

[andrewcocke 0]

I am interested in planting trees on the hills and mountains, but for some reason, all I get is bushes. Is there some kind of tree mod, or something that I can use that will actuall grow trees on the mountains?

[andrewcocke 0]

I will probably download a few custom buildings. What we have here is a basic hilly region with smaller towns, so at this point things can be upgraded with out a lot of work. And as the towns and cities grow, new buildings will be added. But most of all I am interested in trees that grow on mountains.

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Allow me to suggest the following to help you out on trees:

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=16045

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=15796

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=17154

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=17152

These should get you started nicely.

[andrewcocke 0]

Pulaski County Virginia Update on Six Year Road Plan

Extention of University Road in the town of Allisonia towards Big Gap

PHASE ONE

As part of the six year transportation plan with Pulaski County, a 4 lane access road has been planned to the small community of Big Gap, located north of Allisonia.

It has long been debated on the projected path for this road.

List of reasons for upgrade:

- Farm traffic is backing up on VA Rt 99 to and from Big Gap.

- Currently development is stalled in the area due to it’s challenging terrain, and lack of modern infrastructure.

- Some residents of Big Gap, and Gods Forgotten Country complain that it takes as long as 45 minutes to reach Dublin due to farm traffic.

- There are safety concerns with youths traveling to and from communities in the North Eastern part of the county to the area high school which is located in Allisonia.

As a partial remedy of this problem, the Virginia Department of transportation has begun construction of an extension of University Road in Allisonia, a 4 lane road, that currently terminates and Walker Mountain by the stadium. It is planned that a graded road proceed to the edge of VA Rt 99, approximately 0.2 miles of the border of the Allisonia district.

Hearings will be held in January regarding the transition of the new byway to officially become VA Rt 99, where as the current 2 lane road known as VA Rt 99 will be downgraded to a second class state highway, proposed number: State Route 634, and to be named “Old Route 99”

Below are included pictures of the plan, implementation, construction, and completion:

Proposed route for extention of University Road

Beginning Point, Univerity Road terminates within Town Limits of Allisonia

Grading begins

Landsworth Road is rerouted, a proposed overpass with access ramps will be built here, providing additional access to those of the Wurno community.

Grading continues

Partially completed road, side walk ends at corporate limits of the town of Allisonia.

Completed overpass

Termination Point at current VA Rt 99. Future plans will extend this highway across the border of the Allisonia district and into Big Gap.

[Mother of Invention 23]

Yeah Virginia!

(Richmond Native)

[dfnva 34]

Interesting CJ. I always like to see CJ's based on areas in VA (in fact all of my CJ's thus far have been influenced by areas of VA). 

Despite living in VA all my life, I've never been far southwest enough to Pulaski. About the furthest I've gone is Blacksburg.

-Dan

[andrewcocke 0]

That's interesting, in fact, the simcity version of Allisonia presented here is really nothing like the one in the real world. The population of Allisonia in the real world, might sit at 500, no body really knows as it is not even big enough to be census designated. The fact that you mention Blacksburg - it is the direction that my version is going.

Of course, my version was never meant to be accurate of the real world Pulaski County, it was just a template for me to build on.

But the fact is, I do enjoy this county and region as a whole, I moved here 5 years ago, and live in the real world Town of Pulaski. This is one of the reasons I named my region after the region I live in.

This journal will also cover other towns in the region, just right now, the focus is on building Allisonia.

After this I will probably spend some time building up Pulaski, I've sort of neglected it latley. What- being my residence town and all....