La Fourche

[Evil Weasel 88]

Aaaaand....here I go again. Another CJ. I wonder how far I'll get this time? Note: this is not a storyline based CJ and I will break the fourth wall so to speak. It's more how I construct a city after a set plan.

La Fourche is a planned city so far in the avenue/highway placement stage. It is somewhat of a rebellion agaist all the beautiful city journals out there. Modelled after Detroit , St. Louis and Camden, La Fourche is Canada's only "failed" urban area- a sharp contrast to the emmense but safe Toronto and Montréal. It has two areas which are burnt out stretches of urban prairie (one of which is south of the planning image) and a per annum murder rate of 40/100 000 residents.

My last city, New Aberdeen was slightly depressing with one or two ghetto blocks. Certain people said is was very ghetto. It really wasn't, not compared to this one. This one actually *is* going to be a ghetto.

BASIC LAYOUT:

(Some areas are not viseable due to the limits of my camera).

TEASER: A section of La Fourche's burnt out core and urban prairie.

[GreekMan 246]

looks great!

looking forward to more!

[Hawkeye9 0]

Hey nice start!!!

Good luck on this cj!!!

[Follarch 327]

Pretty good layout there, looks like its going to become a very nice looking city, scrape out the ghetto though lol. Good start.

[Evil Weasel 88]

Thanks to all for the early interest!

Archean: Well, seeing as the ghetto is the basis of this city, removing it would sort of defeat the purpose of this CJ.

[Tomasneto 20]

Nice start!!

[jacqulina 162]

nice start and intro my friend

[Schulmanator 5,800]

An interesting layout you have here. I will see what you do with it.

[art128 4,622]

Hey , nice start there Evil Weasel ! nice city of Qu

[?avi? 0]

This is looking very nice my friend!!

Great work

[Petrovar Ambassador 15]

Nice layout and awesome teaser, hoping to see more!

[Wrightguy0 40]

I could do with some more of this

[Evil Weasel 88]

Thank you for the comments everyone! Here it goes.

UPDATE 1 PART 1: North and Northeast La Fourche: St Joseph.

St Joseph is the largest of La Fourche’s three boroughs. Its east and northeast sections are mixed middle class and industrial areas, with some 1930s rowhouses closer to the downtown core. It has a comparatively low crime rate compared to the rest of the city proper, and does not suffer from the same levels of abandonment. In spite of its location inside the undesirable city of La Fourche its housing prices remain very low and still attract enough newcomers to keep the area full of residents.

(Apologies for the bad first pic, the rest don't have the yellow line and empty spaces)

Rue Saint Joseph cuts through the middle of the city, north/south, and is not exclusive to the borough of St  Joseph. It is generally surrounded by high rise apartment complexes and shops in areas like these outside of downtown. The following images are the street’s northern end, just north east of the CBD.

A closeup of shops along Saint Joseph.

An apartment complex at the intersection of Saint Joseph and Avenue du Nord. The apartments in this northern area remain clean and crime-free, for the most part, although most bisinusses in the area have barred windows and bulletproof glass just in case.

The far northeast (east of Rue Saint Joseph) is dominated by a highway junction, a quartier industriel, and an outer-city commercial center.

Lowrise housing dominates the northeast corner of the city proper. A school and park provide green space, a bit of utopia far from the rotting ghettos in the west and southwest ends.

École Jean Baptiste is a Catholic school who's large playing fields are usually covered by the north-eastern youth. There have been issues with stabbings in the park at night, but this doesn't stop people from cutting across the area to reach semi-suburban shopping areas to the north or an industrial park to the south.

La Jonction is the nickname of the commerical centre south of the autoroute 201/Avenue des Chasseurs intersection. It was built up in the 1980s by bisinesses hoping to move their offices farther east and away from the burglary-plagued neighbourhoods the border the west of the CBD.

La Rive (the riverbank) sits along the St Marie river, which now looks more like a canal due to built up areas on both sides. The riverbank is fringed by high rise tower blocks and is serviced by a subway line.

The quartier industriel (industrial park) lies along the easternmost border of the city limits, with the suburb of Parc Royal to the east. Most of its buildings are still functioning, though not all, after the collapse of La Fourche's economy in the early 1980s. Its parking lots are known as a crime pocket and drug market, a stain on the otherwise mundane east end. The 201 highway cuts through its center and provides freight access to trucks.

[GreekMan 246]

wow! excellent work! You need to pt in some cars cause it's somewhat unrealistic but if it's a burned out mob infested town where no one wantsa to drive, I understand

So are you going to tear everything down and rebuild?

[your_adress_here 11]

I am from Qu

[gabe1337ness 0]

Im from Gatineau, QC.

Nice CJ !!

[art128 4,622]

nice area there , St Joseph look really great

[jacqulina 162]

wow thats fantastic work you have done my friend

[De Ja Vu 117]

Looks very good! I especially like the last two pictures, nice job on the parking lots and the open empty spaces between those factories - looks very realistic!

Keep these updates coming!

-Dejavu

[Evil Weasel 88]

Thank you for the comments they are much appreciated!

Youraddress and Gabe: It's no coincidence- I've been to Gatineau many times. Montréal as well. Add Toronto, Detroit and St Louis to the mix and you get La Fourche.

Déjà vu: Well the parking lots are part of the factory- same lot file. I forgot what they were and I can't find them again on the STEX but they're in there somewhere. I hated the Maxis industry- I find these ones ressemble much more the 1980s industrial parks in the outskirts of Canadian cities.

[Evil Weasel 88]

Update 2: St Joseph - Ouest

Northwest central La Fourche is Canada's most striking example of urban decay and blight, as well as statistically one of the most dangerous areas in North America in terms of violent crime incidents per capita. It all started in the mid 1970s when large public housing blocks were inserted into a middle-class residential area northwest of the downtown core. Burglary into the surrounding lowrise housing caused widespread abandonement and flight to the suburbs- many houses were burnt down and never replaced, leaving large stretches of empty land. Few drive here. The lack of cars and pedestrians is eerie, and to some, terrifying.

Les Cabines are a kilometre-long stretch of midrise housing blocks between Avenue du Roi and an autoroute, to the east of the blighted area. They were designed by an imported Chicago city planner, and modeled after Robert Taylor homes. Today, the area is rife with gun violence, gangs, and drugs. It is a no go zone, even for the police.

Farther south along the strip of Les Cabines.

The Cité des 8000 is a massive "grand ensemble" of housing blocks. It was built near a highway running through a residential area, just to the west of Les Cabines. Like Les Cabines, it has no working elevators, chain-link windows, and half a dozen murders per month. It was the primary reason for the abandonement of surrounding areas.

Farther south, on the other side of the highway, lie more empty inner-city ghost towns. The projects on the bottom right are still inhabited, at half-capacity.

The western edge of downtown meets the ghetto at an area called "La Couillère" meaning "the Spoon"- a blackly comedic pun on the city's name, as well as a reference to the amount of heroin and crack cocaine it markets. Here as well, outside of rush hour the wide avenues are empty.

La Couillère, south of the first photograph.

A school and church in the La Couillère area.

Blighted housing and half-empty projects in the southern edge of La Fourche's infamous inner-city ghetto.

[art128 4,622]

great update Man, I like this suburbs

[Evil Weasel 88]

Thanks! Though technically this is still within the city limits.

Next update will be the northern downtown area in greater detail, as well as a few suburban areas in the north and far west that I have not yet shown. For now, a mosiac (from west to east). I understand that this CJ has been boring and not very noteworthy so far so I hope to add a few more tidbits (a subway map, population stats, so on).

YES THERE IS A STUPID HELICOPTER ICON. Yeah I fail, almost as bad as this CJ fails. Screwed up pic after screwed up pic...

[Wrightguy0 40]

What? This CJ is awesome. It's dark and gritty and is so much more interesting than those Cities full of glittering glass towers and turquoise waterways.

On a side note, you may not want to use 1000 rue de la Gauchetiere in your skyline, Try keeping your Skyline unique unto itself.

[fabsies55 5]

your city is not to bad... id say it would take a while to put all those open grass areas between the houses lol.

but its alright so keep up the good work.

[Tomasneto 20]

Awesome work!!! Great, really great!!!

[chrissc94 1]

This CJ is awesome! The great thing about this one is that it's far more realistic than the most other Cj's. Keep it up

[Evil Weasel 88]

Well as a general response, by "bad" I was mainly talking about how I keep leaving in U-drive it icons and yellow pause-boxes, but thanks for your support!

Wrightguy: I've changed the skyscraper now, though I've been too busy to actually make up update and show it. Hopefully sometime later this week.

[GreekMan 246]

that pic quality makes your city look horrible!

you habe rowhouses right? how do you keep them from lack of commute time

mine always fail because of this. how do you keep your sims in that building?

[Benedict 3,119]

Nice and dingy. Makes me want to take a shower...