Tenements & Rust: Ghetto Stories

[lucky7 73]

Oh my, so much despair... Looking good, although, your CJ is coming along very well. It's good to see the not-fancy-areas, as seen in the majority of CJs, naturally including mine, before I've switched to RL showing. Well, all these NYC public housing projects would be a cool inspiration for you... without valuedating these: ghetto deluxe...

Looking forward to more,

lucky7

[TekindusT 3,809]

Comment Replies

crazychickenc12: Thanks for commenting, glad you liked it!

lucky7: Thanks for your comment! When I was in NYC a couple years ago (I cannot say I "know" the city but since then I can consider I have a second hometown) I was pretty surprised of seeing those housing projects besides the East River while 30 streets uptown you can find the world-renowed Fifth Avenue fancy stores and this kind of things...

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Let it snow...

Before the pics, some words.

This entry is inspired by the snowfall I could see past Monday. We aren't used to see snow in Barcelona (I am 20 and I've seen three real snowfalls on my hometown in all my lifetime) and the whole area entirely paralized because of this. This is when I decided to download PEG's Snow Mod and mess a little with it.

The snowplows worked hard during the storm to clear all Capitol City highway network, even the ones standing in Plainsport. Cars still show a solid layer of snow over them but it is still fading to black due to the pollution existing in the area.

Kids don't have many expentancies here, but at least; they've had a good time playing with the snow in the roof of their buildings. They've broken their daily routine of broken home and broken dreams for a day.

There are no junkies or homeless people outside today. Streets are frozen and thermometers have dropped severely. They all are sheltered somewhere until the snow and ice are molten. Then, they will come outside; giving back Plainsport its usual aspect again.

[BoxCarRacer 1]

Looks a lot like my style of play. But I get tenements and rust because that is all that will grow for me

[SounderBruce 173]

Nice snow! At least this is a happy day for the ghettos!

[crazychickensc12 84]

Ah the snow looks great!! We get tons of snow here I live at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. Where I live its snowed about 3 times in the last 12 years but thats only because Im at 900ft elevation about 30 miles east up the freeway and into the mountains is where it starts and only gets crazier from there!! Anyways great work lookin forward to another update!

[Neonsim 43]

Wow this looks very realistic, i love how it is all planned out, looks exactly like a real ghetto. 5/5!

[Jim T. 10]

Nicely executed. The snow effect really gives evokes the feeling of an ever-changing environment, me likey. : )

[TekindusT 3,809]

Comment Replies

BoxCarRacer: Thanks for your comment! Don't worry, time will make you a better player. You should have seen my first cities when I still had SC4 vanilla, they were horrible!

ComputerGuy890100: Thanks for commenting! Well, as you may know, happiness is very brief in poors house...

crazychickensc12: Thanks for your comment, at least you've got snow near you; that's nice because you can go skiing when you want and you don't have to bear with the bad consequences of snow.

Neonsim: Thanks for commenting, my friend! But you're the real masterplanner between you and me.

Jim T.: Thank you for your comment! Too bad SC4 hasn't got a changing climate, so we CJers have to photoedit it... BTW, your signature looks great but it is strange that a moderator hasn't PMed you telling about the pic size.

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Drug dealers, gangs and other fauna

Plainsport Community Center, aka "The only thing Mayor has done for us". It hosts a market, an adults school, and the few social services the city has. Is at night when lessons have the most attendance. The community center is maybe the only safe place at night.

In the tenements, the melody is the same night after night. Loud arguments, drunk men attacking their wives and some thefts. If you ask where the cops are, they're too busy fighting against the drug dealers.

Meanwhile, factories work 24/7 in some cases, they're the only thing that work properly in Plainsport.

[Mayorm 14]

great update, hopefully those cops are paid a lot, they see a lot of crime

[Benedict 3,119]

Wow those storage tankers in your March 8 update are just fantastic!

[SounderBruce 173]

Grimey! Nice factories dumping pollution!

[TekindusT 3,809]

Comment Replies

Mayorm: Thanks for your comment! Well, I assume you're talking about the National police, because the locals are paid by the dealers!

Benedict: Thanks for commenting! I think the same; I love SOMY's work!

ComputerGuy890100. Thanks for your comment, man! I needed an industrial pic to finish the update and then I saw all those factories with their chimneys. I couldn't resist to shot. BTW, you always surprise me with a new avatar...

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Urban Symphony

As you may know, living besides a highway and four rail tracks isn't very confortable. Noise is quite loud all day long and specially during the rush hour, when commuters go back home.

Plainsport needs the commuter rail service to continue its life and plans for taking the railroad underground are simply inexistent. The railroad company says "they were there first" and washes its hands, but are the residents who wake up every morning with the Line 1 Symphony for wheel and brake.

There's not much noise in the top of the 120 Degrees Building, one of the tallest tenements in Plainsport; but the worst thing is that none of the dwellers know what does the name of the building mean.

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Now let me show you a little teaser of my upcoming new CJ. I'm still working on it giving the final details.

[SounderBruce 173]

Wow...I'd hate to live there! Can't wait to see your new CJ!

[lucky7 73]

Hi,

yes, you are absolutely rights about the housings on East River and the huge contrasts NYC offers... somehow weird for us Europeans, isn't it?

Oh my, I've missed 3 updates!! Good work with the snowy pics... lol yeah, I can understand that Barcelonitos are not so much used to snow, whereas Austrians are

Oh, the crime area: one should avoid living there, as streets are anything but safe...

Excellent work with the last update, the tenemnets next to the highway and rail look awesome, very good choice of buildings and composition (in every update, btw). May I ask you where you've got the building in the last pic from (the red/white one), on the left side? I am desperately looking for some modern blocks, about 35 stories high, but not very deep. Naturally colorless

Looking very much forward to more y saludos a Barcelona,

lucky7

[heitomat 156]

It's a shame I didn't discover your CJ until page 3.. Anyway, great work and great storyline; not all cities have a proud and boastful background. I really like your snow pictures, by the way. 

I will definately check back! 

[jacqulina 162]

awesome work my friend

[paulmc 392]

good job, you rock... nice pics! congratulations

[big_nkrumah 2]

This is a great looking CJ, and I think it's definitely something that not very many people have tried to recreate, or at least recreate so realistically. I applaud your city-building skills.

However, I could really do without the commentary. In fact, it's downright offensive. Not everyone who is poor in the inner city is a drunkard, or stupid, or dreamless, or gangbanging, etc. I won't go any further than this because it's Simtropolis and I'm only a lurker and I don't want to make any waves, but this is something that has been bothering me since the very first update. Maybe if you did some research and wrote commentary that didn't rely on social stereotypes I would be more open to the idea of subtitles, but right now they're almost painful to skim, let alone read.

[TekindusT 3,809]

Comment Replies

ComputerGuy890100: Thanks for your comment. I'm still working on it and considering a bid for the next August Simlympics. I still can't give a date to begin the CJ but you can be sure it will be in the "old" CJ section too.

lucky7: Thanks for commenting, glad you liked it! The building you're saying is Shibaura Tower and you can download it here. I think it is also in the STEX, but I haven't been able to find it. Furthermore, the Shibaura island complex is completed by this lot. You don't need to register, just click on "Descargar" and the download will begin.

heitomat: Thanks for your comment, I expect to see you soon around here!

jacquilina: Thanks for commenting! It comes from a real CJ master here in ST...

paulmc: Thanks for your comment!

radiovolume: Thanks for your comment and for your reasoned opinion... I really know that not everybody is drunkard nor dreamless but remember you're talking about real life. In SimCity, you need to exaggerate the reality a little bit to make something really different; I like the subtiles idea just to emphasize the pic.. I mean, just taking the pics wouldn't give the final effect to the update and readers want a little more... Just look at it on the other side. Where have you seen all those splendid palaces and wonderful European-like cities like the ones in Vercelli or Verona? Not everybody is rich, but its creators have made the city anyways and they have succeeded in their CJ's...

Just one more thing, although you're a lurker (in your own words) your opinion is the same worth than Jacky's one who has got more than 36.000 posts...

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Residential, Commercial, Industrial

Nothing more to say about the Plainsport Power Plant, keeping air pollution high since 1957...

Out of Plainsports geographical center, the retailers sector is made from a mix of liquor stores, drugstores and some used (and usually stolen) cars dealerships.

Besides the highway, one more pencil tower. It is in the first pollution line besides the industrial zone, so it isn't strange to see some of its residents in Capitol City General Hospital having some treatment for their lungs thanks to the public health system.

[mancoolman 3]

Thats a pretty dirty city great job

[SounderBruce 173]

Weird tower, weird location...wow...I didn't know they even had retail!

[mayorbk 66]

Wow, what a horribal, crime ridden city :-P!! Great Job!!! It's cool to see a cj with a darker side!

[DCMetro34 577]

Excellent dirty city pictures; true to its name.

[Mayorm 14]

I love the dirt and crime, and everything it

[redrummage 9]

I just discovered this journal from one of you posts on another journal. I like the idea and so far I really like the results. Keep up the good work!

[Simbourgeois 139]

Yeah, it wouldn't be nice to live near all those factories... 

Your CJ certainly has a style!

Best regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[i_love_lamp 0]

well i better get my bullet proof vest and .45

ill be right back

[hamsterTK 93]

Cool. It's definetely grimy. Still can you really associate dense urban environments with extreme poverty in this day and age beyond a few archiac industrial cities like Philly and Detroit? In Austin, the most urban areas are the most affluent and marked by towering luxury condos and bohemian boutiques while the small wood-frame bungalows and light industrial of the east side contains the most connotations of poverty.

I suspect gentrification is probably coming to Plainsport, no?

Soon the majority of low-income earners wil come to define  the vast expanses of 1960's era working class suburbs and rural trailer park and single-story duplexs on the urban fringe in the city's undesirable cardinal direction.

Anyways, your bit about trains reminds me of the other day how I saw a train rolling through town(a warm spring day in Texas) that had snow on the tops of the cars. I guess it was parked in Chicago or Denver overnight and picked up a lot of slush that managed to not quite thaw yet.

could you tell me where to find the BAT you used for the Plainsport power plant?

[redrummage 9]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK

Cool. It's definetely grimy. Still can you really associate dense urban environments with extreme poverty in this day and age beyond a few archiac industrial cities like Philly and Detroit? In Austin, the most urban areas are the most affluent and marked by towering luxury condos and bohemian boutiques while the small wood-frame bungalows and light industrial of the east side contains the most connotations of poverty. quote>

Actually Philly lost most of it's industrial jobs between the 1960's and the 1980's.  In the past decade or so it has gained population and much of center city and south philly isn't as bad as you think.  It's going in a different direction then Detroit

[hamsterTK 93]

Yeah I know

what I meant was that old cities developed at a time when the poor working classes were housed in tenements in the urban center while the rich lived in the early suburbs connected by streetcars and trains to the city.

That's not the prevailing trend today. A lot of poor people live in trailer parks on the edge of town.