District of Wenzel | Update 116 - (Ouisconsin County) Morgan Town: Rival to the South

[packersfan 667]

Woot! Yeah, thanks mightygoose. That was a tense night and wakeup to check the internet to see if the Pack had pulled it off.

[packersfan 667]

Update 19 - Near East Side - Lincoln Terraces and River Bluffs

We move to the east side of Ivanhoe Park and view Lincoln Terraces and River Bluffs, more upscale neighborhoods.

Hills prove a little problematic in SimCity 4, but they also offer great opportunities for different looks. Above is a very scenic view of the intersection of Orchard Rd and the future N Prospect Ave and farms along the sloping ground.

Below: Here is a picture of Ivanhoe Park before I added all the recreational facilities, etc.

E Orchard Ave and N Prospect Rd are paved and Prospect even expanded to 4-lanes. These beautiful farms' days are numbered.

First section of terraces terraformed.

Let's add in some embankments.

Completed with new middle-class homes.

More terraces to be constructed on the southeast side of the lozenge-shaped hill.

Add in embankments.

The northwest side is also terraced.

Finally, the northeast side is terraced to mirror the southwest side.

Lincoln Terraces at night.

Bluffs along Honey Creek covered in trees.

Some terracing work, and some texture problems.

Wealthy upper-class homes along N Lawrence Ave.

Before view of the hill:

After view with completed terracing:

I'm glad I was finally able to get this update up! I'm very pleased with the terraces. Something different.

[kakado_to_save 514]

Tha is amazing!!!your own is so good. That was a great idea!!!!

[dfnva 34]

Nice... I like how you terraced and landscaped the Lincoln Terraces, interesting to see the transition from virgin land and farm land to get that way.

-Dan

[GreekMan 246]

woah thats cool stuff!!!!

[Norby(ToG) 6]

Nice terraces, I like how you planing city and landscape. Keep up the good work.

Those zig-zag streets and retaining walls are very realistic.

[wwetom1 831]

Hey man, nice suburbs

Those stone walls look good too.

[rewright 804]

Retaining walls can add a lot to an area and they look very good around the hill. Folks probably have nice view from up there.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I love your neighborhoods and I like how you named the streets, Keep up the good work.

[packersfan 667]

Replies to Your Comments... 

Aaron Graham: Thanks, naming the streets is a given.  I've always love drawing maps of fictional cities or just poring over maps of my hometown of Milwaukee (I've pretty much known my way around the city on my own since I was three or four years old).  Naming the neighborhoods is something I've always done occasionally as far back as Cambellsport City Journal, but I think this is the first one where I've named every section of the city so distinctly.

dfnva: Thanks.  I really wanted to show the transition from a smooth hill to terraced neighborhood.

GreekMan: Thanks a lot!

kakado_to_save: Thank you.  It is always a boost to get a comment like yours!

Norby(ToG): Thanks.  I'm definitely not as good a planner as I would like to be.  I wish I could better plan and misplan like real-life cities

rewright: Retaining walls are definitely a plus.  Obviously, I use them sparingly in the old inner city, but in the suburbs they will have a greater presence probably.

wwetom1: Not quite suburbs, at least not intended to be, though I guess at this point they are the suburbs since it is the far edges of the city right now.  Thanks.

[packersfan 667]

Update 20 - Lincoln Terraces and River Bluffs Continued

A few more pictures from Lincoln Terraces and River Bluffs. I didn't initially plan this as a lazy update, but it worked out well since I didn't have much time during the week prior to 30 January, since I was getting ready to leave China. Luckily, I put this update together at the same time I made the previous 23 January update.

Above: River Bluffs

Mosaic of Lincoln Terraces and River Bluffs down to Honey Creek.

Close-ups of Lincoln Terraces.

N Prospect Ave apartments.

Lincoln Terraces and River Bluffs

Tell me what you think.

[dfnva 34]

Welcome back to the USA! Great update as always, great use of retaining walls with all the terraces. For the first time, I think your streets called terraces, are actual terraces (they often are not in real life).

-Dan

[scissors 20]

Opening your CJ for the first time today, I got sucked in to it. And to say in Dutch: "mijn bek viel open" my mouth fell open when I saw your region. Looks like a real satelite picture.

[packersfan 667]

Replies to Your Comments...

dfnva: Thanks.  Yeah, I know of very few streets that are called terraces that actually are terraces.

scissors: Thanks for stopping by.  Glad to hear you were sucked in!  That is a really good comment

[wwetom1 831]

Wow, those terraced and diagonal houses turned out great!

Very creative. Nice job

[packersfan 667]

Update 21 - North Sedgwick Avenue

Now we move west to see the area around N Sedgwick Ave. D42 runs along N Sedgwick Ave between E Orchard Ave and E North Ave.

District of Wenzel Street Map

Whoops, forgot the border...I'll fix that tomorrow. Nice night view of Orchard Creek and surrounding areas.

Orchard Creek during the day. Future updates will focus on Orchard Creek Parkway north of Orchard Ave.

Lazy update, no real explanation about the pictures.

[wwetom1 831]

Wow, looks great! I love that diagonal stream in the first mosaic. Is that from the LEX?

[packersfan 667]

I just had a strange occurrence in one of my city tiles. The first two or three blocks on the right edge of the whole tile didn't load their props, so the streets are bare, the lots are bare for the most part, etc. I don't know why it did that, but it sucks, haha...major work to fix that stuff...o well.

[packersfan 667]

Update 22 - Holmes Neighborhood - Olivet Cemetery

Today we look at the area north of Lincoln Terraces and Ivanhoe Park. This is the east end of Holmes Neighborhood. In between N Humboldt Ave, Lincoln Terraces, and N Prospect Ave is Olivet Cemetery. E Townshend Ave is the neighborhood's commercial district.

Above: Farmland many years before the encroaching expansion of Martin.

Below: High-tech industry between the neighborhood, cemetery, and park.

Townshend Station (WTA Metro - Line 1) at the intersection of N Webster Ave and E Townshend Ave.

Olivet Cemetery. To the north of E Townshend Ave is Glenwood Cemetery on the little strip of land between Townshend, Humboldt, and Prospect.

The eastern part of Holmes neighborhood. Next time we will look at the western part.

Thanks for stopping by. I've been working on the downtown, but I keep running into an issue with my props loading in the city tile. For some reason, a section of the city doesn't load the props. I fixed it once, because I saved before I saw the problem, but it happened again, urgh. (NOTE: This turned out to be Prop Pox, an incurable disease, but I have since gone back to a backup that I am cautiously optimistic is uninfected.)

Another problem I'm having is placing subway stations. In SC4, when placing a subway station it takes the game into quasi-underground mode, not true underground like when laying subway or pipes. Unfortunately this quasi-underground forces the game to rerender the entire city once I try to change to a different tool and consumes a ton of time! Any way to lay subway stations without this quasi-underground mess?

[scissors 20]

That's quite a large cemetery. We don't have that much space in the Netherlands.

[Simbourgeois 139]

Hmm... I imagine it must be quite spooky for those who live next to that huge cemetery...

Great updates!

Best regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[packersfan 667]

Update 23 - Redeveloped Peninsular Downtown

This update has been in the works for awhile. Finally a new view of downtown Martin. I redeveloped the street layout and the buildings have grown considerably taller. D50 originally ran along E Main St to the docks on the east end of the peninsula. Now D50 has been redirected on E Mitchell Ave which becomes a boulevard after the intersection with D29 (N Wisconsin Ave). The downtown peninsula is now serviced by three Wenzel Transit Authority Metro lines - Line 1, Line 2, and Line 3. Line 1 currently terminates along the Hawthore Pike (D34) south of Martin and runs along Wisconsin Ave (D29) until the Mitchell Ave Station which serves as a transfer point between Lines 1, 2, and 3. Line 1 continues east along with Line 2 until Commerce Ave Station where it then heads north to the Near East Side. Line 3 starts at the Mitchell Ave Station and runs along D29 northwest. Line 2 travels east-west along D50 through the downtown.

Downtown Martin on the peninsula in its earlier days. The docks are still around along with many small tenements and small wall-to-wall businesses.

Many years later, the street layout has changed, with Mitchell Ave becoming a wide boulevard with bus stops and metro stations in the median decorated with flora.

The iconic Church of St. Linus is still on the corner of N Wisconsin Ave and E Main St (the former D50), but the first high school and grade school of Martintown have been replaced.

New government facilities stand at the end of the peninsula where docks and marketplaces used to thrive. An old brewery still remains on the corner of N Market St and E Jackson Ave.

The Martin Municipal Convention Center.

Quite a transformation to the peninsula.

Here is a picture of the problem I was describing. I open the city tile right next to the downtown one and the edge props don't seem to load, giving the appearance of many abandoned residential lots...I suppose if I can figure out this problem and it doesn't become incredibly widespread, I can adapt the game error to emulate more abandoned lots. (WE ALL KNOW THE REAL STORY OF THE PROP POX NOW.)

Thanks for checking out my journal. I plan to add the metro lines to my street map, might even start working on that today. I think my peninsular downtown has evolved well, not perfect. I'm also building downtown further out around all the warehouse industry between the Brittany River and Bitter Creek from many updates ago. The downtown was far too small and compact, especially for the size city I plan on Martin becoming. Keep stopping by and feel free to offer suggestions, tips, and help.

  Edited January 16, 2015 by packersfan  

[wwetom1 831]

That downtown looks great! Some really nice shots there.

[dfnva 34]

Nice, I like downtown Martin, particularily the boulevard and newer buildings. I'd love to see a street map of the peninsula sometime.

Keep up the great work!

-Dan

[packersfan 667]

Nice, I like downtown Martin, particularily the boulevard and newer buildings. I'd love to see a street map of the peninsula sometime.

Keep up the great work!

-Dan

If you check out the District of Wenzel street map, the peninsula is on there...I'm debating whether I should update it with the Metro routes.

  Edited May 21, 2011 by packersfan  

[packersfan 667]

Update 24 - Martin Municipal Airport

A long needed update to the District of Wenzel. Finally an airport for the burgeoning region and the city of Martin (population as of this update of about 360,000). The city definitely needs an airport, but I didn't want to build a huge international airport, yet. So, here is Martin Municipal Airport, placed in a triangle of land between Oliver Rd, D15, and Martin Rd, north of Jefferson. I built three runways because this airport, while small, still services a growing city of 360,000. The runways are barely a mile long, though, so this airport will quickly become secondary in the future.

ABOVE: Scenic Newberg's Creek across Martin Rd from the planned location of the airport.

BELOW: Farmland soon to host the city's first airport.

Martin Municipal Aiport complete with three runways (one north-south, two east-west)

The terminal and metro station (Martin Municipal Airport, Line 5)

My first airport since my wildly successful recreation of the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport in my Sessquenna City Journal.

  Edited January 16, 2015 by packersfan  

[packersfan 667]

Okay, as you can see I'm having extreme difficulty adding spaces between the pictures and text. I enter the spaces like usual, but the editor seems to edit them out when it publishes. At least here, the mosaics work. In the city journal section, I have the same spacing problem, but it also automatically adds a little space between all the pictures ruining the mosaics. Any help? Is this an issue that it still being tuned up?

Well, I came up with a stopgap way to ensure the spaces I want. I just place a letter "S" on the line and then make the font color white. No doubt this is not a perfect solution, but I can't seem to defeat the editors urge to remove blank spaces. I suppose I could just add html code? Haha.

  Edited March 2, 2011 by packersfan  

[rewright 804]

Nice airport! I like how you've laid it out. Room for expansion too.

[wwetom1 831]

Yeah, I agree. I love that airport!

Nice update all around.

  Edited March 3, 2011 by wwetom1  

[SounderBruce 173]

I'll be watching Wenzel...great job so far! Your suburbs are hyper-realistic (better than super-realistic! )!