my first ever cj! Welcome to Great Bay (Update 4: More Neighborhoods, More Transit)

[SilentMage 22]

Hello Everyone to my first-ever city journal!  Today, I'll be giving you a brief history of Great Bay, a fast-growing city that sits in the shadow of Griffin Mountain and runs along the River Hutch.  It's been a long road, but in the end I'm very happy with how it all turned out!  Without further ado...

 

Great Bay started off as nothing more than a couple of roads and a bridge.  Once the first wind turbine was placed it was just a matter of time before the first generation of Bay'ers would move in!  Industry was zoned close to the highway while the residents and commerce could be found on the other side of the river.

 

 

At the time, it wasn't much of a view; despite living on the water, many residence fell asleep to the endless hum of the water pumps and, down river, the gurgling of the sewage that was shamelessly dumped.

 

 

 

As the hamlet grew to a small town, more interest was given to the lush forests nearest to the highway that weren't tainted by the rough soot from the nearby factories.  With the mayor's blessing, a conglomerate of lumber mills and organizations arrived in droves to take advantage of the wooden gold they'd find.

 

 

As Great Bay continued to grow, more neighborhoods started to define themselves and become quite distinct from the first generation that arrived before them.  Miranda Hills was the first block of houses that fought to be recognized on local city maps.  It rapidly became a popular area for younger residents (for now).

 

 

Of course, it kinda helped Miranda Hill that they were separated from the core of the town by a highway, making the division between them and the original settlers that much clearer.

 

 

Even with this minor separation, the townfolk were as united as ever: They took the same road to the factories, drank at the same bars, sang at the same church.  Being that there was just a single school, all of Great Bay got together for the bi-annual school plays and occasional musical thrown together by some of the more talented individuals.  In the beginning, things at Great Bay were quite congenial, and it would be that way for the first several years.

 

 

It would be nearly ten years after the founding of Great Bay when serious consideration was taken to the planning of future districts.  That brings us to the third major neighborhood: Hunter Point!  Pictured below is Hunter Point's road layout prior to letting developers in to provide housing for future homeowners.

 

 

The residents of Hunter Point easily had the least-obstructed view, with the beauty of nature as far as the eye could see - as long as you looked south.

 

 

Growing pains were inevitable, and the first major fire in Great Bay's first business district, Williamsburg, was the first victim.  Some time later, evidence suggested that disgruntled arsonists were the source of several storefronts catching ablaze!  Scandalous!

But even during times of strife, some rather aggressive, if not foolhardy, entrepreneurs thought that following the town firemen with their hotdog food truck would be an excellent way to make easy money from the hungry heroes.  The police didn't think so...

 

 

Meanwhile, the original off-ramp to Great Bay, dubbed "The Star", became more and more congested, though city planners at the time didn't give it much thought and left the connection alone.  This would bite Great Bay's industrial sector hard a number of years later.

 

 

After much political wrangling, the first cargo train was brought to Great Bay's industrial sector!  A dedicated avenue was given to the train station to accommodate the traffic that was expected - sure enough, many of the trucks that rolled onto the highways now turned their eyes to shipping their goods by rail.  Despite shifting some traffic away from the highway, even more trucks and cargo was delivered into town, and at a faster rate, causing The Star to become a serious bottleneck for the majority of incoming and outgoing goods.

 

 

However, the extra revenue brought more people, and more people demanded more jobs, which brought in more industry and commerce... it was a wonderful time for Great Bay, all in all.  Just before the first clouds of economic gloom were to envelope the city, Rossway Village, the most progressive neighborhood in Great Bay, was christened.  In the photo below, you can see yet another neighborhood - Pruce Heights - in the distance.  Pruce Heights was originally rapidly planned as a place for the lower income factory workers and blue-collar employees of Great Bay to reside as they were being displaced from their original homes in the core of the city.  The Heights was the first area that did not have height restrictions, allowing the neighborhood to explode in population - and all the advantages and disadvantages that brought.

 

 

Take a good look at Great Bay from Griffin Mountain to the west (it was shared by one of the town's hiking groups)!  This is a fitting place to end our story, as this is the first peak of Great Bay - before the first economic crash changed everything.

 

 

 

I look forward to everyone's feedback!  I have a lot more photos ready for use, so please stay tuned!

 

~SilentMage

[89James89 1,169]

Welcome to CJing!

 

Lovely town you have here. I especially like the forestry industrial estate. and the lovely line of houses alongside the river.

 

Keep it up!

 

Cheers

 

James

[simonmd 6]

I replied to you on Steam and I was right, picture threads like this work much better here! Again, lovely build so far, I like how natural it all looks, keep us posted!

[SilentMage 22]

Hi Again!
 
89James89: Thank you for your compliment on the "forestry estate"!  I wasn't sure how such industrial zoning would work directly next to dirty industry, so I just sectioned it off completely.  Maybe I'll experiment in another city to see what happens.  I also really fell in love with the smaller houses alongside the river - it just felt right to me. 
 
simonmd: Glad you found my post on Steam and came over here to comment!  I imagine my post is buried under several pages already.  I gotta admit, I'm surprised at how organic Great Bay is turning out to be, and how the game is handling everything.  I'm loving it!
 
 
Let's continue to dive into the history of Great Bay!

 

Update 2: The Riot of 2028 and Recovery 

 
As was mentioned before, there were some growing pains, though the town managed to overcome them.  However, when shipments stopped arriving in stores on time and rejected local goods were returned from nearby cities, the town council tried to figure out what was going on and where the source of the problem originated.  The political back-and-forth didn't really solve anything, as one group from Williamsburg blamed the others from Miranda Hill and Rossway Village for the town's problems.  By the time a leaked video referencing the "53 percent" of citizens "not getting it" surfaced, many firms have had it with Great Bay's inability to handle the massive influx of traffic and started to abandon ship.
 
People have had it and took to the streets while factory floors grew silent.
 

 
By the time the Great Bay Riots of 2028 subsided, nearly a quarter of Hunter Point burned to the ground and mayor and his cabinet were thrown out of office.  What was the cause of this unforeseen turn of events?  
 

 
Believe it or not, but this avenue (creatively named "Industry Road") that connected the core of Great Bay to the highway was the culprit.  Between the influx of industrial traffic, the residential traffic (people driving to work being the sole form of local transit), and the cargo trains funneling large shipments in at a rate that "The Star" at the beginning of Industry Road (the five-way intersection between the highway and the factories) couldn't handle.  The backups in traffic stretched for miles, and it rarely went away!
 
The new local government that stepped in devised a controversial solution to the problem.  After the incompetence of the former administration, the people voted in favor of the plan, even agreeing to take a temporary four-year tax hike to fund the project.
 

 
In summary, "Industry Road" was completely torn up and replaced with an elevated extension of the interstate highway.  Many of the feeder streets were either removed altogether or capped with on- or off-ramps to the new highway extension, while the avenue that was connected to the lumber district had a direct link to the cargo trains.  Not too many factory and warehouse owners were still in town to protest the destruction of their property, so Great Bay purchased back a lot of the zoned land at a deep discount.  
 
The biggest hurdle was the relocation of the wind turbines that were erected at the founding of Great Bay, but some rapid maneuvering in town hall pushed through an initiative to preserve the first four turbines and sell the rest off to other cities to help fund the highway.
 
Upon the grand re-opening of Industry Row, traffic moved incredibly smooth and cargo was able to reach their destinations, both locally and abroad!  Money started to flow back to Great Bay!
 

 
Not long after the "re-opening", an ambitious mogul wanted to build his vision of a "residential utopia" just across from Industry Row.  The mayor saw dollar signs and agreed to the project.  This gave birth to Pyramid Circle, "The Most Gaudy" part of town.  However, it did jump-start Great Bay's tourism... funny how things work out.
 

 
Around the end of Pyramid Circle's completion, the state government awarded Great Bay a grant, as part of the city's agreement towards environmental power generation.  The money enabled the city's first solar power plant.  The environmentalists celebrated for weeks following the closure of all the coal-burning plants in Industry Row.  
 

 
With new industry - and the sudden growth of the service sector - coming in, new houses were needed, as not everyone wanted to live in areas like Pruce Heights and Pyramid Circle.  Enter Meghan's Point, the newest suburban extension of Great Bay, accessible by a new bridge!  Being the southern-most neighborhood, it was arguably the quietest part of town - and those that moved there greatly preferred it that way.
 

 
Conversely, the biggest addition to Great Bay's commerce was the construction of Griffin Mountain Shopping Center, the largest outdoor mall complex in the state.  The expo center was the centerpiece of the mall, attracting conferences and major performing arts events.  The state even assisted Great Bay in building its first passenger train station, officially putting Great Bay on a much bigger map.
 

 
We conclude this chapter with a flyover photo of Great Bay!  One day, those airplanes will land here from national and international origins...
 
 
I look forward to everyone's feedback!  More pictures are coming, and the history of Great Bay will continue!
 
~SilentMage

[simonmd 6]

Riots? Oh dear, I hope this new era is more peaceful! 

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Great city design- the compact areas and the lower density ones look good. The curving nature of the industrial area works very well!

[Yayie 311]

I enjoying this. Hope to see the next series.

[SilentMage 22]

Hi Everyone!

 

simonmd: If only riots were an actual disaster in this game!  Keeping fingers crossed for either a "disasters" patch or DLC (tsunami from the oceans, please!).  Anyhow, the new mayor has learned many lessons from his predecessors so it's highly unlikely such dangerous events will occur in the future.

 

Ln X: Thank you!  Although I didn't grow up in a small city, I always figured that people would drive a respectable distance to get to work, especially if that work was in a smoke-belching factory or lumber yard.  Since I had the idea of an evolving, organic city in mind (as opposed to min-maxing), I've been very pleased at the results.  Despite the seeming chaos, traffic isn't much of a problem, and I spent some time watching people go to work - they almost always make it w/o teleporting. =)

 

Yayie:  Glad to have you here!  More is coming, I can assure you.

 

 

Update 3: The Great Expansion of the 2030s

 

 

The following decade in the history of Great Bay proved to be one of it's most successful, both in terms of revenue streams and city growth.  Not only have the more gritty areas like Pruce Heights experience incredible amounts of gentrification, but the launch of BayTran, the city's own mass transit authority, revolutionized the way people got to work and to their favorite shopping centers.

 

As always with Great Bay, however, growth seems to always bring controversy.  In the picture above is the final phase of the Wilford Tower, which was built smack in the middle of the culturally stagnant Williamsburg, the original core of Great Bay.  The backlash prompted the mayor to promise that no more skyscrapers would be built in Williamsburg and all "original" areas of Great Bay.  This would force all the major developments to occur on the other side of the river for years to come.

 

 

That doesn't mean development halted in Williamsburg, Miranda, and Hunter Point.  A renovated Town Hall had it's first day in the limelight, built across from the 1st Bank of Great Bay.  

 

 

In addition, BayTran inaugurated its founding with a new train station at the eastern edge of Williamsburg, giving the residents easy access to Pruce Heights and Griffin Mountain Shopping Center.

 

 

This is one of the view areas where the train runs directly through chunks of town, bringing either pleasure or annoyance from the clackaty-clack of the passing trains and the ringing of the railroad crossings.  The passenger trains brought a wave of new travelers to Williamsburg, while giving the kids there a chance to get away from their stuffy parents and experience city life in Pruce Heights!

 

 

following the reaction to Wilford Tower in Williamsburg, the majority of development funds were shifted to the northwest, where Pruce Heights would be soon joined by new districts.  To accomodate the increased train traffic, an express bypass (which was extended a few years later) was added to their train station.

 

 

One such neighborhood was Oak Fields, which was originally just an office park off the highway; it received so much attention for its undervalued property that the area practically exploded with development overnight once the mayor decided on properly integrating it with Great Bay.  The problems of the past are cyclical, and one such problem was traffic: the original highway connection to Oak Fields was woefully insufficient post-integration.  This time, however, the mayor and his administration acted swiftly to resolve the problem: dedicating wide, six-lane avenues to the highway connections and a reduction in feeder streets.  To this day, this renovation has allowed continuous flow of traffic in and out of northwest Great Bay.

 

Another major renovation was, once again, in Industry Row.  Although the dirty industry was still going through rough patches (most of the young people wanted an office job), the highway that ran through it still connected the heavily-residential Williamsburg (and points east) to the new developments to the north.  Because of this, the old bridge that connected old Great Bay with the factories was torn down and replaced with a twin highway bridge, as well as a single-lane service bridge.

 

 

As mentioned before, rapid growth - along with a restriction on said growth in the south - resulted in new areas forming around Pruce Heights.  Enter "Whitlow", a mostly middle-class neighborhood that focused on greenery.

 

 

Great Bay's first botanical garden was erected in the heart of Whitlow, as well as a second college just a few blocks away, attracting hundreds of young people and their parents.  It was also the first neighborhood that integrated BayTran's bus service as part of its expansion plans.

 

 

...The rapid growth of Great Bay has only begun!  Pictured here is the planning for yet another neighborhood directly next to Whitlow.  What did the people of Great Bay offer as its name?  We will find out in the next update!

 

 

Any feedback you have is always welcome - I look forward to reading and responding to it all!

 

~SilentMage

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

How did you get that purple train?

[simonmd 6]

Your trains, buses, etc will take on whatever colour you assign to the line. Do this by clicking the transport icon in the info window, then click on the line itself and it's own window will pop up allowing you to re name it and change colour. (you have to of course set a line up, just like you may have done with buses and subways.)

[SilentMage 22]

Hello Everyone!  Sorry for the delay - work was particularly demanding yesterday thanks to some snarky folks DDOS'ing one of my organization's domains.  Anyhow... the history of Great Bay continues!  After this (or maybe the next) set, I'll mix things up a bit with an "Intermission" type submission.  You'll see what I mean! =)

 

Ln X: As simonmd said, you can easily adjust the color and name of a train line by selecting one of your trains and clicking the "Modify Line" button. This opens a new window where you can select a color from a massive selection that's similar to managing colors in Photoshop.

 

Update 4: More Neighborhoods, More Transit

 

 

Welcome to Kobi Town, a district that was designed primarily as a commercial and office hub for north Great Bay.  Being that it sat between two sets of railroad tracks, access to the area requires crossing elevated pathways, whether it's by car or on foot.

 

 

Several pedestrian bridges connect Pruce Heights and Whitlow to Kobi Town, all of which are surprisingly well-traveled.  The two closest to the Pruce Heights train station serve the most people that want to shop in the bright stores that line Kobi Town's Railroad Street.

 

 

The concrete canyons of Kobi Town also have a dense, if not small (area-wise), residential area at its northern-most point: high-rise complexes with cheap shops on the ground floor and discount wares for those that want to walk into the shadows for a good deal.  Definitely not as glamorous as the Railroad Street strip, but still a great area nonetheless.

 

 

All of this growth has not gone unnoticed by the now-multi-generational Miranda neighborhood.  Although many of the original houses still stand by the river shores, their view has changed dramatically over the last 30 years.  Skyscrapers replaced trees, the sounds of howling wolves replaced with the constant hum of traffic in the distance, and the starlight replaced with 24-hour street lights.  The younger families that moved in don't seem to mind, though the older, "first-generation" folks that have survived this long to see the changes can't help but shed a tear to what was lost.

 

 

Of course, despite the opinions of some, Great Bay's continuing growth goes unabated, as the western interstate went through a significant extension project, connecting the western-most highway to the northern tip of Rossway Village. This would bring new blood into the aging district - as well as paving the way for another massive expansion of Great Bay!

 

Stay tuned for our next update, as the largest residential district is planned out, dirty industry decides to simply move out, and a science center moves in! =)

 

Lastly, if there's any particular area of focus you readers would like to see more of, please let me know!

 

 

~SilentMage

[jesper107 113]

Great pics, great story!

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Really good pictures. The second from last picture has the best looking houses I've seen in this game.

[iviaarten 534]

really like the look of that city on the slope. Love the old riverfront houses as well. Nice that you were able to keep those unchanged.