Talooga County (#2: St. Claire, regional airport and rural development)

[max_13 128]

Hey guys,

 

I found this place through a reddit thread and really enjoyed looking at other mayor's beautiful journals, so I thought I might as well give it a shot with my new city - or better say new county comprised of several cities.

 

First up is the city of Bushong which occupies the eastern part of an island. Bushong has a population of roughly 32,000 - it will be a small town compared to the yet-to-be-built metropolis of Talooga City, however Bushong is extremely affluent (around $60/m² average land value, no unemployment) and is situated on a picturesque bay. It also acts as county seat and seat of the court. So, let's visit Bushong and enjoy the sunset..

 

 

Overview

 

 

 

 

Bushong Bay - home to some of the most exclusive real estate in the city

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Downtown

 

The Talooga Capitol. Central train and bus stations in the front.

 

View from the Capitol toward Talooga Court.

 

Reverse angle of the Capitol.

 

Peasants Citizens in front of the Capitol.

 

Talooga Court.

 

View of the Court with northern Bushong in the back.

 

Downtown Bushong features a network of elevated pedestrian paths.

 

 

 

A major roundabout connecting Downtown to the Bay and Bushong Tech Park.

 

 

 

 

Bushong Tech Park - a major source of innovation within Talooga County, also a great place to live

 

 

Bushong Science Centre and adjacent shopping.

 

Bushong is also home to Chirper!

 

Thanks to its great infrastructure, the Tech Park is a friendly place for families.

 

Bushong Institute of Technology (BIT)

 

 

 

Northern Bushong - a low-density residential neighborhood

 

Roundabout connecting Downtown to Northern Bushong.

 

The main commercial area.

 

High school, football pitch and one hell of a view.

 

The pier and some waterfront shopping.

 

The Aquarium.

 

Reverse angle.

 

 

Outskirts

 

Highway to main intersection. Bushong farms can be seen on the left.

 

Bushong Farms. Farmers are struggling heavily to find workers after the shift to hightech industry. I am willing subsidize them for the time being (and because I like fresh milk), but it is possible that the area will be repurposed in the long run.

 

Cargo area.

 

The main highway exit. May be changed entirely once traffic from other cities starts flowing in.

 

 

Bushong Central Park. It's still WIP.

 

 

What's ahead

 

The next project will be situated to the west of Bushong - St. Claire. Where Bushong was busy with itself, St. Claire will be a touristy city filled with culture and awesome waterfront highrises. The big island in the back will be entirely occupied by Talooga City, a bustling metropolis of at least 200,000 people. Afterwards I'll decide what to do with the remaining islands/peninsulas.

 

All right, thanks for reading!

[realdimension 6]

Just beautiful 

[89James89 1,169]

Really nice city and spread, very good job. 

 

Also that reverse shot of the City Hall is gorgeous!

 

Cheers

 

James

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

What a start! You have the magic touch when it comes to great camera angles.

[SimWarrior 10]

That is one gorgeous city! Welcome to Simtropolis!

[max_13 128]

 

"Can you believe this guy? Taking his 1990 Ford Shitbird to the fast lane when I need to get to my meeting... wait a minute! That's not the highway to Bushong! Where the hell am I and what is this place?"

 

Heh, a common confusion these days. If you haven't been to Talooga County for a while you probably wouldn't recognize it anymore that's how quickly this place is growing. Remember to update your GPS! Since our last get-together quite a lot has changed:

 

St. Claire welcomes both new residents and tourists with its long, pristine beaches, high-end shopping and premiere entertainment facilities. Truly a hell on earth if you ask me as someone who prefers more alternative tourism.

 

To accommodate all these new travellers I personally ordered the construction of our very own St. Claire-Bushong Airport. Not quite as big as the planned Talooga International Airport (TLX), but nontheless the pride of this office. I'm still amazed that we even got this far considering most of our brightest college graduates directly move to Bushong Tech Park to try to invent the next Chirper. I really should revoke recreational use and send these kids to military training so they finally man up! But I digress...

 

Aside from the new city and the airport, we completed quite some other interesting projects, so let's get to it.

 

 

Before developing the new city of St. Claire we had to upgrade our existing infrastructure. The main highway going through our county has been upgraded with a new interchange that I managed to buy from external engineers (have I mentioned the useless academics here in Talooga?). I also ordered to completely overhaul our public transportation systems: Bushong, St. Clair as well as the other parts of our little island are now served by over 30 bus lines, 10 metro lines and several highspeed trains between Bushong, St. Claire and the airport.

 

St. Claire

 

The highway to St. Claire.

 

 

St. Claire in all of its - ahem - beauty. How can you cramp so many hotels next to the beach?!

 

St. Claire train station. To the left you see the new museum, to the right our new theatre.

 

 

The theatre.

 

The museum.

 

The main shopping boulevard.

 

The boulevard leads directly to the beach.

 

The main beach with public pools and cheap restaurants.

 

 

 

 

The many smaller streets you can find aren't quite as glamorous.

 

The harbor.

 

 

St. Claire University with the business park in the back. Look how the students enjoy their legal pot at the parking lots.

 

 

Outskirts

 

After developing the new city I also ordered development of some rural areas and investments in our manufacturing industry.

 

 

St. Claire and adjacent towns are connected via a regional highway.

 

A highway stop.

 

Old Green

 

Old Green is a small community based on farming and forestry.

 

 

 

 

I just love this place! Life still makes sense out here: guns, church and women without teeth. Men die by the age of 35 from a meth overdoze or simply an ingrown toenail thanks to zero advanced medical care. What's not to like?

 

 

The Docks

 

People often ask me "what's the favorite past-time of your citizens?" It's a good question, seeing how we only have a theatre, a museum and a couple of rather terrible cinemas. I guess you either smoke pot or go on a shopping spree. Now, we ran into some trouble sustaining all of the mindless consumerism that has taken a hold of our county in recent time, so we desperately needed an industrial base.

 

Ah, the docks! Where terrible safety standards meet a low work ethic to create a place of magic.

 

Do you smell that? Smells like GDP growth!

 

Obviously an extensive dock attracts manual labor and thus... a certain clientel that promptly claimed a neighboring piece of land. I guess they have to live somewhere after all.. If you ever pass through Talooga I would avoid a wrong turn in this area.

 

 

A bunch of kids playing with burning industrial waste in front of a burger joint. Or as we call it here: a Thursday.

 

 

 

 

St. Claire Gated Community

 

You remember the new interchange I had to build in order to manage the sudden surge in traffic? Yea, turns out adjacent households weren't too thrilled about that. Average land value in Bushong dropped from $60 to $59. I already fear re-election, you never know with these snobs. So, in a genius political move I quickly ordered the construction of a gated community and gave noise-disturbed residents of Bushong a discount on these homes.

 

 

Entry and club house.

 

Tennis club.

 

Private medical facility with pools.

 

Life is easy out here. A dedicated police patrol car is approaching.

 

 

St. Claire Old Town

 

Well, Old Town is probably the wrong terminology as every single building has a modern style to it, but the underlying building code is rigorously enforced to ensure a homogenous appearance. The real Talooga Old Town will be situated over in Talooga City.

 

 

 

 

Tourists love this place!

 

 

St. Claire-Bushong Airport

 

 

A fancy airport hotel.

 

Train station, bus stops and the terminal.

 

Oh great, seems like every air traffic controller is taking a smoke break while a landing is taking place. No worries guys!

 

All right, that's it for now! Thanks for reading. I will do more incremental updates as I move a long. Also, thanks a lot for the nice comments after my inaugural presentation

[89James89 1,169]

Love it. Some very nice expansions to the already lovely city. I also love how you've managed to simulate class and wealth divide in a realistic way.

 

Looking forward to more.

 

Cheers

 

James

[iviaarten 534]

Very pretty looking city. You've done an awesome job giving the different neighborhoods their own flair. Great job.

 

Good camera work on the pictures as well, although I must say the purple tint is slightly unnerving for me personally.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

So cool and so much class.

[Sanshy6544 42]

Impressive. But the pictures are a bit too dark for me

[SimWarrior 10]

Some very pretty scenes there

[perken 1]

Real nice, stands out a bit from the crowd with a more urban feel!

[max_13 128]

It seems like I lost this savegame for now because of the Traffic++ mod (zoneable pedestrian paths). This mod keeps making problems so I'm going to start another map without it to be on the safe side. I guess it's not so bad, because I was pretty much done with the small island and about to build a more or less separate city on the bigger island, so I might as well do that on a better map.

 

Regarding the color in my pictures: I really don't like the vanilla LUTs, I think they make the cities look too colorful. But I'll try to optimize visibility a bit. Anyway, glad you liked my first attempt!

[tankmank 853]

Shame about the save game, it was turning out to be a great urban area, looking forward to see what you show next 

[iviaarten 534]

yeh, sorry to hear about the save. Looking forward to the next city though.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Damn that is a real shame. You had such a flair for building cities and everything that goes in them and everything that surrounds them. The pictures you took were so incredible.