How to Assimilate to New-Amsterdam

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Entry posted by TahR · February 23, 2013

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Welcome, potential citizens, to New-Amsterdam!

New-Amsterdam (also in Dutch: Nieuw-Amsterdam) is an upcoming city in a European region, though having an American flavor as well, and is on its way to becoming a metropolis. But it's a city of which the layout may be different than you're used to. Let's start with a little tour around this city, where 300,000 people spend their lives.

Quick Facts

Current Year: 2050
Current Population: 300,000
Current Commercial Jobs: 250,000
Current Industrial Jobs: 19,000
Current Financial Income: $ 8,000/month
Demonym: New-Amsterdammer

How did it all start?

The city New-Amsterdam has been founded on a place where before only two cities have settled and departed as well, mainly because it was a hard-to-reach place.

The first city was a Roman settlement. We don't know where it was exactly, but Roman ruins has been found in the south of Downtown Island, together with Greek temples and an almost-complete Roman arena. Another temple has been found in the west of Waterside District. Those has all been restored. A small village has been made out of the ruins in Downtown, called New-Rome, which is now primarily inhabited by the Italian community of New-Amsterdam.

The second city must have been here in the medieval, but strangely, we don't know a lot about this. Archeologists have found some graves and old scripts, but no ruins.

The current city of New-Amsterdam surrected in the 1950's after the War, when some Americans and Europeans decided to reunite with eachother in a new city, as they were both unhappy with the situations in the cities where they lived. This is the cause of New-Amsterdam having Dutch leverages (City of Amsterdam) as well as having American leverages (City of New York). The city, truly, is a mix of both. It growed a lot in the last 25 years (see the pictures beneath).

Before

After

Districts and islands

New-Amsterdam has 5 districts, of which 4 are islands. The islands have the same names as the districts that lie on it. Those districts are:

Downtown. The longest island of the city from north to south, as well as a bustling commercial and industrial district. You'll find all the skyscrapers (like the World Trade Center) and busy offices here, next to high class residential mansions, industrial factories and - surprisingly - ancient Roman ruins.
Uptown. The biggest island of the city in area. The middle-class resides here together with small shops. An old ethnically-diverse predominantly-residential area. In the middle of it lies Central Park, which breathes a lot of fresh air into Uptown's concrete jungle. The City Hall is housed in the Park as well.
Subile. The smallest isle, kind of egg-shaped, which is a bit distinct from the city. It holds a lot of promising housing projects, but in reality, the island is always known for having a boring ambience and is only being visited for the fact it holds the airport and university. The last years, the island is being revived, with a casino, a hotel and a small low-density commercial district placed.
Ile Memorial. An artificial island in the middle of the water between the big three islands. It holds the big Statue of Liberty monument and is only reachable per ferry. A good place to spend your day off.
Waterside. This is the only district not being a island. District Waterside is almost everything that's on the countryside, but still within New-Amsterdam's municipal borders. On this district, you'll find nothing more than a garbage belt, farmland and a suburban village for the elderly people.

A look on the city skyline

Close to New-Amsterdam are its suburbs Krijn and Fluim, both small cities who only hold about 5,000 people each.

How do the New-Amsterdammers move?

New-Amsterdam supports road traffic. The city is reachable from Highway A2 (from/to neighbor city Fluim) and Highway A9 (from/to neighbor city Krijn). The city has hundreds of streets, as well as some inner-city roads and one inner-city highway connecting Uptown and Downtown. The city counts as well eleven bridges, of which six are for road traffic.

Lately, due to traffic jams, car traffic is being discouraged and new mass traffic is being introduced. The New-Amsterdammers know the following mass transit vehicles:

Autobus (Bus). Almost every block in New-Amsterdam has a bus stop, even the far away ones, like on Subile and in Waterside. The autobus, however, doesn't solve traffic jams but only makes them worse, and it's only encouraged for inner-district traffic
Ground Light Rail (GLR). The Ground Light Rail is a network in the city, which crosses the three big islands and stops at all the points of interest. The network is set up in a specific way, so one doesn't have to walk a great distance from a GLR stop to a Bus stop or vice versa. The Ground Light Rail is especially being used for inter-district traffic, and currently runs a circle railroad, on which 5 lines are running. Plans for extending it has been made.
Train á grande vitesse (TGV). The TGV is a high-speed rail network running through the city and it's suburbs Krijn and Fluim. People use it for quick transport from Uptown to Downtown (and v.v.), as well as quick transport to the suburbs (and v.v.).
Ferry. There are about six ferry ports around the city, which are barely used anymore, except for New-Rome Ferry Port and Ile Memorial Ferry Port, as Ile Memorial is only reachable with the ferry coming from New-Rome (Downtown).

A transit map of 2035, fifteen years ago. Some things have already changed, like the finish of GLR 6 construction in 2038 and the Central Transit Hub becoming one in 2047.

City Policy

The city has taxes around 7% for the residential, all 6% equal for the commercial and 6-10% for industrial (6% farmland and hi-tech, 10% dirty industry).

In the city, gambling is allowed, together with the lottery program. One casino has opened therefor. Crime did increase, but the police squad has been made bigger and stronger to handle that. The city also has two enactments to improve the air quality, a Commuter Shuttle Service and a mandatory smoke detector enactment enabled.

What do the New-Amsterdammers think of their city?

As of polls in 2050

The captions has been edited for translation from Dutch to English.

What can you expect from this city journal?

Now that we know the statistics, history and lay-out of this city, we'll focus in this City Journal pretty much on the New-Amsterdam daily life. We'll focus on big issues (traffic flow), and small issues (citizen news), like a newsreel. But we'll also do some regular updates when the city grows, when the city policy changes radically, or an extremely interesting thing in the city deserves some attention.

Well, you are more than welcome in our city, so come and join the fun in New-Amsterdam!

Oh, and thank you for reading!