Kings Ridge

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Entry posted by Blazerhawk · September 30, 2013

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urielgarcia-Thank you.

Benedict-Thank you.

Aaron Graham-Thanks. This city should be fun to develop.

UndercoverNinja12-Thanks. I would have to say that this stuff is some of my favorite content for much the same reasons.

To All-Thank you for voting in the poll. The Santa Bella map will be available on the STEX later this week. Also, thanks for making this one of the top journals this past week.

Kings Ridge

I developed Kings Ridge with basic idea that this was the northwest end of Bella Vista and thus where the highway would enter the city. As you can see from the last two region shots it took a couple of tries to get right. The challenging thing with this type of area is the interaction of the highway as it enters the city. I wanted something that made sense, but was compact and natural. This lead to one of the weirdest interchange ideas I have had. The interchange I came up with is essentially a loop running through an industrial park. It required a bypass approach to the highway, but I this also split the industrial park nicely from the residential part of the city.

Here we have the John C. Bryson Highway (desginated as I-23) entering the city. This highway serves as the main route between Bella Vista and Santa Bella. Traffic on this highway is largely dependent on the time of day as during rush hours it can be quite thick, while during low hours such as seen here traffic can be next to nonexistent.

I-23 has several exits in Bella Vista. The first is the Industrial Street Exit. This exit is part of more complex system of exits and entrances around the Ridgewood Research Park. Not surprisingly this exit is only lightly used as very few commuters find it useful.

The Ridgewood Research Park is home to several labs and high-tech companies. While it is relatively small, it is well-known for being the old stomping grounds of famous inventor John Bryson. When Bryson worked in the area, Ridgewood Research Park was owned by Bryson Industries. However, after his death the company folded and the labs were sold to third parties. These days the park is more or less a loose collection of labs for major companies.

The proximity of the highway has made the northern end of Mountainwood Road a minor shopping district. The so-called Ridgewood Center is really nothing more than a couple of shops on the edge of town. Of course, this hasn't stopped them from trying to promote themselves as being part of something far greater.

The busiest place in the district may be the Mountainwood Baseball Complex. These fields host little league games for most of western Bella Vista. On any given night there are between 4 to 12 games on these fields (1 to 3 per field), hundreds of amped up ten to twelve year olds, and as many as 5000 proud parents. Parking has become an issue, however, and the Bella Vista city council is looking at options to alleviate the issue.

Residents of Kings Ridge have relatively few worries. Unlike the areas to the south, the most dangerous thing that the average parent here has to worry about are pranks like TPing a neighbors tree. This is partially the result of the fact that Kings Ridge has one of the regions strongest neighborhood watch programs. The local sports programs also help reduce the crime problem among teens.

Ridgewood School serves this area well. The school itself is one of a very few K-12 schools left in the region. Academically it is a middle of the road school, but it remains desirable because the student violence/drug use incident rate is well below the national average. Ridgewood was recently rated as the safest school in Bella Vista, and it is almost always in the running. This is somewhat ironic as the school itself is housed in an remodeled early 1960s factory which was notorious for the number of accidents that occurred onsite.

Of course the real draw of the district is the beautiful scenery. The famous Kings Ridge lends its name to the district and is just one of the natural wonders in the Stone Ridge State Park. Here we are looking east from atop Stone Ridge.

Helicopter tours frequently flyover the park. Riders can capture shots like this one of the Whitehill Cliffs. These cliffs were extremely popular with climbers until the forestry service had to ask them to stop after falling rocks killed three climbers. Investigation revealed that the climbing gear that was used on the cliff was severely damaging the rock and had caused some to come loose. These days the cliffs are left alone.

The Valleman Basin is locate across Stone Ridge Mountain from Bella Vista. This area is some of densest forest in the region. It also houses the visitors center for the park, the helicopter tour center, and a campground.

That's all for this week. Feel free to comment or +1 this entry! Thank you!