Amryai200

First, a region view: Just covering the main settlements; there are a few more towns that you can't see here, most notably Exeter and Washington, and we'll see them later. Downtown Devon, circa 1910. As you can see, it's getting pretty dense; traffic is a bit of a nightmare in places but there's not much room for avenues. There are plans for one of those newfangled underground tram systems but it has yet to be implemented. It would likely be in some way an extension of the street car network, which currently is rather small. One of Central Devon's most recognizable features are its many rowhouses. Several different styles of rowhouse prevail; these brick and concrete designs are fairly recent and are more common near the industrial Devonport neighborhood. These older rowhomes are more common on the eastern side of Central Devon. Other attractions of Central Devon include the 200-year-old Mayor's Estate and surrounding gardens; it's a nice area of tranquility and history amidst a growing sea of modern skyscrapers. The City Mall is almost as old as the Mayor's Estate; the streetcar line was originally to be built there but the proposal was shot down by more historically-inclined members of City Council. Finally, no tour of downtown would be complete without City Hall. Seen in the center, City Hall is over 150 years old and adds a sense of grandeur to Devon's center. Also visible is the Central Museum, to the left of City Hall Park, and the County Courthouse above it.

Hi, and welcome to Devon! Well, I've started a couple city journals before (Amryai, Plymouth, Mitera, and Adobe Springs) but they never really took off usually because I lost interest. Hopefully that won't happen this time, and I'll try to avoid losing interest by posting frequent small updates and not going overboard with photoshop formatting etc, because eventually that just becomes a hassle. This CJ (like millions of others recently, it seems) is somewhat inspired by CSGdesign's "Natural Growth", although perhaps not following his philosophy as faithfully. Basically I'm just trying to make as realistic a city as possible without using cheats. It's also not going to be quite as overflowing with mods as my previous CJs; there will be plenty of custom content but plenty of Maxis stuff too. The city itself is based on Boston, New York City, and San Francisco, and is perhaps closest to the latter in many ways, although I'm going for more of a colonial look with the architecture. Now, on to Devon: Devon was founded in the early 17th century by English pilgrims seeking to escape religious persecution. Landing in what is today New England, they established a small settlement on what came to be known as Pennacook Bay, named after the local Native American tribe. Although conflicts with the Pennacook happened occasionally, the village prospered over time. Today Devon is a bustling metropolitan area with a population of nearly 100,000. Although initially an industrial port city, Devon has transformed in the last 50 years into a center of commerce. In fact, Devon has become so important to the economy of the region that a Stock Exchange was recently constructed. Naturally, this only enhanced Devon's economy and brought many new major businesses to the area (and a few new high-rise offices, as well!) With all this new activity came increased traffic, and soon Devon was getting a bit crowded. To help fix this, City Hall commissioned a tram car system to be built through the most congested areas of downtown. While the program has not been fully completed, the current rail lines have already helped alleviate road traffic in the area. Along with rail, Devon's air traffic was being taxed by the new growth. While the airplane was still a recent invention, the original Devon Airfield was outmoded, and it was time for something rather more suited for Devon's role as a regional business center. The new Devon Airport was built right next to the old one, which is planned to be deactivated and covered with tree saplings to restore a bit of nature to the area. The new airport immediately saw relatively heavy use, and plans are being drawn up for new commercial and residential areas located adjacent to the new transport hub.

I might demolish the current airport and build a new one with the custom lots when it's time for an upgrade, i dunno. we'll see. Now for Update 2: Downtown Devon, Part 1! But first, a region view: Just covering the main settlements; there are a few more towns that you can't see here, most notably Exeter and Washington, and we'll see them later. Downtown Devon, circa 1910. As you can see, it's getting pretty dense; traffic is a bit of a nightmare in places but there's not much room for avenues. There are plans for one of those newfangled underground tram systems but it has yet to be implemented. It would likely be in some way an extension of the street car network, which currently is rather small. One of Central Devon's most recognizable features are its many rowhouses. Several different styles of rowhouse prevail; these brick and concrete designs are fairly recent and are more common near the industrial Devonport neighborhood. These older rowhomes are more common on the eastern side of Central Devon. Other attractions of Central Devon include the 200-year-old Mayor's Estate and surrounding gardens; it's a nice area of tranquility and history amidst a growing sea of modern skyscrapers. The City Mall is almost as old as the Mayor's Estate; the streetcar line was originally to be built there but the proposal was shot down by more historically-inclined members of City Council. Finally, no tour of downtown would be complete without City Hall. Seen in the center, City Hall is over 150 years old and adds a sense of grandeur to Devon's center. Also visible is the Central Museum, to the left of City Hall Park, and the County Courthouse above it.

 Thanks for the comments guys :) k50dude: Thanks, I'm modeling Devon off of some of my favorite cities (San Francisco and Boston in particular) so it's probably close to an ideal city for me...at least, that's the ultimate goal! lappy486: The farms turned out pretty nicely, the STEX trees work wonders ;)

Thanks for the comments everyone! There'll be another update shortly (i.e. tonight) Mayorm: Thanks, there's alot of custom content if you look closely but it's not as overbearing as in some of my earlier CJs. Schulmanator: Thanks! Hopefully this CJ will last a while, unlike my earlier ones ComputerGuy890100: Yeah, the custom airport packs I have mess with the Maxis airport, dunno why kccl35: Devon's downtown is pretty dense and I didn't want to demolish anything there to make way for the stock exchange, so I picked a low-density area at the edge of downtown that also has some leftover dirty industry from back when Devon was a major industrial area. It makes for some interesting contrasts, but the industry is on borrowed time anyway...eventually it'll gentrify! Archean: Yeah the GLR was a bit of a pain to implement, but I'm still planning on extensions of the network! zahrul01: I already have the RIMP 2 and other custom airport sets, but I didn't have alot of flat land to build on so I was pretty much stuck with the Maxis airport. When the time comes for an international airport though it'll be all customized jacqulina: Thanks! Daan300: Thanks for the kind words Daan. Hopefully I will be able to keep it up (aka not lose interest)

Hi, and welcome to Devon! Well, I've started a couple city journals before (Amryai, Plymouth, Mitera, and Adobe Springs) but they never really took off usually because I lost interest. Hopefully that won't happen this time, and I'll try to avoid losing interest by posting frequent small updates and not going overboard with photoshop formatting etc, because eventually that just becomes a hassle. This CJ (like millions of others recently, it seems) is somewhat inspired by CSGdesign's "Natural Growth", although perhaps not following his philosophy as faithfully. Basically I'm just trying to make as realistic a city as possible without using cheats. It's also not going to be quite as overflowing with mods as my previous CJs; there will be plenty of custom content but plenty of Maxis stuff too. The city itself is based on Boston, New York City, and San Francisco, and is perhaps closest to the latter in many ways, although I'm going for more of a colonial look with the architecture. Now, on to Devon: Devon was founded in the early 17th century by English pilgrims seeking to escape religious persecution. Landing in what is today New England, they established a small settlement on what came to be known as Pennacook Bay, named after the local Native American tribe. Although conflicts with the Pennacook happened occasionally, the village prospered over time. Today Devon is a bustling metropolitan area with a population of nearly 100,000. Although initially an industrial port city, Devon has transformed in the last 50 years into a center of commerce. In fact, Devon has become so important to the economy of the region that a Stock Exchange was recently constructed. Naturally, this only enhanced Devon's economy and brought many new major businesses to the area (and a few new high-rise offices, as well!) With all this new activity came increased traffic, and soon Devon was getting a bit crowded. To help fix this, City Hall commissioned a tram car system to be built through the most congested areas of downtown. While the program has not been fully completed, the current rail lines have already helped alleviate road traffic in the area. Along with rail, Devon's air traffic was being taxed by the new growth. While the airplane was still a recent invention, the original Devon Airfield was outmoded, and it was time for something rather more suited for Devon's role as a regional business center. The new Devon Airport was built right next to the old one, which is planned to be deactivated and covered with tree saplings to restore a bit of nature to the area. The new airport immediately saw relatively heavy use, and plans are being drawn up for new commercial and residential areas located adjacent to the new transport hub.

Nora Sullivan looked out her train window. Sand and rocks stretched to infinity. She couldn't hear the outside over the thundering roar of the steam engine, but imagined it was oppressively silent. Some might find the sparse, noiseless desert depressing. She thought it was beautiful. The roar of the locomotive was suddenly accompanied by the grinding screech of brakes. The shout of "Fiero Station!" somehow carried itself over the noise. Time to get off. Nora grabbed her suitcase - her only possession - and disembarked. Fiero Station was small, simple, uncomplicated. From what she had heard, so was the town of Fiero itself. According to the last census - taken three years ago, in 1870 - Fiero had well under 5,000 souls in total - a big difference from where Nora came from. No, this was definitely not New York. There were people here, for sure, and it was busy for a town in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't the bustling haven of chaos that was the Big Apple. Nor was it Ireland, Nora's first home. She couldn't remember Ireland very well; her main memory was being hungry. She wouldn't be hungry here. Times were good out west, or so she heard - finding a job, and a home, would be easy. She headed downtown. It was a long, smelly walk through the industrial sector north of the river - what was the name of that river? She couldn't remember. But it was dirty. Hopefully the rest of the town wasn't like this. Thankfully it wasn't. Downtown was quite pretty - the main streets were even paved! Times were good indeed. The highlight was definitely City Hall - a recently built, Colonial-style brick building. She went inside. The clerk looked up. "What can I do for ya?" Nora replied in her slight Irish accent. "A job, ya say?" said the clerk cheerfully. "We've got plenty o' those. Ya look new - I imagine you want a house too? There are a couple new ones out on the east side for rent. Not exactly palaces, but I think they'll suit ya just fine." Things were working out. She looked at the map on the wall. Fiero - her new home. She was excited to be here, out on the frontier. Life was a bit wilder here, but, she hoped, it would also be more fulfilling. What she didn't know was that it wouldn't remain a frontier for long.

Sorry it's been a while guys, but my computer was just assaulted by an epic virus and I've been unable to get on the internet (I'm using my dad's laptop right now). Thankfully I've been able to backup my Adobe Springs files and my whole 1.3GB plugins folder, but I'm putting this CJ on haitus until I get my new Macbook Pro and install Windows and SC4 on it. I might post one more update before then (I worked on the city a bit more before the crash), but for now I'm taking a break, sadly, and not by choice.

12:30 here, my latest yet this summer. Weird because I went to sleep an hour earlier than usual

Beautiful city, it really has a quasi-Parisian feel.

Peoria, Illinois. Took a while to find! My turn: Hint (probably too much of one): a certain tasty beverage was invented here.

astronelson: Hehe, well I don't think anyone was actually injured in the process, but certainly threats were made! If you think it's a boom town now, just wait...I did mention gold after all jacquilina: Thanks for the comment as always! There'll be even more growth in the next update, I hope. There should be another update tomorrow or the day after, so stay tuned!

Thanks for the comment, I'm glad you like it! I'll have another update up within the next few days, it won't be as much of a small town anymore

Very nice cities so far! The slums are a bit repetitive though; there are several slum BATs that could add a bit more variety to your cities. But other than that, it looks great. I don't think there have been many African CJs before, this'll be one to watch

Nice work, interesting amalgam of styles. Some of your earlier cities have a New York vibe, while the newer ones are very European. Both are done well. Great job!

Nora Sullivan looked out the window of the small building the city government shared with the general store. Ten years! It had been an entire decade since she first arrived in Adobe Springs, and twelve overall since she had left New York. How things had changed! The city had blossomed in recent years, its status as a trading center bringing an influx of money and people. Its overall population continued to trail nearby Fiero, but another decade would likely change that. Yet despite all this progress, the mayor and his board still seemed to think Adobe was the small frontier village it stopped being years ago. The small school and church (right of the water tower) were built for a city half the size, and would need expansion soon. And the city government was still headquartered in that small corner building! Nora had been pestering her superiors to fund a dedicated city hall, but only with her recent promotion to city planner and the discovery of gold in the area had her proposal been approved. After much deliberation a site had been selected (the block in the center of the picture). The residents put up a fight, especially the owner of the mansion (one of only a handful in the entire town), but they were eventually...persuaded to leave. Nora never really knew how it had happened, only that it did. The block was cleared, and construction commenced quickly. By the beginning of 1886, a year after the proposal passed, city hall was completed. The benefits of the new city hall soon became apparent, as wealthier residents swarmed the area, building nicer homes and lifting the neighboorhood's look immensely. Though part of the reason for the influx of wealthier residents to the city center could be attributed to the town dump that had been layed out a few years back. It had filled up quickly, and relieved Adobe Springs' chronic trash problem. The industrial sector had also expanded over the last ten years, its growth threatening to revoke Fiero's status as the dominant industrial center in the region. Nora was pushing to move the industry wholesale south of the railroad to clean the river of the horrible pollution that currently afflicted it, but so far all her arguments had done was create a bigger factory sector that only aggravated the current problem. These issues, though, mattered little in the big sweep of history that was to come. Nora knew that. Adobe Springs was on its way to great things, and she was lucky enough to be along for the ride.

Nice looking city, good use of custom buildings. Hope to see more

Originally posted by: janpeter nope. hint: crime, biggest city in usa, 30000inhabitands, cbs, <_ ..quote> He was talking about the city before yours

C'mon, no replies? Nora Sullivan looked out the window of the small building the city government shared with the general store. Ten years! It had been an entire decade since she first arrived in Adobe Springs, and twelve overall since she had left New York. How things had changed! The city had blossomed in recent years, its status as a trading center bringing an influx of money and people. Its overall population continued to trail nearby Fiero, but another decade would likely change that. Yet despite all this progress, the mayor and his board still seemed to think Adobe was the small frontier village it stopped being years ago. The small school and church (right of the water tower) were built for a city half the size, and would need expansion soon. And the city government was still headquartered in that small corner building! Nora had been pestering her superiors to fund a dedicated city hall, but only with her recent promotion to city planner and the discovery of gold in the area had her proposal been approved. After much deliberation a site had been selected (the block in the center of the picture). The residents put up a fight, especially the owner of the mansion (one of only a handful in the entire town), but they were eventually...persuaded to leave. Nora never really knew how it had happened, only that it did. The block was cleared, and construction commenced quickly. By the beginning of 1886, a year after the proposal passed, city hall was completed. The benefits of the new city hall soon became apparent, as wealthier residents swarmed the area, lifting the neighboorhood's look immensely. Though part of the reason for the influx of wealthier residents to the city center could be attributed to the town dump that had been layed out a few years back. It had filled up quickly, and relieved Adobe Springs' chronic trash problem. The industrial sector had also expanded over the last ten years, its growth threatening to revoke Fiero's status as the dominant industrial center in the region. Nora was pushing to move the industry wholesale south of the railroad to clean the river of the horrible pollution that currently afflicted it, but so far all her arguments had done was create a bigger factory sector that only aggravated the current problem. These issues, though, mattered little in the big sweep of history that was to come. Nora knew that. Adobe Springs was on its way to great things, and she was lucky enough to be along for the ride.

Thanks for the rate, yeah I probably should have not done the road, but...it's supposed to be around 1875, and in my CJ it's going to be into the car era within a week or so (real-time) anyway. Plus I needed the road to connect to other cities (I suppose I could have just had the road around the border, but that would have bugged me). Anyway. Yeah it's not too realistic for the era, lol.

ROFL yoshi: Thanks, there'll be more of the city journal element and less of the personal story I think in the coming updates (I think I'm going to go back-and-forth between emphasizing the two elements). Sky Guy: Thanks for the comment! There's gonna be a lot more growth in Adobe Springs soon

vershner: I love it, the faded colors give it a cool, gritty look, and the asian buildings always look good. Could be more colorful, but eh, I imagine it's supposed to have that drab feel to it. 9/10 Victor Valdes: Very pretty, I like that bridge thingy. Would like to see more of that park though, and the surrounding neighborhood. 8.5/10 John Kirby: Nice, but there's not much to see apart from the diagonal corner building, maybe a more zoomed-out view would be nice? 8/10 Jay Stimson: I love this one, it makes me think of some Pacific Northwest city. 9/10 Shadow_prophet: Interesting, looks like space cargo carriers? Nice. 8.5/10 Simtroopa: Has a cool small-town/rural feel from what I can tell, but like Muck308 I'd like to see more. 7/10 Muck308: Love the roundabout, and the w2w buildings. Very nice. 9.5/10 Here's mine, nothing too fancy. Deleted the traffic since it's supposed to be pre-car (but I let some gas stations slip in anyway, oops). If you want to see more, just check out my CJ, Adobe Springs.

The super demand mod helped me; I think my largest city ever was at about 300,000 before I got it (though I think there may have been a glitch that was underrating the population) and after I got it, the population rocketed past 1 million and the city became a skyscraper forest. There was another city (one of my first I ever played, in fact) that I couldn't get past 60,000, and after the mod it shot up to 350,000. I don't know the exact link, but if you search for "super demand" in the modd section of the STEX you should be able to find it. Hope I could help!

Beautiful city, I get a real American feel from it.

Orlando? Downtown doesn't seem to match though... EDIT: Ahh, I knew it was something in central Florida...