Cloud Strife

Hi guys, and Merry Christmas to you all! I'm back to the forum! At least for a while... I've been pretty busy last months with my work and some other stuff, that I haven't had enough spare time in order to play with my city and post to the forum. Xmas holidays seem to be here just for that! It'll be a bit hard to continue right from where I left as for now, but I'm gonna try it. In this first post I'm going to publish the last few pics I shot last time and I had no time to post. They where ready since my last post. It's a very small update, but I'm going to post it, and looking forward to play with my city tomorrow and give you a richer update. _____________________________________________________ Left the Garden area, we're back in Mayor Squall's car and take our way to the Chateau Restaurant. We can see a statue at the Guardians Roundabout (Piazza dei Guardiani). It represents one of the unnamed heroes of the last battles in FF8, says Mayor Squall. Down the roundabout, there's a small artificial lake on our right, with a small square and a statue placed on it. It's the FLO LAKE. The road we're running on is called Flo Street of course. At the end of the road we're going to turn left. On our left, we can see the back of the Chateau. It looks like a great big villa instead of a restaurant! A closeup of the FLO SQUARE. Here's our path in order to reach the Chateau. We can see two more wonderful squares. The last one, on the lake, represents the previous mayor, Squall's father. On its back there's the A.R.C.O. Research Center we've quickly looked at in the first post. It will be our next stop in the afternoon. Here we are! The gate opens as soon as they recognize Mayor's car. We enter the wonderful garden, and reach the entrance of this impressive building. Mayor Squall tells us that once this was one of the many houses of the descendants of Final Fantasy heroes. It's still owned by one of them. Squall doesn't tell us who he is, but says that he's now living in a good apartment in front of Balamb Garden, and transformed this building in a wonderful restaurant and expensive hotel for important meetings and conventions. He made business with this building. We get sit down at our table, and wait for the menu. Squall says that in the afternoon, we're going to tour the A.R.C.O. area, the heart of the commercial activities in Balamb Garden.

Hello to the forum, I'd really like to start a city journal about the city I'm currently playing with. Just before I begin talking and describing the city, I want to write something about the way I play. At the beginning of my SC4 adventure I did lots of cities starting from nothing. It's really lot of months that I'm playing this great game, and my way of playing has changed a lot since that. Actually, I ceased to build cities following the rules and from the beginning, and began to pause the game as soon as I start a new city, in order to start building my city in PAUSE mode. I also unlock the rewards, so that I decide immediately where the mayor house will be placed, where the mayors statues will look their best and so on. Then, when I've finished building the city, I put it in FASTEST mode and just sit down watching it develop by itself for some years. I see the problems that will generate and then, at some point, I start playing in NORMAL TIME mode to solve the matters. This is something that I remember the old SIM CITY for SUPER NINTENDO had... anyone remember it? There were some cities already built, that you were able to play with in order to solve the problems that city had. This is something I miss a bit in SC4 so I found this way to reproduce it. I play this way also to have more chances to give to the city the look I really want it to have (for instance: I use the mayor's statues for the main squares... it would require too much time to wait they get available otherwise). The city I'm going to talk about is not an ideal city... it's just a city, with its problems, and its good places. I'm from Italy, so it is in someway a typical italian-structured city. Its name is SPIRA, like the Final Fantasy X world. I have been a great fan of FFX game, so my city is ideally based on that world. The roads have names from Final Fantasy X locations and characters, and I tried to imagine that some of the zones have a little story connected to FFX. Since I often play in UDI mode, it was useful for me to give to the main roads a name, so I've choosen names from a videogame I really liked. The pics are max 800x600 and hosted on an external site, as requested in the rules. I like the idea of writing a CJ also to track and have a little history of the changes of my city. The first post will give a glimpse of the city and it's location in the region (I started playing SC4 in the new york default region.. many cities have been built since then!). Eventually I'll add a sort of menu in this very first post (by editing it) as soon as I update the CJ. I used some mods in my city... I just began playing with mods in this city only. I downloaded some and put into the city... since I don't really remember all the authors and mods I've used (I downloaded some, but used only a few), I give credit to all people I'm using the mods of. Of course I use also NAM and GLR. If anyone wants to have informations on a lot/bat/mod just ask and I'll tell you what mod is and the author. Anyway just searching in simtropolis will bring you directly to get all the infos you want on the lots/mods I've used.

Welcome to my new CJ! I left Spira alone for a while and started up playing with a new city. This is MIDGAR, the CAPITAL CITY of my region! Even if it's smaller than Spira (about 1/4 smaller), I consider this city one of my best so far! This is confirmed by the sims living here, and the fact that there are no unemployment problems! It seems that everybody has got a job and so far no buildings have been abandoned yet! First of all, a few informations on the city. This is a very particular city for many reasons. First of all, as I've already said, it's the Capital City of the simnation. The second very important thing is the fact that this city HAS NOT A MAYOR: it's controlled and governed by a big company that, from here, controls and governs the entire nation. It's the SHIN.RA CORPORATION, that has its main building in Midgar (a huge skycraper with 100 floors). The president of the company could be considered the mayor, even if people not even know his name (he's just known as President Shinra). This company was born many many ages ago... at the times of Final Fantasy 7, they owned and controlled the energy of the planet. Next to Midgar there's an area with no houses nor industries, just full of power plants and water pumps that Shin.Ra is managing to connect to the entire nation, shutting down all the other plants in the cities, and controlling this way the entire nation power and water distribution from Midgar (that area is called Sector 7 and will be explored soon in this CJ). At the time of writing, Balamb Garden and Spira are the two satellite-cities of Midgar. Their mayors are members of the Shin.Ra company too. However, Spira is mostly a city of commercial and affairs, while Balamb is a most likely a militar city. The only area in the region that Shin.Ra is not controlling is the "Emerald City" (a very strange place I've talked about at the beginning of the SPIRA CJ... we will see it later). However Shin.Ra is planning to get a base in that city too. You can see the Shin.Ra Building in the north area of the map, on an elevated plate-area, blessed by fences and a toll allowing only authorized people to access the area. There's also a railway that can enter the area, but not all people are allowed to jump on those trains. A view of the Shin.Ra building by night A view of the city from the Shin.Ra building In next post we'll see how we reach the city by plane coming from Spira.

Hey guys, thanks a lot for your comments!!! I'm so glad you like my city, really. jacqulina - I'm very happy to read your comments in my third CJ too! Look forward to read even more of your opinions!! zelgadis - eheh yeah maybe you would have bet that next time it would have be the time for Squall to be elected as mayor of a city I did not like FF IX so much (it's the only FF I did not like very much), and in my room there's FF XII still sealed in its box (I didn't have time to play it yet! never opened it!)... so who can tell who will be the next mayor and what will be the next city eh eh Now back to the CJ... INTO THE GARDEN As said before, we're by foot in the garden, so you'll see only red arrows on the map. I'm still going to show you the path we're walking through inside the garden. Here's the entrance of the great Garden of Balamb. At least, ONE of the many entrances to the garden! After a few steps we can see a marvelous fountain, parks, benchs, and some people having some relax and doing some gymnastics. We will see many people performing gymnastics or jogging around the garden. It's a cool place to pratice sport indeed. We now follow Mayor Squall and take the path on the left. We're in front of an amphitheatre, or sort of that. On spring and summer, some spectacles are performed on that small stage. There are also other places to perform shows in the Garden, we're going to see them a few steps ahead. Still proceeding on the left, we reach a religious area. We can see a nice church and a fountain between two crosses. Squall says the statue in the middle of the fountain represents Cid. Right south of the fountain there's a small open temple with a statue of Sorceress Edea inside. Still going left and following the path, we see another small theatre and a nice square.You can also see another of the entrances to the garden on the bottom of the pic. On the top of it you can see the avenue that crosses the garden. From that position, we can also see the very high pilar that is built in Bahamut Square. A pic of the area seen from the other side. The red arrow shows you where are we, and where we're looking at (that is the pillar we was watching). Now it's time to proceed up along the path then, at the crossing, we turn right. We see on our left a pedestrian overpass that allows to cross the avenue and access the other side of the Garden. We'll visit it later, says Squall, "there are other similar overpasses along this way". We can also see a nice lake. Still following the path, we walk north of the fountain we saw at the very beginning of this tour. You can see the other overpasses, and some parkings and a bus stop along the inner avenue. Another square, with a lake, and some statues. They represent the death of a sorceress and the SeeDs around her. It's from an unkown artist." says Squall. Following the path, we see a small river on the bottom, and a cantina. Squall: "As you can see, there are also many entertaining places in the Garden. In summer it's full of people every night. In this club you can try and drink very good wine and*****tails of any kind." Going up there's a bar. Squall: "time for a break, and to try a good ice cream. let's go try the Bar of the Garden, You won't be sorry, I bet!" We go then to this bar, get a table, and sit there talking with Squall of many things. The ice cream is very good. We drink also some mineral water. After the break, it's time to cross the avenue and tour the other half of the garden. We leave the bar and head up, we see a statue. Squall says it represents Laguna, but it's a free interpretation of another unknown artist. Squall: "all the statues and buildings you see in the garden are from unkown artists. They were all SeeDs at the time it was built. Unfortunately after the war, the Garden was destroyed and nothing is left written about the authors of all the art you can see around here." Time to raise on the overpass. As soon as we're on the other side, we can immediately see a subway stop. Squall: "this is the Garden of Balamb subway station. It has been built inside the Garden to allow people to easily reach it. It's very useful expecially on summer nights because many people prefer to return back home by subway or night bus service insted of driving their car. Consider that many young people drink a lot in the summer nights at the Cantina we saw before, so it's better not having them driving along those open avenues!" Another shot of the subway station inside the garden. Squall: "here the trains run under the sky. The tunnel gets interrupted at this point. It was not possible to build a regular subway station here, because the terrain of the garden is more fragile than the normal asphalt. It would have required to place enforcements and remove some parks in order to build a safe subway station. So it has been simpler to build a station this way." On the left of the station there's the Aviary Park. Still going left, we reach this curious area. Squall: "This is called Park Number Eight. Park Of The Infinite. And even The End of Time Park. This is because you can look at it and see a number 8 or the symbol of infinity. Rumors say that it was dedicated to the concept of time continuum." Walking left, we reach a stage area. Squall: "Here is where many live acts take place! Every summer night there's a show here, from concerts, to classic music, theatre, cabarets, and even disco-dancefloor! Very big events are often performed here in winter too." Another look at the stage. Up of the stage there's a Railway F.S. Station too! Squall: "This is the Zell Station, along Zell avenue. It's been built by F.S. Inc. It was initially built just thinking it could be useful to allow train commuters to get off right in the Garden. Expecially for tourists. However it has soon become an important station. Its small parking is full at any hour, and it's easily reacheable from the Zell Avenue thanks to the ramps you can see in the pic. Commuters that have no rush can even get off the train here and take a walk in the garden in order to reach the subway station or the tram stop, An aerial view of what is behind the stage. Look at the left area of the pic. Can you see those car parkings? They belong to the Garden but even in working days (such as today) they're full of cars! All these vehicles belong to people that work around the Garden and find useful to park their car there because, being in the very heart of the city, it's not so useful to find free car parkings around there! A closer pic. We can also look at the pillar from here. Squall: "That tower is the only thing left of the original Garden. The Garden was a building where the SeeDs trained. That was a tower used to control the entire area from an elevated position." We're now heading back, to watch the last part of the Garden, on the right of the subway station. We can see a statue, a lake, and on the top of the pic a Tram stop. A close up pic of the tram stop inside the Garden. It's a nice view from the trams running here. Our tour of the Garden is over at this moment. It's about 1:30 P.M. so Squall suggests to go have lunch. Squall: "Let's have lunch. I'm going to bring you in a very good place, at the Chateau. You're going to experience the best restaurant in Balamb!" So we're going back to the car ready to go to eat something with Squall!

Back to the CJ, thanks once again for all the comments and visits to this thread! Zelgadis, my friend, I'm happy to see you on my third CJ!! It's now time for... Touring the Garden Meet Mayor Squall For this CJ, I'm going to use a different narrative approach. This time we're going to meet the Mayor of the city, Squall Leonheart, son of Shin.Ra president Rufus we met in the Midgar CJ (if you want to tour that CJ too, just go to my first post and you'll find a link!). "Welcome to Balamb", says Squall as soon as we meet him in the Shin.Ra Tower. We were allowed to enter its walls thanks to his invite. From here, we can have a better look of what is there around the tower. A view of the city from the Shin.Ra Tower. As you can see, at the bottom of the hill there are some power plants and water plants. At the bottom of the tower we can see a sort of research center and, if you look at the walls, there's an exit on the back of the tower. Here's the secret research lab. On the left of the tower, there's a small altair for religious purposes maybe. This is the road on the back of the tower. It can be accessed only from the Shin.Ra top hill. That would bring you to the Area 5.1 and the Missile Base. Here we are: very secret Shin.Ra base for experiments and maybe other things we can't just imagine. At the bottom of the Shin.Ra hill there's the so called AREA 76: it's a gated area directly controlled by Shin.Ra that provides the entire city of electricity and water. It offers even some jobs. Another look at this area. "Let's have a quick tour of Balamb, guys.", says now Squall. "The city has about 15.000 citizens, however it's going to grow even more. Once ago it was a restricted community of about 200 people, all employeers of Shin.Ra Corporation. We still can't believe how much we're grown in such few years, and even more people are willing to move to here. We're still close and nearby MIDGAR, that is the capital city of the SimNation. This is another reason that makes people desire to live in here. It's less expensive than Midgar to buy an house here, expecially in suburbs such Winhill. Now, I want that the first thing you see in Balamb is its marvelous Garden, all the nation talks about it, surely you've already heard of it! Follow me, we're going to the city with my car." Mayor Squall is going to bring us to the Garden. On the following maps, you can see our path in the pictures! RED ARROWS represent the path we take by foot YELLOW ARROWS represent the path we run by car Let's go. The first thing to do is leave the hill and go down it. After reaching the base of the hill, there's a roundabout and then we turn left. Access to Shin.Ra hill is protected by two tolls controlled by the SeeDs (a sort of guards of higher level). Looking around here we can see a very rural area with some small houses. That is the Carbuncle Village. Going on, we run nearby the 76 Area we saw before and the Obel Lake we watched in the post above. We're heading to the highway. This area seems quiet and nice, and there are so many trees along the road. The highway runs on the back of the Scalamanga Area (however there's no access to that suburb from the highway nor from the road we ran from ShinRa...) and through some nice campaigns and rural zones. This is the so-called second Eastern City-Door. On the top of the city entrance you can see the Carbuncle Bypass (Circonvallazione Carbuncle). It's full of running cars, even if it's not what we can call a rush hours (it's about 11:00 AM). We enter a long long tunnel under the city then. Out of the tunnel for the cloverleaf! We take the first exit on the right, and access the "Garden of Balamb Avenue" (Viale del Giardino di Balamb). In this pic you can also see, on the bottom, the traffic on Barambani Street! That jam is due to the A.R.C.O. gated area that, as we seen before, includes so many offices and workplaces. Look how many cars entering the ARCO! A closeup view of the traffic in front of the A.R.C.O. workcenter. We go straight ahead, then turn left at the crossing with Selphie Avenue. Then we U-Turn and park our car in one of the parkings of the Garden. Being the morning of a workday, many parks are free because people is at work or school instead of touring the garden. Even if often people that work nearby the garden use to park their car in the garden park area. Left the car, we go on by foot. The red arrows show you the path we make by foot. An aerial view of the entire Garden area! It's enormous and looks beautiful. It is even crossed and yet divided by an avenue. However the two half parts of the garden are connected by pedestrian overpasses. Running along the street, we can also see a subway stop on our left. That would be useful to reach the garden by metro. However we've also saw that there's a subway station inside the garden too. Finally we find our way in through the first open gate. Next post we're going to tour the entire garden!!!

Nice and interesting update. Good views of the construction yards, love'em, they give the city that more realistic look it deserves! I like these two buildings you placed, are they ploppable? And as for your reply, yeah, your CJ worth being read from the beginning indeed !! Keep up this beautiful work, and maybe I'll have an holiday in your city soon! Cloud.

This is what I call urban planning! I really do like the way you plan, place and build things in your city! Everything seems well thought! The sunken rails are simply great, as the way you connected them. And you add eyecandy details such as lakes and waterfalls. Keep it up, will surely look forward to see more! Cloud.

Very interesting work, good use of canals. I also like the fact that you give a name to your streets with the builtin text tool of SC4, I do that too in my cities! Very nice bats, I especially like the houses along Brookgate Court. Keep up the good job! Cloud.

Wonderful tropical place! Just perfect for holidays! Like the trees and so much green, the buildings are fine in the context, and that panoramic wheel is really cool (where's it from?)! What kind of public transport is there? Keep up the good work! Would like to see more!! Cloud.

Amazing work! I like your layouts very much, and you do a master usage of parks and trees. Great stadium area. Keep it up! Cloud.

Whoa! your city is simply great! It's just like you have a bit of everything! Or at least, of everything I like!!! Things I like very much: - The entrance square with the pillar - The using of monuments and rewards, really well done! - Green! Parks and green makes a city a more beautiful place to live in! - Great use of geometrics (such as the four diagonal buildings around one square) - Love the yards! I like to show the working in my cities too! - I like the usage of different levels (sunken, lower, higher, tunnels...) - Beautiful stations - Nice beaches, oh my god, you have also the beaches And the seawalls are nice - Great use of lakes and canals. Make sure my ShinRa Corp doesn't see your city... they could like it as much and decide to invade it Or at least they may just request you a twinship! There are a few things I'd really like to see: - A map of your public transport network (exchange nodes, subway lines, tramway, railway, bus terminals) - An aerial view of the city (did I miss it?) Keep up the good work! Cloud.

This is the SECOND PART of the second update post. I divided this update in two posts due to its size. So you can see the ROAD NETWORK DESCRIPTION in the post just above this (I say it just because maybe , looking fast and forward to the last post, you may miss the previous one!). THE PUBLIC TRANSPORT NETWORK As seen before, due to the forum rules, I had to place the preview pic with a width of 800 pixels. JUST CLICK ON IT TO SEE FULL SIZE and be able to read the text!!! This is the public transport network. It's managed by ShinRa Corp too. Balamb Garden has two subway lines: - LINE 1 connecting the Trabia Station to Carbuncle, and crossing the heart of the city - LINE 2 connecting the Deling Station to Galbadia, and crossing the Central Station too. Both lines cross at the Central Station, where commuters are able to choose other transport systems, such as the other subway line, trams, railways (managed by F.S. nc), bus, taxi. There are also 4 tram lines: 1 - Red line connects the Laguna Station to the Knights Station (Cavalieri) 2 - Cyan line goes from the Knights Station to Esthar 3 - Yellow line starts from Deling and reaches the Central Station 4 - Green line begins in Galbadia and arrives to the Central Station The entire city is served by bus too. Night service is only done by bus. Some more shots of the BALAMB GARDEN CENTRAL STATION, one of the biggest yet beautiful stations of the SimNation, built and maintained by F.S. Incorporated. The tram node out of the Central Station. The subway exit out of the Central Station. On the back of the station there's a big bus depot, with tools also for bus repairing. A look at the Deling Node Station. Here's where Red Trams enter the great Balamb Garden. Nice to tour it by tram too! Inside the Garden of Balamb there's also a subway station of the Metro 1 line.

Thanks for your comments guys! I'm so glad you liked the beginning of my CJ! Just before I go on looking at the road and public transport networks, I've just a few customized replies for.... Dsrwhat316 - what's your CJ? If you give me/us the link I'll be happy to take a look at it! You can post it here if you want!! KingTitan - if you search the STEX with the keyword "skycraper" you'll find it ready for being downloaded!! With many many other wonderful skycrapers! However it's the BlaM Tornado Tower. Thanks to its author for his great work!!! THE ROAD NETWORK OF BALAMB GARDEN Due to the forum rules, I had to adapt the preview picture above to a maximum width of 800 pixels. JUST CLICK ON IT IN ORDER TO SEE IT FULL SIZE, that way you will be able to read the text better. The map shows the main road network of the city. Green lines represent the freeway/highway network, while the blue ones represent the motorway/super road network. As said before, the entire city is built on an artificial hill and is rounded by walls. It's not possible to access the city by foot. Only some main roads enter the walls and give access to the city from the suburbian area. Here is a shot to give you an idea. Here we see the Sirena Avenue that enters the city from the neighborhood (we're on the east of The Heroes Station we saw in the post before). Just left the HEROES STATION a freeway enters the city. As you can see also freeway follow the same rules of motorways when entering the city. Following the freeway, eventually you will see a light. The cloveleafs are built out of the tunnels, at a lower level. They allow cars to access the city. Then the freeway enters another tunnel and runs underground until the next cloveleaf or until it leaves the city on the other side. Showing some more of the city walls. The roadway you see nearby the fences of the walls is the "BYPASS" (Circonvallazione): it's a set of connected roads that tour around the city, strictly along its perimeter, nearby the fences of the walls. As you see on the map, it's interrupted on the western area. Once it was a two ways road. As long as the city became bigger, many people found it very useful and began transiting along it, requiring some upgrades. However, it's not a road that was thought and built to be capable of handling too much cars, since the city in its origin was small and access restricted. So the upgrades that have been done have not fully solved the traffic problems of this important roadway. There are also physical and natural limits to overcome. There is a project to transform this entire roadway in a circular freeway, building also the missing line on the western area of the city. That would be called "The GREAT BIG RING" (GBR). However ShinRa is still working on the project. Here you can see what I mean when I talked about the upgrades to the Bypass. As you can see, in this area it was not possible to build a straight avenue, so they made the original road one-way (with enough space for 2 cars), and built another roadway that goes under the previous one and connects to it as soon as the terrain allows it to be possible. This is the Carbuncle Area, as we saw full of offices and workplaces. Here the bypass became a single two way road, and has a crossing with traffic. lamps with the Selphie Avenue (that connects to the Scalamanga area in the eastern side of the suburb). Traffic jams at every hour! Another curious thing: the bypass changes its name according to the districts it runs through. For instance, here it's called "Carbuncle Bypass" (Circonvallazione Carbuncle) while in the previous pic it is called Galbadia Bypass (Circonvallazione Galbadia).

Originally posted by: collgab great updates, keep it up quote> Thanks! I'm just a bit sorry about the quality of the pics, that is very less than the previous one because of the video board I'm currently using that makes most buildings pixeled and brings low the overall detail. Next week I'll get my new pc so the quality of pictures will be back to normal. And of course.... the X-File continues in the next post.... I thought it would have been better to show a bit of the city before proceeding with the writing of the story...

Never been in SPIRA? This could be the right time to tour it! 08:30 A.M. F.B.I Headquarters Spira (Simnation) Special F.B.I. agent Fox Mulder is reading the newspaper, about the pictures of the UFO saw last night in the Junon Harbour area. He looks at the picture again and again, trying to understand whether it's a fake or not, even if it's impossible to do so looking at the pic in grayscale on the newspaper. Special agent Dana Scully is looking at him trying to understand what he's doing since he hasn't changed page from about half an hour. Then she approaches him. Scully: Mulder, don't you think there could be so many other news on that paper that worth your attention? Mulder: eh... what? Scully: You're on that page from about 30 minutes! What are your reading so interesting? Mulder: people in Junon saw an UFO yesterday night. Scully: oh no... don't say that... again.... Mulder: this time there's something different. Look at here, at this picture... Scully looks at the picture acting as bored, and then comes back eating her icecream. Scully: Mulder, it looks like one of the most fake pictures we look at everytime... what happened this time? Another guy looking for his five minutes of popularity? Or another photoshop wizard? Mulder: (smiling) eh eh Scully, it seems that you didn't look at this picture very well... look at the angle.. it hasn't been shot from the road, nor behind the window of an amateur's room. It has been shot from a satellite! Don't you see the UFO has been photographed from the top? Scully: yes I did notice that... and this is one more reason that makes me think it's a fake! It's not even realistic... a satellite shot... and... hey Mulder, why do you say it's been shot by a satellite? Why not from an airplane? Or... maybe... an hot-air balloon... (giggling) Mulder: Oh Scully, you're so funny today, really... but I'm sorry, this has been shot from a satellite... and this is written right here, this is a Shin.Ra Official Picture. Scully: what? Let me read.... Mulder: Mulder 1, Scully 0.... (smiling) Scully: that sounds pretty weird... I mean.. why would ShinRa publish such a picture? And why so fast? I don't think it makes sense... Mulder gets up and takes his jacket. Scully: Mulder.... where are you going? Mulder: I'm going to Skinner's Office... don't you want to have a relaxing weekend in the wonderful Junon Harbour? Come on Scully, you'll like it... I read they do the best ice creams of the nation.... 09:00 A.M. Still FBI Headquarters Skinner: I read this article this morning... I really did expect that you would come here and ask for FBI to open a file about it. Mulder: do you mean you didn't thought about that? It is the perfect X-File! Skinner: yes I did... however.. for this case, you'll surely need a guide... a person that better knows the place you're going to investigate in... Mulder: why? why should we need another agent? I don't agree with you, we can solve this case by ourselfs as we ever did. Skinner: agent Mulder... it seems that you don't understand what you're looking at... and where you are going to dig .... we're talking about ShinRa... Mulder: should I be worried? Scully: Mulder don't get mad at him... I'm worried too about getting so close to ShinRa... Mulder: it won't be more dangerous than when you get kidnapped by the aliens... or when I went to the pole.. or many other situations where we risked our lifes... Skinner: Agent Mulder... here we aren't talking about risking your lifes... without the right approach, you would be dead just before you reach the ShinRa headquarters. Skinner: Spira is a big city... it's 4 times bigger than Midgar. We can say here we're independent from Shin.Ra even if mayor Tidus is a member of the corporation too. But Midgar is the capital city... it's the ShinRa headquarters itself. They know everything you do at the exact time you're doing it. You can't think you can freely move around there as you do elsewhere. Without the right approach, you won't go anywhere. And most likely you won't even be able to get back home. Scully: Mulder, be reasonable. And don't forget that also the Smoking Man lives and works in the Shin.Ra headquarters. He would surely keep us out if we don't pay attention to our movements. Mulder: Uhmps... Mulder nods as accepting Skinner's suggestions. So they meet their guide in Midgar: Mr. Flogisto. They go to Midgar Airport with the FBI car, and take the first fly heading to Midgar - JUNON Airport. At their arrival at the Airport, Mulder rents a car and takes a tourmap to check the route to reach Junon Harbour. During the trip, Mr. Flogisto explains his friendship with FBI Co-Director Skinner, and that he's not an agent. He works for Shin.Ra corporation, at the Channel-1 TV Station in Midgar. He's a journalist too, and ensures to Mulder that the picture and the informations published in the newspaper really did come out of Shin.Ra Public Relation Department. In the meantime, it's time for touring the CITY OF JUNON HARBOUR, a district of Midgar placed on its north, as we saw in the previous post. First of all, as usual, a map of the transportation system of the city: roads and public transport. As you can see, the city is served by F.S. (Ferrovie della Simnazione - the railway system of the Simnation, a company owned by Shin.Ra) with three railway stations. There's a big node, the Central Station of Junon Harbour in the middle of the city. We can say that Junon Harbour is divided in two main districts: northern and southern. However the pic is rotated 180 degrees. The northern area (southern in the picture, since it's been rotated) is served also by a small tramway. The rest of the city is served by bus for local transportation. There are also some ferry terminals both for cars, people and freight. In the middle of the water there's a small isle with a ferry terminal: there is the city garbage dump there, so that the trash is kept far from the city. We'll better look at the transportation system later. Let's begin a tour of the city from the top-left corner. This very first tour will be extremely fast, so I'll explain few details here. This is the southern part of the city, however we're rotated 180° here. The road and highway you can see bring to Midgar. There's a Railway Station there called "Emerald Weapon". On the left you can see a line of the Emerald Road (the one full of trees), that connects the two half parts of the city along that very small line of soil. Now we're moving right... Moving right you can see the structure of this half part of the city. It is sort of divided by "floors". On the top level it's very pleasant, full of green parks and nice houses. Small nice houses in the middle level too, while on the lower level there are some industries, offices and the port and ferry terminal too. On the very right you can see part of the Central Station. Still moving right here... An aerial view of the central part of the southern side of the city. In the middle-top you can see the Junon Harbour F.S. Central Station, a very important yet big node for the communications between the sea and the sky. In fact the railway connects directly Midgar Airport with the Junon Ferrys. In front of the Station you can see a large green area: that's VILLA PRISCILLA, a beautiful fenced villa full of parks, amusements and historical places. It's a very valuable point of interest for this city and for Midgar too! Still moving right... We reached the top right corner, you can see a small residential area and the wealthy hotel of the city. We'll take a better look at it later... You can also see the ending of the highway that travels here from Midgar. Now moving down... A small peninsula where many industries have been built and many people go to work. On the bottom-left corner you can see a part of the island where there's the garbage-dump. We see it better in the next pic... Junon Harbour Garbage Dump: this ensures that the trash is kept far enough from the city. It's brought here by ferrys. Now moving down-left,... This is where the Emerald Road brings. The second half of the city, is the northern one. This is very nice too! Here we move down. As you can see there's another Railway Station here too, that is very important because ensures the interchange between trains, trams and buses. It allows also car parking and rental. Moving right, a residential area, traveled by the small tramway. NOW IT's TIME FOR SOME DETAILED PICS!! VILLA PRISCILLA AND THE CENTRAL STATION This wonderful villa is a park dedicated to that Priscilla girl in Final Fantasy 7. It's fenced in its central and right part, while its left area is just blessed by flowers. In front of the southern entrance of the villa there's the Central F.S. Station. The station is very big and an important node because ensures the interchange between the trains and the bus lines of the entire city. It offers also car parking facilities. Moreover, this is the interchange for people that need to travel both by air and sea, in fact it ensures the connection between the ferry terminals and the Junon Airport in Midgar. Another aerial view of the station. The part of the Villa that is not fenced but just blessed by flower beds. Don't you think this is a very nice place to have some relax? To have an ice-cream? Or to have a romantic walk with your girlfriend? This is the entrance of the Villa, in front of the Central Station bus terminal. You can see a Priscilla statue as soon as you enter the gate. The Gallery of the Artists, a very important place where art meets relax. Many artistic events (from paintings to music) and a nice bar/restaurant to meet the cooking art too! The buildings surrounding the Villa... they look nice and wealthy... it would really be fine to live there. I bet there's a good view from these buildings, both in front of and behind! The Central Square, on the left of the Station Left of the Central Station, there's the Central Square of the city: a big plaza with a Mayor's statue (Mayor Domino of ShinRa Corporation), and the administrative and civic buildings in front of it. GETTING CLOSER THE JUNON PORT On the top you can see a closer pic of the Emerald Railway Station. Going down we'll reach the port area. A shot of one of the Junon Harbour ports. This is nice, made for people to walk, talk and get relaxed. On Summer, many live events take place here, such as concerts or games. In this pic you can see also a Bus Terminal Station. Moving right, a Ferry Terminal. It's very close to the Bus Station we saw before. An aerial view of this area. Traveling right, we begin to encounter industries and offices. Even the seawalls look is different, less friendly if I can say so. On the right, there's another ferry terminal for ships and freight too. On its left, a Bus Terminal station. More on the right, the freight sea terminal. A look to the small nice houses on the middle level of the city. Another residential area... A gated district of offices In the southern part of the city, north of the Central Station and the Hotel, going down to the medium level, there's a gated community of offices. Inside the fences there are many offices and commercials, that give work to many people. This area is served by bus (you can see a bus stop on the left of the pic). Otherwise people can reach their workplace here by car, enter the gate and park in one of the many parkings available inside. Only authorized people can access this area. The gate... See how many parkings are available for the workers inside the fenced area. Another look inside. Of course there are also places to eat. Here you can see the Deppiesse's Cafeteria. BACK ON THE LEFT CORNER... THE ROADS OF EMERALDS This has nothing to do with the Wizard of Oz, instead this place is so called thinking of the Final Fantasy 7 Emerald Weapon. The road you can see, with many trees around, is the Emerald Road: it's the only one road connecting the two half parts of the city along that soil of earth. Being a small city, there is not so much traffic on that road. Here you can see the entire road! THE OTHER HALF OF JUNON HARBOUR This is where the Emerald Road ends. In this area there's a big park too, blessed by flower beds. This is a religious area, devoted to the Ancients. A statue about the Cetra. There's also a small open theatre... This is the Church of the Ancients. On its back there's a cemetery. DOWN THE CHURCH... THE ARCH OF THE PLANET The large avenue travels under a big arch called ARCH OF THE PLANET. Rumors say it had magical powers and gathered the energy of the Planet. The avenue connects the Emerald Road with the Highway and the neighbor city. Past the avenue, there's the centre of this second half of the city, with a big plaza and another central node of the public transport system. Leaving the Arch of the Planet, there's the F.S. station just on the left. This is the Arch of the Planet F.S. Station, an important node allowing interchange between the tramway, the railway and the bus lines. There are also parking facilites. On the back you can see the tram depot. The entrance of the station... The big square in front of the station... A bit on the left, there's another arch called ARCH OF THE ANCIENTS. On its back there's Mayor Domino's Holiday House. He comes here every summer. Rotating 180 degrees... We can see on the left of the station the tram stop. Being a small city, here they use smaller trams than Midgar. The tram stops are smaller too. Above the station there's the commercial area, with a big shopping centre well connected to the suburbs by the tramway. A large parking allows the Sims to have shopping by car too. Near the shopping centre there's a Mc Donalds. This pic shows the back of the station. Nice buildings and a few hi-tech industries. The terminal of the tramway too. This is the area in front of the station. It's mostly a residential area, with schools, houses and small shops and offices. As you can see, this is a less wealthy area than the centre of the city. You can also see the other tramway terminal. There's a lower level in this area too, with many small houses and shops just in front of the sea. This should be a nice place to live. There's also a bus terminal station called "Mana", as this area. Moving right, some bigger buildings, both residential and commercial. And another Bus Terminal station, called "Submarine" as this zone is. This pic shows how the railway goes underground just after the Arch Of The Planet, then it exits for a few meters and goes underground again, to finally exit near the Emerald Road and travel next to it. STRANGE HIGHWAY RAMPS... In Junon Harbour the Highway ramps can confuse foreigners that do not know well the area yet. Since there were not enough space, it wasn't possible to build full cloverleafs to allow cars to enter and exit the highway at the same point in both ways. Along Junon Street (yes' it's the same street that travels through Midgar, near the Airport, and ends up in the Chocobo Residential Area) it's possible to enter the Highway only going to the Junon Centre. It's not possible to go to Midgar from here. In the meantime, cars heading to Midgar cannot leave the highway here. In the meantime, it could be hard to find the route for the Central station (and the Centre of Junon Harbour itself). Coming from Midgar it's pretty easy, just leave the highway and take the road for the station along the large avenue. Coming from the left, there isn't any cloverleaf at the same point. Instead cars must go ahead and exit at the next ramp, then take the road back to the centre of the city in order to reach the central station on the opposite side. THE HOTEL NEAR THE CENTRAL STATION Let's just give a look at the hotel near the Central Station. A very high building, that has rooms for all people, from wealthy to poors. Of course the quality of the room (and their floor) depends on how much they can pay. A nice canal and some trees make the entrance of the hotel better.

Hi everyone! Long time I'm not posting on this CJ, 'cause I've been pretty busy with my work and really didn't have found enough time to play with Sim City. In the meantime my old graphic board has broken. Waiting for my new PC to arrive (on about August 21st), I've found a backup graphic board and installed it in my computer. Unfortunately it's not as much performing as my old video board, so the pics I'm going to post are probably less good than the ones I used to post so far. Since I've now a week of holidays, I'm going to play again with my cities, and of course update the City Journals. This far I've done a very few changes to Midgar, however they're going to be mentioned below. Let's the CJ continue... Upgrading the Elevated Rails As written some posts above, some years ago (yeah, in the game about 3 years have passed since my last post!) Shin.Ra had to limit the subway/elrail service because in the southern area of the city the underground tunnel was connected to an old tramway, and then to a new built Elevated Rail system. However the old tramway required the trains to slow down too much because of the old rusty rails and the crossings with the roads (it ain't easy to drive a long subway train in the middle of a traffic jam at rush hours, says one of the train drivers of Shin.Ra). Now they decided to work on the definitive solution: building a direct connection between the first part of the old tramway (that has just one only crossing with a small street) and the new elevated rails. The works will require the interruption of Cid Highwind Street and changing the roundabout connecting Cid Highwind, Tifa and Mideel streets into a more classic intersection with traffic lights. Shin.Ra is monitoring the traffic in the area. Actually, the traffic in this area seems to be acceptable. You can see one more time (and for the last time!) the path that the subway trains transit on along the old tramway. Another view of the traffic status in this suburban area. The first yard building the elevated rails. In this pic you can see where the first yard has been placed. The elevated rails are going to be raised up. While doing this, the old roundabout has been partially closed and changed to two-way road. Cid Highwind Street has been interrupted in order to allow the yard to be built. However something other seems different than before... aren't there too much vehicles transiting on that road??? The second yard on the other side of the overpass. This yard has been build at the crossing between Mideel Street with Don Corneo Street (up) and Rocket Town Street (down). On the left there's the overpass that goes to the old roundabout on Cid Highwind street. What a traffic jam!!! The first day the yards are open has been a nightmare day for most people! Look at the Traffic Stats of the Shin.Ra Traffic Monitor! So much cars are transiting along this area, probably due to the fact that Cid Highwind Street has been interrupted just a few miles after the highway exit ramps, so people have to do a large turn and transit through Don Corneo Street, Mideel Street, the Overpass and finally turn left on the second part of Cid Highwind street! It's incredible how closing just a street can cause so much damage to the traffic. The queue on the Mideel Overpass! The queue continues after the overpass, all along Cid Highwind street and Ruby Street! Here we're along FORT CONDOR road (can you see the old Fort walls? we toured this area some posts above...): this very peripheal road has never been so full of traffic! FORT CONDOR ROAD runs along the old Fort walls/ruins, in the very south of the city. It's a very useful road to run from a corner to the other in a very few time, because there are no houses, industries nor offices along this road. This is the first time we see this road full of traffic in Midgar, causing problems also to all the people that drive along this road without heading to the Cid Highwind area. Another view of the Fort Condor road (rotated 180 degrees): what a queue of cars!! SATURDAY NIGHT: look how much traffic here also by night! Don't forget that left of the Cid Highwind street there's the area full of pubs, clubs and discos where boys and girls go on the weekend! (We've been there the first night we spent in Midgar, do you remember? ) Can't build the raising rails before the F.S. railway. Shin.Ra wanted to build a connection between the GLR tracks and the elevated rail tracks just before the crossing with the F.S. railway. However the engineers and the technicians said it's not possible because there's too less space. So they will draw GLR tracks, a cross with the F.S. railway, and then a bridge to raise the tracks. 8 months later.... It took 8 months for the works to be completed! People had to deal with the traffic in that area for so long. But here's the final result! As you can see, from the Don Corneo Metro Station the trains will go straight ahead crossing Don Corneo Street and the F.S. railway, raising and ending up to Cid Highwind station. Cid Highwind Metro station. The old tramway, that once was connected with the Elevated Rails, has been shut down again and a small square has been built in front of the station. Those tracks will no longer be used and runt over by trains. A close-up of the C. Highwind Metro station. Shutting down the old tramway means tha the Rocket Town station will be shut down too! No trains will run over those tracks from now on so that station won't longer be used. Trains will leave the Don Corneo station heading to the Cid Highwind station and then running on the previous built elevated rail tracks straight to Gongaga. The status of the Rocket Town station: it has been closed and will no longer be used. The employeers have been moved to the Cid Highwind station. Something strange happened to the Junon Harbour area.... We never toured the Junon Harbour city yet: it's on the north of Midgar and is managed by Shin.Ra as well. In Midgar we have an area called Junon (there's the Airport there!), and in fact it takes its name because it connects Midgar with Junon Harbour, that is a satellite city. We'll tour it in the next post. Just a brief description for now... Here's where the Junon Harbour city is located on the region. It's a satellite city of Midgar, so it will be toured in this CJ. An aerial view of the JUNON HARBOUR city. On all the newspapers today have been published some pics shot by the Shin.Ra satellite last night on the Junon Harbour city. Here are the two pics: A pic shot by night over Villa Priscilla, in front of Junon Harbour F.S. station. Can you see anything strange? A close-up pic published on the newspapers. What is that? Ain't it an UFO???? Everybody is talking about that strange pic. Some people touring Villa Priscilla last night say they've seen strange lights in the sky. An amateur photographer says he shot some pics to the thing too from his room in the building in front of the Villa. What's happening there? As far as we know, someone in the F.B.I. seems so much interested in this case that took the plane and is coming in Midgar tomorrow. Shin.Ra Inc. has been informed that two FBI agents are coming in Midgar tomorrow. Their names are Mulder and Scully. It seems that we'll have an X-File to look at. We'll look at it in the next post.... ;-)

Originally posted by: mayorron A quick question cloud strife, where did you get the mod for U-Drive-It enable tram?quote> The tram mod I'm using has been done by me. I had not enough time to release it on the STEX yet, but I'm surely going to do so as soon as possible. The mod includes some trams and stations, that act as subway station. This way, I can have a "visually" STAND-ALONE TRAM NETWORK without the needing of disabling the EL-TRAIN that can still run on its own network. In my mod I added many stations and trams, all U-Drive-It enabled. El-Trains does not appear on the tram network and you don't have to disable it. You can have a network with only El trains and one with only trams at the same time. The model of the yellow tram you can see running in Midgar is made by Vester and spawned by the Tonkso GLR Station. I already got the authorizations from the authors of the trams and the stations (all will be thanked in the readme and get the credits they deserve for their wornderful work with modeling), just need some time to build an install package and upload it on the STEX. In the first page of City of Midgar you can read more informations about my tram mod. Should you have any further question (or want to try a preview of my work) just contact me through Simtropolis.

Originally posted by: Equilibria I like the new airport, and it appears that you built it in LE, which shows some dedication to the project. The international flags and video screens lend it an air of originality. As for the subway, I really didn't expect Shin.Ra to give up that easily. Did they really just up and stop construction? I was expecting some riot police and tear gas. What a disappointment...quote> Indeed it sounds strange such a give up by Shin.Ra. As seen two posts above, they discussed about what to do and most of the Turks (expecially Rude, but also Reno) proposed to send the SOLDIER group to shut up those people... Tseng and Elena did a good "pacific" reasoning... the residentials are also pretty wealthy... but... ... Shin.Ra giving up means surely that they've got something BIGGER to worry about at this time. And it is not even about Midgar itself....... We'll begin to see what it is in the next post....

The new airport is finally complete! As all the other works in the city. Welcome back to my CJ! Thanks again guys and girls for all the comments you left on my previous update. I worked a lot on it! This is a rather smaller update than the previous one, but something strange is coming up in the next future updates.... However... the new airport is finally complete!!! After about 2 years and half, Shin.Ra completed the works for the new international airport of Midgar, the capital city of the Simnation! In the meantime, people could reach Midgar only by train (or bus from the very close neighbor cities). Here are some pics of the new airport: There's also a bench for tour buses and shuttle services. Just re-opened, and the parking is already full of cars! Looks like the citizens were really looking for the airport to be reopened! Flags give to it a more international look! It includes also an hotel and a mall, plus many offices and maintenance buildings. The new airport entrance from Junon Road, in front of the Monorail and railway station. Mega screens are placed in the main square of the airport! Another view of the entrance. On the right there's the bench for the tour buses and an underground passage to quickly reach the airport hall. The monorail service is now going to be restored to its full load capacity, while the railway service will be slowered down a bit. The bus line to the Turks Industrial Area is now complete! Connecting the Turks Industrial Area to the public transport network has been a very difficult thing for ShinRa. In fact, as shown in the previous post, they initially planned to prolong the current Tramway up to the Turks area, passing through Wutai. Unfortunately, the residents of Wutai protested on the road and stopped the works. They have their reasons for not wanting to have a tram passing between their nice and wealthy area. So Shin.Ra decided to build a new bus line from Wutai and from the Central Station, headed to the Turks area. (map of the project in the previous post) The works for the bus stop and the terminal began regularly and have now been completed! One of the new bus stops in the Turks Area. As you can see, the bus stop is different from the others in Midgar: this is very simple, but this is just an industrial area so ShinRa tried to spend as less as they could to build this bus line (they spent lot of money for the new tramway that have never been built). This is the BUS TERMINAL station in the Turks Area, along METEOR STREET. Another view of the Meteor Bus Terminal station. There's also a public parking garage. The works along Basament Street are complete! A view of Basament Street, the last of the three central streets that have been rebuilt as roads. This is a larger two-way road now. The subway service is going to be limited! In the meantime, Shin.Ra began analyzing the usage of their subway service. As seen before, the subway of Midgar depart from the Central station and transit underground until it reaches the Eleanor station. From there on, the trains go out and transit on ground rails (that were used as a tramway once, many many years ago). It has then prolonged up to the industrial area of Gongaga on new elevated rails. The area is a nice suburb, as seen some posts before (when we toured the suburbs and the Fort Condor area), with many small and nice villas. In fact there are not so much people living here yet. Shin.Ra. re-used the old tramway as subway rails thinking of future improvement and expansions of this area. However, at this time, they're analyzing the traffic and subway usage in this suburb: Low usage for the TIFA STATION (this is the area of the nighlife: pubs, clubs, casino, cinema... this is where we spent our first night as tourists in Midgar) The CID HIGHWIND station is less used too: just 4 as usage! The subway terminal station in Gongaga industrial area. It seemed a good idea to build a subway/eltrain station in an industrial area, but it seems that people prefer to reach this zone by car or bus instead of subway. This could also be due to the low traffic of this area (that makes fast and comfortable enough to reach the workplace by car). Bus usage in Gongaga: people seem to prefer going to work by bus or car! Shin.Ra solution: they build a new small subway depot just after the DON CORNEO station. Another look of the area to better understand where the subway depot has been built. Why did Shinra build this underground small depot? They're going to limit the subway trains that will reach Gongaga. If you remember, to reach the Gongaga area the trains had to pass on the old tramway, that crosses many streets and roads. This makes the trains to go very slow in that area, because of the crossings with roads (just figure what does mean for a subway train to pass if there's traffic!). This slowed the entire subway line a lot. Moreover, the statistics show that the stations in this area are very less used. So the subway trains will transit forward the Don Coreo station only at certain times during the day. The trains will arrive to the DonCorneo station, then go underground in the new depot and turn back, heading to the Central Station. A new subway map has been placed in all the stations and on all the trains' cars, so that passengers can better calculate their path using the subway: Next time we'll follow some sims that live in Midgar, in order to see what they do during their typical day.

Thanks people for all your comments! So happy you keep looking at my CJ! Some answers before the CJ continues... Equilibria: thanks for all the interesting informations you're writing! Yes, I'd really like you to write more about transport usages in your country! I really look forward to read more! I'd like to read something about inner-city transportations too (bus, metro, trams...? what is most used from the suburb to the city centre?) Zelgadis: unfortunately, also here we sometimes remain for about 2 hours in the traffic trying to get our way to work. There are people here in Rome that every morning spend from 60 to 90 minutes just to commute from their house to their workplace... and the distance is not so big! Just go give you an example... if I have to be at work at 08:30 A.M. I've to leave my house at 7:30 A.M.... and my workplace is just 35 kilometers far from my house! If I go to work after 11:00 A.M. I just spend less than 40 minutes to arrive. But maybe the main problem here is the fact that our cities were not meant (nor built) to hold so much people... roads are not well-thought, and our highways are pretty unuseful at "rush hours" because the roadways they're connected to are too small and can't receive the amount of cars that access them from the highways. How is there, instead? You talked about 2 hours of commute time... it's mostly due to distance or to traffic? Thanks jacqulina, cityhawk, cjah and gabor for leaving a comment! A few lines under the CJ continues, hope you'll like it! A quick tour of the Wutai area.. Before looking at what Shin.Ra is planning for the Wutai area (where a protest against the new tramway took place), let's have a quick tour of this area since I've never talked about it, nor shown any pics. The Wutai Area is a nice high-wealth suburb in the western part of the city.In the upper area there are many residential buildings. It would be a very nice place to stay.. so nice that so many people live here, and the main problem of this zone is the high traffic percentage at rush hours. In the lower area there are some hi-tech industries and small commercial buildings. From Wutai Street there's quick and immediate access to the highway. This area is served by bus. There's a bus terminal with parking along Godo Street. The area along Godo Street. (As many of you would remember, Godo was Yuffie's father in FF7) Nice and high-wealth buildings. You can see also a bus stop along Wutai Street (crossing Yuffie Street and Godo Street). So many cars on the street. A pic of the southern Wutai area, with small commercial buldings and hi-tech industries. In the meantime.. we found a house in Midgar! Yeah, thanks to Theodore we found an house in the new Ifalna area! Being under a Shin.Ra military base allowed us to buy an house for a very cheap price, considering that the area is very nice and our house has many comforts such as air conditioning. Our address is 14, Aeris Street. Our house! 14, Aeris Street. Our neighbor, Mr. Damien Flogisto We met Damien Flogisto, our neighbor. He bought house here to be close to his workplace, that was in the Priscilla district near the airport. He told us that even if he was close to the workplace, there was a big problem when he finished working and had to get back home. In fact, the Ifalna district is connected to the highway only by two ramps, that allow only cars coming from the neighbor city to access this area, and allow cars from Ifalna to enter the highway heading for the city. So he could arrive at work in a few minutes, but he cannot do the same road to return because if he took the highway, he would not be able to leave it because of the missing ramps. This is something ShinRa is working on, you'll see it later in this post. Now Damien works at the near Hotel. Look how many cars around here at rush hours. This area got populated very soon! Shin.Ra reunion about the strike at Wutai The strike/protest at Wutai against the new tramway couldn't leave Shin.Ra indifferent. President Shinra asked for the executives and the Turks to gather in his office for 12:00. President Rufus Head and owner of Shin.Ra Corporation Well, time to begin talking about the citizens of Wutai. According to Reeve's report, it seems that they didn't liked our work to improve their life too. We did a good informational campaign, people knew our project. We did spent a high amount of our funds to begin the works. But it seems that something went wrong. What ? And what do you propose to do in order to solve the matter? Please speak one by one. Mr. Reno K. Member of Turks Member of Shin.Ra Executive Group Mr. President, the citizens complained about the new tramway saying they don't want it to cross their area. They think it would bring too much people walking around, and they seem to not want "strangers" near their houses. They think that it could also increase the crime rate in the area. Moreover they don't want to hear the noises of the trams. They proposed subway. In my opinion, we should go on with our project and ignore their complains. Should they stop our workers once again, we'll have to arrest them and punish'em at least with a high money fine. Mr. Rude J. Member of Turks Member of Shin.Ra Security Group Oh well. As you know, I'm not a great speaker. I think we should immediately arrest the people who put in game our projects and power, otherwise they would think anyone can so easily stop our plans. This would cause more strikes in the city. Arrest them as an example for the others. So no other people will try to stop us again. Mr. Tseng C. Member of Turks Head of Shin.Ra Public Safety Department I don't agree with Rude. Come on, we're not in middle ages! We can't arrest those people, think about it. Wutai is an high-wealth area. Those people do really have money. And they don't are rich because they're thiefs. They're rich because they OWN shops, offices, industries and so on. What would happen if we arrest them? Or the sons of them? Have you seen how many students were on the street protesting? Would you really put young students in jail? Our future scientists? Don't forget that Shin.Ra is mainly a COMMERCIAL company. We're who we are also because of our products. We do produce and sell food. We do produce and sell electricity. We do produce and sell water. We do provide transportations. We do many things to the entire simnation! Being violent against our citizens would make us highly unpopular in the entire nation. Moreover, they would continue protesting. Think of it. For instance, some industries would cease to use our products. Or some shops would stop selling our stuff. You know the meaning of boycotting? Look at the situation with your brain, not with your muscles. Wutai is full of rich people, right? Their houses are nice, and expensive. We want to put a lightrail with trams on. This would cause noise. This would cause traffic. This would cause more people around. This could cause their houses to LOOSE A PART OF THEIR VALUE! Have you thought to that? You think that your house would have the same value if you build a noisy lightrail nearby? I'm pretty sure it's a question of money. Don't dispatch SOLDIERS nor police there. They don't want the tramway? Ok, let's stop the works. Let's save the remaining funds. Let's connect the Turks Industrial Area by bus. We'll be able to establish a connection by public transport and have the Wutai people happy at the same time. This is my proposal. Ms. Elena T. Member of Turks Head of Shin.Ra Public Relations Department Indeed I agree with Tseng. Violence is the last thing we should use.... against our citizens. However... we did place some funds to this project. What if we re-use them in order to build a subway in that area, as the residential asked? We spent just A PART of the money we would have spent. We built some rails. What if we make them continue in the underground? Would that be possible, Mr. Reeve? Mr. Reeve T. Head of Shin.Ra Urban Development Department President of F.S. Incorporated Well, I agree with Mr. Tseng and Ms. Elena. We shouldn't use any violent approach at this time. It's not the case. However, we can't build a subway in that area with the same funds because of many reasons. First of all, we would need to connect the new tubes to the existing subway. This would require a longer underground tunnel to reach at least the central station or the Heidegger Metro station. Moreover, trams are not built to go underground. There would be structural problems and security issues we can't get through. I think the bus idea is the best way to solve this issue. <RUDE> Maybe you're right... even if I would really have preferred to send our SOLDIERS there. <RENO> Rude.. you never change! <laughs> However.. Tseng is right. We did not consider some aspects we should have thought of before. I agree with him too. <PRESIDENT SHINRA> Ok then... Elena, please, send out the news that we're going to stop the tramway project in Wutain, and inform people that we're going to put on the road a new bus line connection to the Turks area. Send the news to all the local TVs and newspapers. Reeve, put your engineers at work to create a new bus path and a bus terminal in the Turks area. Send the workers and install some bus stops along the path. Keep me informed on the status of the works. ________________________________________________________________________ Shin.Ra updates to Midgar Public Transport Network A few days after, all the stations published this update. Shin.Ra is creating two new bus lines - 124 and 125 to connect the Turks Industrial Area to the Central Station and to the Wutai area (just because Wutai and Turks areas are very close). The 123 bus line is new too because of the increased population of the Cetra area (where we live too!). Bus 124 will depart from the Central Station, going along the tramway on Mount Nibel Street, turn left on Shinra Mansion Street, take the highway and access the Turks Industrial Area, ending the run on the Meteor bus station (that is currently being built). Bus 125 depart from Wutai (the bus terminal along Godo Street), take the highway and run along the same path of bus 124. As you can see in the map, the monorail service has been restored!!! And a NEW MONORAIL STATION has been built in the new Chocobo area! The new monorail station in the Chocobo area!! The public parking garage is very useful here! People living in this area do park their car there and take the monorail to reach the center of the city! This new station is under heavy use! It reaches 120% usage in the stats, while the parking is used at about 58% of its maximum capacity. This means this area, new and yet nice, is going to get very populated. The rails in Wutai have been fenced! Here it is: the rails have been fenced by the Shin.Ra. A small park has been created in front of the fence for eyecandy purposes. They're dead rails now. Building the new bus terminal in the Turks Industrial Area The works for the new bus terminal have begun along Meteor Street. The works along Lucrecia Crescent Street have been completed! Now Lucrecia C. Street is one-way road too! Working on Basament Street... becoming two-way road The yard has now moved along Basament Street. It will become a two-way larger road. This is the only road connecting to the back of the Corel Freight Station, so it cannot be entirely closed while the working are in progress. The yard works on the half of the road first. Then they'll proceed working on the otherside. The project of a new HIGHWAY RAMP for the Cetra area This is the situation we were talking about at the beginning of this post! The Cetra Area hasn't got a full connection to the highway network. As you can see, in the top area there are only two ramps that allow people to access the highway heading to the city, but there are no ramps allowing people coming FROM the city to access the Cetra area! Even in the bottom corner, there are no ramps! Since there's not enough space to build two more ramps in the top corner, Shin.Ra will build two ramps in the bottom corner at the circled crossing with the highway. That will make possible for people to access the Cetra Area back coming from the city by just taking the other highway (the one coming from left to right). Building the new ramps... A closeup of the workings, just back the cemetery.. To be continued...

Thanks everybody for so many comments! Happy to read you like the FF7 theme of the city.. I use to give a "theme" to any city I build, because that way I'm able to easily assign names to areas, districts, and roads in a sort of "logic" way. Then I can enjoy building the transportation system (that will inherit names from nearby roads), placing signs and so on.. That's one of my favourite moments of the game. Many many thanks to Zelgadis and Equilibria for writing more and elaborating the topic of the transportation system in your areas, so different in some aspects from where I live. Zelgadis, I think you're lucky you've been 3 years in Japan, I've never been there, but like it so much, and really hope to be able to have at least an holiday there in the future. Equilibria, it's very interesting to read what you wrote and the details about the railway company. Thinking about some american tv series (for example X-Files, one of my favourite TV series) I recognize what you write, people that easily take plane for business, holidays, and so on. Even Mulder and Scully do buy (or maybe FBI buys for them ) plane tickets so often whenever they've to go in other parts of the nation or other cities. They fly almost in each episode. I'd like also to know more about metropolitan transport system... such as subway, bus, taxi or whatever.... Sloppet, thanks for your comments! I like your sign. I'm going to get one soon. Now back to the CJ.... The works in the city go on... The works on Vincent Valentine Street have been completed! It's now a one-way road that you can access from the western area of the city (from ShinRa Mansion street), and arrives to Basament Street (on the back of the Central Station), giving access to the local buildings. The yard has now been moved on Lucrecia Crescent Street that will be changed to one-way road in the opposite way than Valentine Street. In the last part the road has not been completely closed. Instead it has been "reduced" in space, allowing cars to access the local buildings while the yard workers do their job on the other half part of the street. A shot of the inner area surrounding Lucrecia Crescent Street. The works on the new tramway... ...the residents in Wutai are complaining about the new rails In the meantime, the workers have prolonged the tramway as shown in the project some posts ago. They passed under the highway and reached the Wutai area. Some itineraries have changed for car-drivers due to the closing of certain streets. Here's where the workers have arrived.... ...before the people living in the Wutai district began to protest and complain on the road, blocking the workers! A strike/demostration on the road to stop the work of the new tramway! Here's the situation as for today! The residents in Wutai went on the road and blocked the workers, preventing them to go on with the building of the rails. They absolutely don't want the new tramway crossing their area for many reasons! 1. They don't like how some roads will be demolished in order to be changed with the tramway! in the pic you can see how many traffic and car transit in Wutai: it's a nice suburb full of people.... and traffic. Closing some roads would cause more traffic until the tramway will be operative (hoping that people would take the tram instead of the car). People don't care of Shin.Ra promises for the future. 2. They don't want that their residential area becomes a "transit-point" for people from the city to the Turks industrial area above. They fear that having so much people crossing the area everyday would increase junk, crime, traffic and noise/pollution levels. 3. They don't want the road you see in the pic to be replaced by rails. The houses would have access only from Wutai Road and Godo Street, that are full of traffic yet. 4. They would prefer a SUBWAY line, that would prevent traffic, road demolition and too many new people going all around the area. Some people parked their cars on the new rails as you see in the pic, to prevent the yard vehicles to go on. Then people began striking and protesting on the road with signs, causing huge traffic problems, because they go up and down on the crossing on Wutai road just after the cloveleaf linking it to the highway! The workers stopped then, and called their company, that said to them to go back for today. What would Shin.Ra do now?

The beginning of the works in the city... Thanks everybody for the comments! Unfortunately I'm pretty busy this period with my job (got a sort of "promotion" so I've to do my best and work some hours more than usual) and often I've not so much time to shot pics and write, however I visit Simtropolis many times per day, also from my workplace eheh... A few words more for the comment left by Equilibria: I found very interesting what you told, I really can't imagine a life where air travelling is such a daily thing! I live in Italy and here most of the people is not used to fly very often. It's also much expensive here (there are few low-cost companies but their planes are very uncomfortable and many people does not trust flying with them). Is that so in your country too? I'm really interested in knowing the habit of people from other countries, expecially America and Japan. I like transportation systems too, and really like to get informations on that topic.. for example, what kind of transport systems are most used . _____________________________________________________________________ Back to the CJ.... Summer time, as announced on June, 1st some of the new yards are being opened. Let's see some of them! A view of the first yard, on Vincent Valentine Street. The right area of the center of Midgar is going to get some modifications. Three streets will became roads: two of them one-way roads and the last one a two-way road. It's not possible to work on all the roads simultaneously, because this would prevent people to reach their houses and workplaces. So the workers will close a road at time. They begin with Vincent Valentine Street, that will become a one-way road, linking Shinra Mansion Street to the Basament Street. The access to the local streets is still provided by Lucrecia Crescent Street (that will become a one-way road too). However, the amount of traffic is going to increase day after day. Time to begin the works for the new tramway extension too! The workers placed the new rails over the road in the night so they didn't had to close the street. Now they're going to prolong the tramway under the highway and up to the Wutai area. In the meantime, the workers changed the name of the nearby tram stop: from "Wutai" to "Vincent Valentine". This has been done to avoid people taking the wrong tram at the central station, heading to Wutai instead of Wutai Village. Some days ago the JUNON airport has been shutdown. This pic has been shot before shutting down the airport. Look how many cars are parked there! All those people will have use the railway to access and leave the city for the Simnation! Here's what we see some days after from the road. The entire airport perimeter has been fenced as the works have begun. The construction workers are doing an hard work to complete the new airport as soon as possible. Shin.Ra hopes it will be completed in two years. However it's a HUGE mission to accomplish, because of the big area, and the fact that so many people and planes would transit, so all the systems and structures MUST be well-built and checked many times. Among the yard vehicles it's possible to see some parts of the airport that have not been demolished yet. Raising the "skeleton" of the new airport. A view of the F.S. station that will have to allow to transit the enormous amount of people that used to airfly before. The yards are open also at night. However they do very small works by night to avoid to disturb the sleeping people in the near Priscilla small residential area. THE MONTHS BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER.... ...last months Shin.Ra began building the new residential area we saw two posts before, bottom of Junon, in the eastern corner of the city, top of the junkyard, along the Chocobo Road. In fact, Chocobo is the name the new area will be referred to. The beginning of the works... A close-up pic As you can see, the MONORAIL NETWORK HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED TOO! Actually a new monorail station is going to be built in this new area. Shin.Ra hoped to be able to build it without stopping the monorail service, but due to some techical problems (that require the rails to pass in a different place in order for the station to be built) the rails have been cutted. So the MONORAIL SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE UNIVERSITY. This is not a so big damage at this time for many reasons: 1) The airport is closed due to re-construction. Most of the people that used to travel with the monorail were persons that had to go to the airport, or that came from the airport to the centre of the city. 2) At this time, people from the Simnation arrive in Midgar by train. Trains stop at Junon, but they can directly reach the Midgar Central Station along the railway. So there would be no reason at all to get off the trains in Junon in order to take the Monorail to reach the center of the city! 3) The only people that could still be interested in the monorail are the residents in Priscilla (that small residential area close to the airport). It's a very small area right now, so for this period of time they will have to go to the center of the city by Bus (cheap) or by train (a little more expensive). Keep in mind that, being the airport closed, there's no traffic at all along these roads, so the bus won't take too much time to reach the city centre. Cranes building the new Monorail station in the Chocobo area. The Monorail service is limited to the University. Priscilla and Junon are not currently served. The first houses in the Chocobo area are being raised! So many construction companies are interested in this new area, they bought all the assigned lots and just began raising the buildings! There is space for shops and offices too! The residential area looks nice and quiet. After about 3 months, the new area is almost complete. Except for the monorail (the works have been slowed down a bit because of the surrounding yards). There are also some hi-tech industries in the Chocobo area! Here we see a school bus bringing kids back home. There's just an elementary school around here, so that children can go to school near their house. For high school they will need to go to the city center (it will be fast with the monorail, and they'll be old enough to go by themselves). Next updates soon!

Visiting two suburbs... In the afternoon we decide to visit the Fort Condor Area. We heard that it could be possible to watch the ruins of an old fort in that zone. We take the bus line 113 from the Central Station, and wait for the bus to reach the last stop, that is Fort Condor. A view of the Fort Condor station. We reach the last stop of the bus 113 line, along Fort Street (Via del Forte). As we look around, we can see the ruins of an old fort. It's possible to go visiting the ruins by feet and it's completely free! Another view rotated of 180 degrees. Near the bus terminal there's a parking garange and a very small railway station. This area is really nice: lots of parks, small and nice houses, the ruins as background, and a bus and railway station to get connected to the center of the city. A bit northern there's the Eleanor area (we crossed it by metro the first day we came to Midgar). This pic give you an idea of how pretty is this area. The local stadium. All around small villas and houses. Many parkings for the residents. Right there's the highway. This pic is on the left of the station. You can see the Fort Condor Road (Via Fort Condor) and some more ruins. Seeing this area, we really would like to get an house in a place like this in Midgar! In order to get back, we want to take another path, seeing one of the areas that Shin.Ra talked about at the conference. We've never seen the center of the city on the left of the station. And we never travelled by tram yet! So from the Fort Condor station we take the BUS LINE 116: we will get off at the last stop that is "Palmer". From there we will take the tram for the Central Station. The Palmer station allows interchange between tram and bus. Provides also parking facilities. As we can see, the tramway crosses the area nearby the highway, that divides the suburbs from the center of the city. Being the borderline, we can see many industries on our left. On our right we see the buildings. The big Corel Freight Station, a bit on the right from the tramway we were looking at, along Corel Street. This enormous freight exchange station built in the middle-left part of the city ensures fast shipping and delivering of the freights. In front of the otherside of the freight station, along Basament Street, there's the big bus depot of Midgar. Another look of the Basamento Bus Depot. Back at the Shin.Ra building, we meet Theodore again and have diner with him. We talk to him about our visit to Fort Condor, and we say how we would like to get an house in Midgar in such a nice suburb like that. Theodore says that the houses are a bit expensive in the Fort Condor area, because of the ruins and their historical value. In the meantime, buying house in the centre of the city would be even more expensive! However he says that there's a new suburb in the northern-right area of the city. We thought to the Priscilla area, near the Junon Airport (we saw that when we arrived in Midgar), but he says that the area he's talking about is a little more left of the Airport, on the other side of the highway, just down the Shin.Ra hill and the tower with a military base. Being a new zone and being so close to the military area, the housing cost is lower than in other places in Midgar. However he ensures that the area is really really nice, and a part for the very high walls that surrect the military base, there should be no problems at all in that zone. It's very close to the ANCIENTS AREA, another zone of historical interest, with a gorgeous park and a cemetery. There are also the water pumps far from there. As you can see in the pic, the ANCIENTS AREA is down the Shin.Ra military base. That high wall is not really good-looking, but the area seems nice. It's a very recent-built zone. Even if it's so close to the Junon Airport, there's no connection with the Airport yet. As for the highway, it's possible to access it heading to the city, but there's no exit from the highway to access this area! There's only a parallel ramp that was built long ago, when there was nothing interesting here, that permits to reach the city by Highway, but does not allow cars coming from the highway to access the Ancients Road. Shin.Ra is working in order to solve this problem, by building another ramp or a cloveleaf. Visiting the Ancients Area with Theodore The day after, Theodore brings us to visit this new area, searching for an house to buy or rent. Coming from the centre of the city, we run on Cetra Road and turn right on the Road of the Ancients (Via degli Antichi). We see the cemetery at first. Near the cemetery there are some wonderful parks. They're both dedicated to the CETRA and expecially to Aerith. Statues of the Cetra are around there. On the other side, there's a wonderful park with a gorgeous fountain and a statue in the middle (they say it's dedicated to Aerith). There's also an Amphiteathre where, on summer, there are shows and games. This area is very often visited by tourists and by the citizens of Midgar too, to relax, have pic-nics, and spend holidays! Still driving on the Road of the Ancients, we turn left at the crossing, along Elmyra Street (Via Elmyra), on the back of the PARK OF THE ANCIENTS. We can see some parkings there... used by people that come to the park for holidays! They're not enough on summer, when so many people come here all day and night (for shows). Turning right, we enter the new residential area. A closer shot of the area, built at the bottom of the Shin.Ra Militar Area. Forgiving of the military base, this place really looks nice! And the housing cost seems to be cheap enough for a place like this! A look of the Bus Station, on the top of the area. This zone is connected to the Midgar Central Station by the BUS LINE 123 (a new bus line that Shin.Ra developed to connect this area). The bus terminal is along Ifalna Street (Via Ifalna), and offers also a public parking garage. Theodore says that in the next month Shin.Ra will add new bus lines to reach easily the Airport (that unfortunately will be closed down for the next two years, because of works in progress) and the Fort Condor area. Some small industries on the top of the area. This new area looks really nice. The only defect is that base on top of that enormous wall, that is not really good looking. Moreover would being so close to a militar base bring any sort of trouble? Theodore says that Shin.Ra ensures that the citizens will NOT have to worry about the base, because it won't cause any trouble to them. However, its presence makes the housing costs being approachable to many people that, until now, would have never been able to buy an house in Midgar. Being so close to the Park of the Ancients makes this area even nicer, because it's possible to reach the park by feet or by bus!

Invited to the Shin.Ra Conference Room... As we said when we began this journal, it's very difficult for people to access the Shin.Ra building. It's easy (and true) to say that most of the citizens in Midgar will never enter the Shin.Ra area in their entire life. We also saw how the citizens do not even know the name of the Mayor! People just know that the city is managed and controlled by Shin.Ra Corporation. We enter the Conference Room with Theodore. Some high-qualified personnel of the Shin.Ra Corp. will officially talk to the city (through television and newspapers) about the new projects that the company wants to put in action to improve the quality of Midgar. The new works will begin this summer. There are a lot of cameras, TVs reporters, anchormen, and journalists that will log and report what the company say to the citizens to inform them. However they know they mustn't report any name nor informations that the company wouldn't want to be diffused. Just before the conference starts, a sort of presenter announces the people we will hear speaking: Mr. Reeve (head of Urban Development Department) and Mayor Domino. We now know the name of the Mayor of Midgar!!!! Theodore recommends to not tell it to people when back to the city. He explains also that Mayor Domino is just a figurehead, since he holds no real powers over the city, that is managed and fully controlled by President Shin.Ra (not even Theodore knows his name). The conference begins. Mr. Reeve Tuesti Head of Urban Development Department Shin.Ra Corportation President of F.S. Inc. First of all, thanks everybody for being here, and for your support and trust in our company. The Shin.Ra Corporation will start some works in the city of Midgar this summer, to improve the quality of the life of our citizens. Many yards will be opened and we ask you to have patience while our workers do their best to complete the work as soon as possible. The FIRST YARD WILL BE IN THE AREA BETWEEN JUNON AND THE COREL JUNKYARD, as shown in the satellite pic you can see on the screen. This is where we're going to build a new suburb, nice yet well connected to the city thanks to the Monorail transiting nearby. In the next pic you will see our project: Here's the project: a new small suburb with nice houses, offices and shops and a few industries, for you to enjoy your life, a few miles from the centre of the city. A new Monorail Station will be build along the elevated rail. The station will have also a public parking garage, so that people living there will be able to park their car at the station and reach the centre of the city by Monorail. Just remember that the MR will bring you in a few minutes to very important points of interests, such as the Junon Airport, the University and the Midgar Central F.S. Station! Unfortunately the Monorail service will be slowed down a bit while the yard will be building the new station. We hope to end this area in about one year, so please be patient! This is a photo of the Corel Junkyard: we believe that it won't interfere with the residential area, because there will be a small forest between the houses and the junkyard. However its presence will help the housing costs to be kept as cheap as possible. THE SECOND YARD WILL BE AT JUNON: We do really think that the actual JUNON AIRPORT is too small for a capital city such Midgar. We need a BIGGER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. This is a huge work to do, and we thought long whether begin this work. The JUNON AIRPORT WILL BE COMPLETELY SHUT DOWN FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS. It will be raised down and rebuild as a bigger international airport. ALL THE AIR TRAFFIC WILL BE DISCONTINUED AND THE ONLY CONNECTION BETWEEN MIDGAR AND THE SIMNATION WILL BE BY RAIL. This is why F.S. Inc. will do its best in order to improve the quality of its service and the number of trains, that will have to transport all the people that used to reach Midgar by plane. THE THIRD YARD WILL BE IN THE TOP-LEFT AREA OF MIDGAR, TO BUILD A NEW TRAMWAY: The new tramway will begin from the actual one, connecting the centre of the city to the Wutai suburb and the Turks Industrial Area. The TURKS INDUSTRIAL AREA is actually NOT SERVED BY THE PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM, so this link will improve the life of many citizens that have to go by car to their workplace in that area. This should also help to spread out the huge traffic in the Wutai Area, due to the high number of people that live in that zone, that was actually served only by bus (they were slowed down by the traffic too). The new tramway will have four stations in the Wutai suburb (one of them will be where there's the Godo Bus Terminal Station, allowing interchange and parking facilities). It will then have four stops in the TURKS INDUSTRIAL AREA, ending up the line on the top of Meteora Street. On the screen you can see our idea of the new tramway. We will build also new trams coloured of RED just for this line. The works will take about two years in order to be completed. However we aim to open the first piece of the line (from Jenova to Godo) in about one year. THE LAST YARD IS IN THE CENTRE OF THE CITY, WILL ENLARGE SOME STREETS AND MAKE THEM ONE-WAY: We will close and completely rebuild some streets in the centre of the city, west of the Midgar Central Station, that recently are getting full of traffic. This area is pretty busy because of offices, the central station, the huge bus depot and the Big Freight Station along Corel Street that spawns trucks all around! The following roads will be closed for about four months: - Vincent Valentine Street: it will become a one-way road, allowing access from ShinRa Mansion road heading to Basamento Street - Lucrecia Crescent Street: it will become a one-way road, allowing access from Jenova Street heading to ShinRa Mansion road. - Basamento Street: it will become a two-way road to help bus and trucks to drive easily on a larger street. We fully understand that opening all these yards simultaneously will eventually bring lots of traffic problems and uneasiness to commuters and travellers, but we really believe that as soon as the works will be over the city traffic problems will be fully solved, and we'll get even new residential areas for citizens that actually would like to come in Midgar to live but can't find an house to live in. We're also planning to build two high commercial towers at the corners of the city to offer more workplaces to people living in the suburbs and in the neighborhood. We thank you for the patience, and hope you will apreciate our efforts to improve your live in Midgar. < Reeve T. > ____________________________________________________________________ Many applauses, and the conference ends. We left the auditorium and go with Theodore to have lunch. In the afternoon, we'll go visit the FORT CONDOR area.....

Next morning... First of all, thanks everybody for your comments! I'm glad you like my city and do really apreciate all your comments and suggestion, will try to put the most of them in my city! Back to the CJ... Next morning we get up in the Shin.Ra Building, we were guests of Theodore, a friend of the Mayor of Spira. In the morning we'll go with him having a tour of one of the restricted-access areas of Shin.Ra: the TURKS AREA. It's located down the ShinRa hill, on the left. It's reacheable from the ShinRa road, turning left (instead of right, as we did last time to reach the ShinRa building) at the crossing. An aerial view of the TURKS militar area. We can see lots of military buildings around here. It really seems that the Shin.Ra Corp. wants to be ever ready just in case of attacks, wars, or whatever their paranoid minds would fear! There are also some research labs around here. Theodore says that on the other side of the ShinRa hill there's an even more secret area where not even he is allowed to access. It's believed that Shin.Ra scientists, Dr. Vu and Prof. Hojo, work at something strange and very secret in that area. However nobody can access it. The Tolls ensure that only authorized people will access this area. They're watched by the SOLDIERs special troops. The entrance of the Shin.Ra Research Lab. This is where Theodore works. An aerial view. Top left there's an industrial area, called TURKS INDUSTRIAL AREA. However it's open to all people that want to find a job. Unfortunately, no public transport service serves that area (buses are not allowed to pass the Turks Military Area). Another close-up view of the Turks Industrial Area. As you can see better in this closeup pic, the public transport system does not serve this zone. Another aerial view, southern, to give you a better idea of where the Turks area is located. BACK TO SHIN.RA BUILDING... ... this afternoon we'll go with Theodore to a special conference in the Shin.Ra Auditorium.