# Creating Interesting Cities



## Centerfield97 (Nov 24, 2011)

How do you go about formulating your cities?  I seem to know generally what each of my cities are about, but I have trouble actually visualizing them, which makes writing about characters in them a massive improvising pain in the arse.  I'm also having trouble thinking of interesting twists for my cities, or even giving them purposes for existing in the first place.

Any advice?


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## Ravana (Nov 24, 2011)

I never have trouble giving the cities a reason to exist–once I've drawn a map, it's usually obvious where they _have_ to be, where they'd inevitably grow up. Of course, that doesn't work as well if you don't start with a map.… 

That might be a partial answer for you, though… not the drawing the map bit, but rather that cities and towns are rarely "founded" somewhere: they come about naturally, through the process of a civilized people concentrating on the best lands, near the best resources (water in particular), along trade routes (especially at choke points), etc. 

What most of them are "about" is the ongoing concentration of population, most importantly of specialized labor, which makes industrial (in earlier periods, craft) production more efficient. Along with a somewhat larger percentage in "support" roles ("customer service"), of course… but people won't flock to a city that consists entirely of service occupations, as there won't be anybody there to serve except each other. This, however, becomes a matter of diminishing returns, in that all the inhabitants need to eat, but there will be ever less land in the immediate vicinity to feed them… which is why up to the beginnings of the industrial age, 30k people was a large city, and even 5k was a sizable concentration. There were exceptions–Rome, at its height, may have hosted 1.5M or more–but these were generally the center of empires, and imported food from vast regions on staggering scales… and as often as not, the government itself was responsible for feeding large segments of those populations.

As for visualization: tightly-packed buildings often built up against one another (it's one fewer walls to build that way), many of them expanded vertically from their original construction, at least up to three floors; taller buildings will usually be found only as government construction. Narrow, unplanned and usually unpaved streets, probably without sidewalks. Overall, much smaller than you might expect based on modern experiences. A city of a few thousand people might have a diameter of only a few hundred yards. A very small number of water sources: wells, aqueducts, perhaps a cistern or two… even a mid-sized town might be served by a single source. Sanitation–gutters, sewers, etc.–non-existent, in most towns and even many cities, and generally inadequate even where they do exist. All of which led to less than optimal health conditions. 

Some level of defenses, in most cases–but far from all, and often depending on political structures (usually, the lords didn't like the notion of fortified cities: they became very inconvenient when the populace took it into their heads to disagree with the nobility) and on proximity to borders. At least one reasonably-sized clear area for a central market. Probably one or more warehouses, especially granaries and similar places to stockpile food. One or more places of worship. Possibly some building that serves as a centralized place of government–though again this depends on political structure, and in the majority of cases, whoever actually _ruled_ the area would not live in the city, though his castle or whatever might connect to its walls if it has them; otherwise, the lord will live on his cleaner, healthier and far less smelly estate, leaving the business of running the city to appointees (or maybe even elected officials).

That's for Medieval Europe… if your cultural assumptions are different, some large parts of the city may only bear a vague resemblance to the above: extensive public works such as baths, monumental architecture, and so on. The basics will still apply to the bulk, though–in particular the economic considerations: there has to be a good reason for that many people to be packed together in a place where they can't produce their own food… be it industry, a center of government or military power, or a center of religion. Or, more commonly, all of these together.


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## writeshiek33 (Nov 24, 2011)

i am having trouble creating my city for a story idea trying to figure out the visualization the weird part is subconsciously i have trhe parts of city already imaged but accessing it driving me nuts


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## Ravana (Nov 24, 2011)

Start doing writing exercises where you do nothing but describe what you see (and hear, and smell, and feel) as you walk through the city. Forget about all other aspects of writing when doing so: just take the tour. A few parts will no doubt prove usable in the story itself, but the important thing is to practice visualization and description of concrete detail. (This, by the way, is useful in general, not just as a way to access urban landscapes in specific.)


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## Phoenix (Nov 24, 2011)

First most important fact: Give reason for the city to exist! Is it a city high in the mountain over looking a Valley on a boarder line? If so this could be a stronghold. The city may be there as a first defense line against enemy offensive, to give the rest of the Empire to prepare. Another city may be on the coast. Of course they're all population centers, but is this a very central trading post? Would an attack here disrupt the trading of the Empire, wreck their central economy? Give them reason to exist other than, there's a city. Is there a city where armed forces are gathered before an offensive? Give life to them, give income, imports, exports,, ext. Just my little wisdom, good luck!


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## Devor (Nov 24, 2011)

When I was working on my cities, I started with the idea that I wanted each of them to have a sort of specialty or distinctive characteristic to justify its existence in a small country.

 - Capitol City
 - Agriculture (surrounded by miles of farms)
 - A different kind of agriculture
 - Hunting / Roadways
 - Guilds, Small Shipping
 - Port, Mass Shipping
 - Military Port

And, well, a few more that I want to leave out.

But then I sort of grew up, and I stopped, and I looked at each of these elements by themselves.  I figured out how the Guilds worked, and I ended up adding specific relevant guilds into most of the other cities.  I did the same for agriculture, seatrade, hunting and the rest, adding layers to each location.  Each city was able to keep their distinctive "specialty" elements while gaining layers of detail that made them more real.  Now characters get to walk around a city full of farmers, past merchants inspecting cart upon cart of grain, and pop their head in at the Ploughmakers Guild Hall, and hunt coyote/bobcat type things, and look out at a Frigate sailing in the waters, and so on.  The cities can play their role, but now they still feel real.


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## Terra Arkay (Nov 24, 2011)

At the moment I see The Imperial City of TES: Oblivion and the Imperial City of Archades from Final Fantasy 12. I will need to move far from these... I've got an idea of what my cities shall look like, I plan to develop them for a long time. My first concept for the five super cities were for them each to have an individual characteristic like for example, one city could be known as the city of agriculture or the city of wealth... I've moved a step up from this concept, I do not know if I shall still use it.


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## SeverinR (Nov 25, 2011)

For those that have a problem building a city,
Look for pictures of the culture your writing about.  Look at several examples, so you don't just write a cliche town.  Every town has something different, but tended to have similarities with others of the area.
pictures of an old german city - Bing Images
Here is one example of an old German town, much easier to describe when you can actually see it.
City people built very close together to be inside the walls and their protection. (I believe walled cities would have noble's military guarding it with city tax money paying them. ie city protection loyal to the ruling monarch.)
towns buildings were built close together but not as close as above, possibly a cheap wall to deter bands of thieves from attacking.(easily taken down by organized military.)
villages were less secure, more often just families and friends living near to each other.

Entertainment: What is there to do when the people aren't working.  Street entertainment, etc
market place: to privately sell merchandise that stores would not give a good price on.
city holiday celebrations; gives a city/village personality.
History: lore of a city, why things are the way they are.  Show some type of change, one of my towns has clusters, each section was built with a wall around it, as the city grew, they built new walls to enclose them, each cluster allows a fall back point to make another stand against invaders.  It also allows the police to keep the wrong people out of the respectable areas.

Towns can become generic, so what ever the writer can do to make the town more real is a plus.


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## Hans (Nov 25, 2011)

SeverinR said:


> City people built very close together to be inside the walls and their protection. (I believe walled cities would have noble's military guarding it with city tax money paying them. ie city protection loyal to the ruling monarch.)
> towns buildings were built close together but not as close as above, possibly a cheap wall to deter bands of thieves from attacking.(easily taken down by organized military.)


In your example that actually is a very wide road. German cities are normally bad examples for old towns because after the destructions of WW2 there was no reason to not modernize them. Look at old towns in other countries. You can often touch houses on both sides of the streets at once. In the bigger streets.
That means bigger streets that have not been widened for the needs of modern traffic.


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## Ravana (Nov 25, 2011)

For some reasonably good examples of what a city–particularly a walled one–would _resemble_, try searching for images of the following:

- Carcassone (the one you'll find by far the most of; sadly, very few are aerial), Avignon, and Narbonne–what might be called the "standard set"; all are in France
- Rothenburg (Germany)
- Dubrovnik (Croatia–that one surprised me: post-war repairs were done in the original style, to retain its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation)
- Mdina (Malta… and, yes, that's spelled correctly)

…along with a few smaller places I hadn't seen before, making me glad I went looking:

- Saint-Paul-de-Vence (France)
- Gordes (France)
- San Gimignano (Italy)

All three of these are probably closer to the "originals" than most others you're likely to find. Keep in mind that, even here, at least a few streets have likely been widened–and straightened–for automobile traffic… which should give some notion of what the places were like _before_ that. And, of course, you should pay attention only to those parts actually within the walls: a good aerial photo of Dubrovnik will readily demonstrate the difference in spacing based on which side of the wall the buildings are on. There are plenty of others (especially in Spain, Portugal and Italy), but I wasn't nearly as happy with the images I came across, compared to the above.

Why is this list limited to walled cities, nearly all on hilltops, nearly all in the southern half of Europe? Because that's what survived… not "survived" their own individual histories, but that of the last couple centuries. I'm sure there are a few locations not on hilltops, and maybe one or two that weren't walled, that haven't changed a whole lot over time–but the removal of either of those conditions, let alone both, makes it far less likely the original configuration was maintained as being too much trouble to seriously alter.


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## Elder the Dwarf (Nov 26, 2011)

In ten years when I am amazingly rich as I'm sure to be (please dear god read that with sarcasm!) I am totally buying houses in three or four of those cities.  That is awesome!  Thanks for sharing, Ravana.


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## Kevlar (Nov 26, 2011)

The more I look the more I realize that houses built against one another aren't square. They appear to be slightly off-square, allowing some bending of these blocks of housing. Some houses seem out as much as twenty degrees. Is this just an illusion or am I correct in this assumption?


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## Ravana (Nov 27, 2011)

Elder the Dwarf said:


> In ten years when I am amazingly rich as I'm sure to be (please dear god read that with sarcasm!) I am totally buying houses in three or four of those cities.  That is awesome!  Thanks for sharing, Ravana.



Quite welcome.

I actually did see a real estate price quote for one of those small French towns (Saint-Paul-de-Vence): â‚¬10k per square meter. Good luck. 

-

@Kevlar: I believe you are correct–I noticed the same–although camera angles don't always make it easy to tell; a lot of the roofing slopes strike me as odd, too, which might be contributing somewhat to the appearance. Of course, any building can settle over time–and those have had a lot more time to do so than the ones we're accustomed to seeing. Consider, too, that in the U.S. and Canada, a freestanding building that's sagging or leaning that much will probably be torn down and replaced; with them all leaning on one another, you'd have to do the entire block at once in most cases.


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## Devor (Nov 27, 2011)

Ravana said:


> For some reasonably good examples of what a city—particularly a walled one—would _resemble_, try searching for images of the following:
> 
> • Carcassone (the one you'll find by far the most of; sadly, very few are aerial), Avignon, and Narbonne—what might be called the "standard set"; all are in France
> • Rothenburg (Germany)
> ...



I just had a bit of fun pulling them up on Google Earth.  Thanks for the examples Ravana.

Saint-Paul-de-Vence in particular has a great aerial view because it's small and hasn't really grown outside of the walls.  Avignon is larger and has grown out of the walls, but you can get a good idea of the original dimensions because you can see parts of the wall alongside the main roads and there aren't too many roads inside the walls.


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## Shadoe (Nov 27, 2011)

Centerfield97 said:


> How do you go about formulating your cities?  I seem to know generally what each of my cities are about, but I have trouble actually visualizing them, which makes writing about characters in them a massive improvising pain in the arse.  I'm also having trouble thinking of interesting twists for my cities, or even giving them purposes for existing in the first place.
> 
> Any advice?


Best piece of advice in the world: Go to a city you don't know. Better yet, go to a few you don't know, of varying sizes. (Bonus points if you can manage to go to several different cities in different parts of the country.) Walk around different parts of the city - though be safe. Walking around and talking to people will give you some neat ideas. Even driving around and seeing things will give you good ideas. Thing is, most of us live in the came place all our lives. We don't SEE it anymore. Once you go to new places, you find all kinds of interesting things. Most of them are all modern things (like the kite store in the town I'm in now), but the concept of the things you can can be translated into a fantasy world setting fairly easily.

From 10,000 feet, all cities are exactly the same. They don't usually have anything interesting about them. They become interesting when you look closer.


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## TWErvin2 (Nov 27, 2011)

After I have the rough background for the city, size and basic layout, I sit back and imagine my character standing and looking around. What does he see, smell, hear? What people are there in that part of the city and what are they doing? What shops, how wide the streets and alleys, what are the buildings constructed of and in what state of repair? Signs, posts, litter, animal droppings, etc.  Then my character walks a bit.  I jot my ideas down. Not everything makes it to the pages, but enough for me to give a solid feel for the readers.

My novels and about 1/2 of my short stories are written in first person POV, so this method seems effective for me.


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## writeshiek33 (Nov 28, 2011)

i am having trouble creating city


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## Seth son of Tom (Nov 28, 2011)

great posts! this thread definitely gives me some ideas!


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## Devor (Nov 28, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> From 10,000 feet, all cities are exactly the same. They don't usually have anything interesting about them. They become interesting when you look closer.



For the most part you're absolutely right.  But I personally find the aerial shots more useful because of the specific stories I'm writing.  Neither of them would have cities that look like any kind of city in existence today.  In one, I need to rely on my imagination more than anything else.  In the other I need to rely on research and recreations.  In both works there's a heavy chance of warfare (in the first, it would depend on how the series progresses, in the second it's almost a certainty) and I need to understand how they looked from the air.  The aerial layout and the formation of the walls are all designed strategically for a military advantage.  So that's what I find interesting.


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## Ravana (Nov 28, 2011)

Are you familiar with Vauban-style fortifications, Devor? Admittedly, they're fairly late-period (17th Century), and were primarily a response to gunpowder weapons, but there's no reason they couldn't have been built earlier, either by someone sufficiently paranoid and/or megalomaniacal, or as a response to something else… like magic. At any rate, they're incredibly cool-looking, especially from the air–and a lot of them still exist: the earthworks just aren't worth the effort to disassemble.

(For anyone who _hasn't_ seen Vauban's city-wall fortifications: you look at a diagram or two, and think those _must_ be exaggerations. Then you find some aerial photos of ones that still exist, and, well.…)

The Wikipedia article on Vauban links to the following pages with diagrams of old fortifications (some of which may no longer exist–but some, I'm pretty sure, still do, or at least you can still see the outlines where earthworks were built around rather than removed):

Lille, Maastricht, Saarlouis, Saint Martin de Re, Verdun, Ypres

as well as the following pages with actual aerial photos:

Neuf-Brisach, Rocroi

I know there are far more than those two still in existence; they just don't have photos with the articles. The Rocroi article contains an added bonus: population figures (only since 1793, but they've been pretty steady), giving you some notion of how much something that size can house. (For a pure fortress, rather than a fortified town/city, you can also check out the Citadel of BesanÃ§on.)

By the way, if you enjoy playing with Google Earth, go to one or another of the above–especially those that don't have aerial photos–then zoom in slowly… just to see how close you (don't) have to get to spot the old outlines.


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## Shadoe (Nov 29, 2011)

Devor said:


> For the most part you're absolutely right.  But I personally find the aerial shots more useful because of the specific stories I'm writing.  Neither of them would have cities that look like any kind of city in existence today.  In one, I need to rely on my imagination more than anything else.  In the other I need to rely on research and recreations.  In both works there's a heavy chance of warfare (in the first, it would depend on how the series progresses, in the second it's almost a certainty) and I need to understand how they looked from the air.  The aerial layout and the formation of the walls are all designed strategically for a military advantage.  So that's what I find interesting.


I was speaking in a more general sense. I move so often, I find that most places are pretty much the same when you first get there. They all have basically the same stuff. I'm betting that most places in a fantasy setting are the same. Granted, they probably wouldn't have the same _exact _things (there's the bank, there's the high school, there's the McDonald's), but they would have their own same things (there's the hostelry, there's the inn, there's the hanging tree).

Either in fantasy or reality, I do like to look at cities from the air. The layout of them is interesting. The town I'm in now, for instance, has twin rivers (it's called "Two Rivers," in fact). The city down the way (Manitowoc) also has two rivers. But one has a single river off the lake that comes in for a block or two then splits at right angles. I can't think that's natural. The Manitowoc rivers begin as one off the lake, which then twists and turns and then splits into two and then seems to want to braid itself.


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## SeverinR (Nov 29, 2011)

Hans said:


> In your example that actually is a very wide road. German cities are normally bad examples for old towns because after the destructions of WW2 there was no reason to not modernize them. Look at old towns in other countries. You can often touch houses on both sides of the streets at once. In the bigger streets.
> That means bigger streets that have not been widened for the needs of modern traffic.


They do have those narrow streets in Germany(or did in the 80's), but I can see your point.



Ravana said:


> For some reasonably good examples of what a city—particularly a walled one—would _resemble_, try searching for images of the following:
> 
> • Carcassone (the one you'll find by far the most of; sadly, very few are aerial), Avignon, and Narbonne—what might be called the "standard set"; all are in France
> • Rothenburg (Germany)
> ...


I love looking at the old cities, even just the buildings alone are interesting.



Elder the Dwarf said:


> In ten years when I am amazingly rich as I'm sure to be (please dear god read that with sarcasm!) I am totally buying houses in three or four of those cities.  That is awesome!  Thanks for sharing, Ravana.


I would be happy to be rich enough to visit Europe again.


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## DameiThiessen (Dec 2, 2011)

Here is my check-list for creating a city or country for my stories:

1.	*Protection and Defence* - How are they prepared to protect or defend themselves? Or attack others?
2.	*Food and Agriculture* - Where does their food come from? What kind of food is there? Are the people fat or thin?
3.	*Infrastructure and Transport* - Styles and function of roads, buildings, and transport systems
4.	*Emergency Procedures* - How are they prepared for an attack or natural disaster?
5.	*Natural Resources* - Water sources, wild animals, plants, etc. and how they are treated and used
6.	*Health* - Doctors and medicine. Do they have access to medicine or is it too expensive for the common man?
7.	*Justice* - How laws are decided and enforced
8.	*Energy and Waste Management* - Power sources and disposal of waste (ex: sewer)
9.	*Education* - Is it public or private? For common people or just the elite?
10.	*Finance* - How taxes are extracted from the public and spent by the government
11.	*Human Services* - The condition people live in, services provided by the government, typical jobs
12.	*Dependency Ratio* - Able to work population VS Unable to work population

If you go through this list and describe how your city functions on each level, then before you know it you will have the raw materials to form a distinct culture.  It works for me, I hope it works for you.


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## Ravana (Dec 3, 2011)

Good list. I might add the option "or do they exist at all?" to a couple (education and health, at least as you present them: there may not be any doctors or medicine, for instance), but I'd agree that basic decisions on all of those should be made for any community. 

I'd add "trade" to the list; "industry," in the sense of what they do with their resources; and "relations," which can be an important factor even when considering cities within the same country. I think that probably covers just about everything that's going to be common to all cities. (Having said that inevitably means I've forgotten something vital that I'll think of in the middle of the night.…  )

Most other factors can either be viewed as subcategories of the above ("communications" might be important enough to break out from infrastructure, depending on how you view it… and any attempt at a comprehensive list is going to result in something unwieldy in any event), will be societal factors that may or may not be city- or country-specific (language, religion), or won't be universal to all communities or settings (minorities).


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## Shadoe (Dec 3, 2011)

I would think there would always be some kind of doctors. Granted, they may not be the guys in the white coats, but usually there's some kind of medicine woman at least.


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## Devor (Dec 3, 2011)

These are all great topics.  I think a city is best defined by the organizations which play pivotal roles inside the city, and most of them are probably connected to some of these topics.

In my opinion, one of the ways you can add the most distinction to a city is to figure out which of these elements you want to play a prominent role in a city and figure out the organizations which are behind them.  Give a personality and a voice and characters to the element in question.


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## writeshiek33 (Dec 3, 2011)

funny thing about 7 is that it is a religion in the world i am building


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## Ghost (Dec 3, 2011)

By the time I make a post, people have already covered all the points I had in mind. Oops! I won't talk about mapping or placement of buildings, but I wanted to add to the idea of twists for cities. These are things I think about.

First, I look at *climate, geography, and topography*. Maybe the city is situated in wine country or a deep valley. The land and resources inform the *architecture and infrastructure*. In a restricted area, overcrowding pushes people to build upward. In a less restricted area, there may be sprawl. The getting water could be a daily chore, and the sewage system could be awful. Getting from point A to point B could take a long time, especially if the roads are multi-use between humans, animals, carts, magic carpets, enchanted carriages, etc. Another thing to look at is the *history*. If the city changed hands a few times, it will have a mishmash of architecture and cultures. Parts of a city that burned down often get rebuilt in the current style. *Economy and exports*, or what supports the city, are important too. If they have a lot of clay, it wouldn't be surprising to see bricks. If the region is known for weaving, there may be stall after stall selling rugs and tapestries. Placing it at a crossroads or along a trade route can add some outside cultural influences.

*Demographics* are a good way to distinguish the city. A predominance of certain religions, ethnic groups, and social classes changes things. There might be more educated people because of universities or attractive jobs. After a war, there may be less able-bodied men. The city's *relations* with the surrounding area, other cities, and the country are important. Everyone else in the country may look at that particular city as a cesspit. The city could compete with a twin city. The people in the surrounding countryside may think the city-dwellers are rude, pompous, loud, and smelly. People inside or outside the country may romanticize the city. Who the people in power are and how they're viewed is interesting, too.

The *cultural significance* is my favorite. Is it a seat of learning? Is it a strategic military base? Is it the center of an art movement? Is it a manufacturing hub? Do the nations movers and shakers work and reside there? Are the politics different here than in other cities? Give the city a *personality*. People can characterize the mood of a city. they may think of it as laid-back, conservative, sophisticated, stressful, boring, festive, lavish, quiet, etc. Even cities I've never visited conjure up certain words because of all the descriptions and stereotypes. How would you describe the personality of Paris?

It may help to engage other senses. Does it smell like baking bread? Fried food? Fish? Horse shit? Dust? Sewage? Incense? Not counting people's voices, what sounds do you hear? The ocean? Bells? Pigeons? Farm animals? Sawing and hammering? The wind?

Sorry for the long post. I've got to hit submit before I add more!


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## Leif GS Notae (Dec 4, 2011)

I think the thing everyone might be glossing over is HOW a city is built as well. The method to the madness and what happens when a city stretches out from being a minor outpost in the wilderness or a small village to some monster that eats resources.

I've always started with where the origin of the city started. I build out as I can and determine due to sprawl and development where the traditional locations such as commerce, aristocracy, slums and the like appear. Eventually as you get the lay of the land, you can start seeing what you want and how you want it to appear via description.

Also, don't discount the surrounding wildlife dictating the design of the original city as well. Bears, lions, dragons, moose with bad breath weilding enchanted hockey sticks; all an be dangerous threats to a fledgling city as well . . . Ok, maybe not the last one; unless you are in Canada.

_Edmund N. Bacon's_ *Design of Cities* and *The City Shared* by _Spiro Kostof_ are great books to have as they discuss some of this matter and why certain cities were designed the way they were.


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## Ravana (Dec 4, 2011)

I wouldn't bother with the Kostof: it's got about twenty useful pages in the whole 350-page text. And about five times as much pushing his agenda or theories. Glance through it at a library and move on.


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## Leif GS Notae (Dec 4, 2011)

Ravana said:


> I wouldn't bother with the Kostof: it's got about twenty useful pages in the whole 350-page text. And about five times as much pushing his agenda or theories. Glance through it at a library and move on.



Perhaps, but that is up for a reader to determine. Even if they only come across with twenty pages, it is still more than they had to start with. Besides, sometimes it is good to see an agenda to see why people are so fervent about an issue.

However, this is up to the reader.


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## Matthew Bishop (Dec 7, 2011)

One thing I like to do is let the environment of a certain place shape the essence of the city-- if the city is in some southern land with beautiful rolling hills of green and rushing waterfalls, you might add some unique creature (fireflies can be great inspiration for this, I used them for a few different things) that reflects the calm of the land. Conversely, to develop a similar "warm" feeling for a northern, bitter city, you'd want to devote your effort toward developing a culture of fireplaces, pubs, and close family (possibly too close in the bitter seasons, cause for some tension). In the southern city everything is outside-- the city is built with the expectation that people can move great distances in the course of a day. In a city where it is often or always very cold, the layout design of the city will keep in mind that people will not walk very far to get to any given place. This affects everything from the number of stories in a building to the size of an apartment or townhouse to how people behave with one another (lots of individual space as opposed to being locked in close quarters being the central cause of this).


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