Creating Interesting Cities

[Centerfield97]

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?

 

[Ravana]

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.

 

[writeshiek33]

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

 

[Ravana]

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.)

 

[Phoenix]

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!

 

[Devor]

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.

 

[Terra Arkay]

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.

 

[SeverinR]

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.

 

[Hans]

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.

 

[Ravana]

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.

 

[Elder the Dwarf]

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.

 

[Kevlar]

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?

 

[Ravana]

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): €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.

 

[Devor]

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)

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.

 

[Shadoe]

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.

 

[TWErvin2]

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.

 

[writeshiek33]

i am having trouble creating city

 

[Seth son of Tom]

great posts! this thread definitely gives me some ideas!

 

[Devor]

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.

 

[Ravana]

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 Besançon.)

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.