Diamond City
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Diamond City is a fictitious city that is used as a location for many of escalatorgeek881's buildings.
Contents |
Overview
Diamond City is located near the southwestern corner of Hugowinston, and itself is the largest city in the province. The city, unlike most large cities in the province, is highly nuclear, with at least 70% of its population in its downtown area (that is, anything within its beltway) and seeing little growth in its suburbs (with the exception of the Crystal-Charlemagne area). Also, Diamond City, unlike many other large cities in the province, is not part of any major megalopolis. Diamond City does, however, have one neighboring city about 20 miles north of the city, Woodland, but a developmental gap exists between the two cities, almost suggesting that the cities exist in their own metropolitan areas. Diamond City is a major player in corporate business, mining (along the drop-off cliffs at the Lake Decoda coastline), agriculture, transportation, and especially culture and tourism, with the city attracting more tourists and than any other city in the province. Also, due to the huge mining business, the city is highly competitive in a wide variety of industries, with car manufacturing and steel production being the two largest. Culturally, the city is huge on music and fashion, both accounting for the construction of venues of mind-blowing size (one example being the Diamond City Concert Hall with 9 audience tiers and as many seats as a football stadium, and another being Diamond City Mall with four retail levels, 9 anchor stores, and an indoor amusement park).
The city is divided into 12 buroughs...
- Helium (hotel and tourism)
- Neon (residential district)
- Argon (central-business district)
- Krypton (new central-business district)
- Xenon (culture)
- Radon (research)
- Impacity (huge freeway junction)
- Ellis (western portion of city)
- Charlemagne (rich neighborhood to the southeast)
- Perimeter (new retail developments to the south)
- Emerald City (government housing projects)
- Ellisport (port and beach town west of the city)
History
Diamond City began as a boom town called Ellis, which now the name is given to the westernmost borough of Diamond City. The town was already prominent in trading, due to temperate climate and good agriculture.
Mining Age
In 1836, a group of curious explorers came across a deep cave about 6 miles north of Ellis. After traveling into the cave, the explorers discovered huge natural diamond reserves. Geologists claim that these reserves were formed several million years ago when volcanic activity (which then was active near Lake Decoda), formed the East Decodic Plateau. The discovery of these diamonds caused a stampede of money seekers to travel to Ellis and mine out these diamonds. Eventually the cave ran out of diamonds, but several mining companies would continue to dig into the plateau edge along the Decodic coast and extract diamonds.
This series of events caused a population explosion in Ellis, which was then incorporated as a city, by 1850. Many companies built their headquarters in the east side of Ellis, which would evolve into the central business district of Diamond City people know today. Because of this, the new central-business district was named "Diamond City", due to the fact the city formed due to the Diamond Rush, and was incorporated as its own city.
By 1900, several skyscrapers began to pop up in the business district (which is now the Argon borough), and more and more companies would be attracted to the city, due to the perfect climate, lack of crime, and growing vitality of the city and the port.
Culture Age
Diamond City would experience another stage in growth. The interest in diamond mining began to decline due to the cost of digging to the reserves, and due to various environmental issues. After the end of the Mining Age of Diamond City, the city began to experience what is said as the biggest cultural boom of all time throughout the world. The Culture Age of Diamond City began in the 1920’s, and involved the growth of what is now Diamond City’s Xenon borough, which would contain shops, residences, several malls, and other cultural venues such as theaters, clubs, and several restaurants. This would bring in yet another wave a people by 1940, which would spark development of luxury and modest residences, forming Diamond City’s Neon borough.
By 1950, new interests in scientific research would again bring more people into Diamond City. Several research facilities would be built near the University of Hugowinston located on the east side of Diamond City, which would form Diamond City’s Radon borough. By 1970, Diamond City would evolve into one of the biggest research and learning hubs. Over time, the city would continue to grow tremendously, with new developments to be seen in today Diamond City’s Krypton and Helium boroughs, some of which would involve huge hotels and multi-purpose skyscrapers.
Suburban Growth Problems
Over its entire history, Diamond City has seen little growth in its suburban areas. This issue is amplified by the fact the city annexed Ellisport, Charlemagne (the city's richest neighborhood), and recently the new Perimeter neighborhood (which was Diamond City's most successful suburban development), leaving the city with very few large suburban neighborhoods. The northern suburbs of Diamond City, already affected by the rough landscape, suffered issues with crime and economic troubles. On a good note, the Diamond City International Airport has boosted some development in retail and hospitality in the nearby town of Hasbro. The northwestern neighborhoods of Diamond City has also developed successful subdivisions, although many of them were middle to lower-class. The eastern suburbs of Diamond City took the worst hit in Diamond City's suburban woes, with several attempts in the 1970s to develop successful neighborhoods only to end up unfinished due to the developers running bankrupt, leaving several vacant or abandoned buildings that would attract crime. Because of this, developers were afraid of building anything east of Diamond City, leaving a void with a few little spots of development. The southern suburbs were the most successful in developing, but were limited by the nearby provincial border, which requires border checks to cross due to national law. Because this slows traffic, many people refused to commute across the border to Diamond City, halting any development south of the border. However, existing neighborhoods, such as Crystal, were able to develop into cities of their own. The west side of the city could not develop in a large scale due to the mountainous landscape that exists near the Lake Decoda coastline.
There was so much growth in Diamond City by 1990 that the city began to run out of room. It is still unknown why the city is still failing to develop successful suburbs (other than Crystal and Perimeter). What is even worse is that Diamond City is planning to annex Crystal into the city as a borough, leaving the city with no major suburban communities.
