OpenGeofiction
Like Norfolkadam and his city of Elmham > http://opengeofiction.net/#map=16/-36.6129/169.2046 which looks great I think, I’m trying to create better non-gridlike cities in my new country of Østermark. I’ll only have two sizeable cities, both of which I’ve started: the capitol, Mynninghamn > http://opengeofiction.net/#map=14/48.3941/158.2613 and the smaller Gråklosters > http://opengeofiction.net/#map=14/47.9323/157.6434.
I’m trying to take it slow, develop realistic natural features and other towns and villages in places that make sense, avoiding the temptation to build highways and railways to connect everything until I’ve built more habitations and put in more terrain.
My next challenge though is suburbs. I want my suburbs to mostly be depressing with unpleasant commercial centers and aging blocks of shoddy apartments, some of them monolithic. Østermark is not a rich country and it should be apparent in the many brownfields and sad suburbs.
Any tips on building suburbs? What differentiates them from city? What differentiates them from each other? What is characteristically suburban? (And I realize this is really, really broad and the answer really lies in looking at maps of cities that are like what I’m trying to create).
Discussion
Comment from Portopolis on 28 September 2015 at 16:15
It depends on which type of burbs your trying to make. This is my attempt of making American like suburbs but with also urban grid in he same area. http://opengeofiction.net/#map=13/14.0570/95.6301
This is the best example of American suburbs which are unlike most of the world were some of the richer residents live, while the immediate core is extremely rich next to extremely poor and the immediate semi periphery poor to lower middle class, while further out is middle class and extreme wealth. It seems like 60-90% of the population do not live in a core area. http://opengeofiction.net/#map=13/20.6476/86.7063
This is African type suburbs were core is nice and everyone else is poor, or a certain neighborhood in core is nice and maybe 1 or 2 nice suburbs with everyone being poor. The suburb here which I made is mostly poor to the north and dense but no more than 3 floors in a building. To the south due to historical reasons is the European built part of the city, with richer burbs and people. http://opengeofiction.net/#map=14/14.5928/96.2230
This is a European type burb where people could be poor or rich, depending on, who once to place who were, but you can see the clear difference between the core and outer areas. Notice that in these burbs spaces can make it seem like an almost distinct town that is just near a bunch of other towns. This is the European suburbanscape in my opinion, but it differs in different parts of Europe. http://opengeofiction.net/#map=11/51.5771/34.3508 For Latin America just look at Cities in Latina/ Villa Constitution or any of BMSouza cities. For me to make an area look poor you can use certain street lengths by making all the roads on the lower scale, a sudden lack of highways moving from on part of a city to another part of a city can make it look poorer or less developed so to speak, also a lack of grids and a terrible road system moving from the core to the outer areas like highways being degraded to tertiary roads etc. You could show this by making rough curving streets and lots of short streets instead of orderly suburbs.
osm.org/ Look at Paris/ Marseilles and London. Although since their large cities the bad sides aren’t clear cut you can see how street structure shift depending on where you are in the city.
Comment from Luciano on 29 September 2015 at 02:49
To be honest, I have a lot of trouble with suburbs, too. The issue comes down to the consequences of how they grow - which is roughly the same regardless of whether a country is rich or poor or in between. As cities grow, they are essentially unplanned. Suburbs emerge “bottom up” as a consequence of local decisions about development and planning or lack thereof - everything from favelas around Rio to “Rancho Estates” in Orange County, or the “New Cities” (신도시) which abound in Korea, the developments respond to preexisting geographies and cultural and political situations.
So… you can’t draw them without thinking about their history. Who made them? Why? Was it real estate developers? Was it poor people just moving in? Was it a central government responding to a housing shortage by throwing up a bunch of identical apartment blocks?
My current approach to solve this problem is to create a complete “geographical background” for the Ardisphere. Very slowly, I am trying to fill in the whole country with a “land use” map - farmland, forests, rivers, etc.
To do this, I’m putting in thousands of fairly small “land use” polygons, which I can later reassign as I grow my cities in a historical approach. If all the farms and forests and so forth are already there, then I can just go in and say, OK, this farm becomes residential, and add some streets. Repeat. A lot. I have begun doing this for my major city of Jeongto (Tierra Pura). It’s in very early stages, but I’m quite pleased with the approach so far.
http://opengeofiction.net/#map=12/-21.6611/124.5925
Comment from BMSOUZA on 29 September 2015 at 03:19
I am happy Portopolis mention me in this topic, hehehe
In fact, my countries are not rich ones. When I think about creating a poor place, I do one of two things:
1- I create a lot of irregular (not a perfect square) buildings, and a lot of highway=service (not a “usual” residential street), as I created in some areas in Paranabi, Cariocas.
2- I create highway=unclassified and landuse=residential, as in east Muryram, Goytakanya. This way, these areas looks like a “not-coloured” place.
A irregular grid of streets and a irregular landuse=residential in green areas remember me the major of the favelas here in Brasil too, but maybe it is so “radical” to Østermark.
Are just ideas…
Unfortunately, I never went out from Brasil yet, so, my inspiration are real places I know (I lived in São Gonçalo-RJ too —- Google Images about it, hahaha) or internet pictures…
Regards!! Bruno Moreira
Comment from isleño on 8 October 2015 at 17:30
You stole my answer, haha. :-) People make great stuff here, but I’d definitely recommend looking at real maps, over anything in OGF.
The transition from urban to rural is a difficult one, so difficult that a lot of people seem to ignore it completely. Too often in OGF we have cities that just end abruptly, bordering directly on large empty rural spaces. Sometimes this can happen in real life, but usually only with a major geographic obstacle like a mountain range or something.
In real life, the edges of most large cities are rather blurry. Instead of a sharp division between urban and rural, the “edge” of the city is often like a wide band, maybe even several kilometers in width, where the urban landscape gradually fades into a rural one. Along the arteries of transportation there will be a little more development, while away from those arteries there will be less.
When I’m drawing the edges of a city, I imagine the companies relocating a factory or warehouse out there, and the developers building residential subdivisions wherever they can buy land, mixed in with farmers and ranchers who want to hang on to their property and natural areas set aside by the local government.
In a way, I think the key is to imagine what’s happening in these places and just “play it out” on the map, if that makes sense. It’s not easy to do, but anyway… hope it helps.