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Modelston is a city and metro area of 150,000 people built in a forested environment.
Excepting the 5,000 (5%) of people living in apartments and 10,000 (10%) living in mobile home parks, the city has an enforced minimum lot size of 1/2 acre, with most houses being on that, 1 acre or 2 acres, and between 5 and 10 acres on the outskirts. Including all lands within city boundaries, there are 5 acres per household, of which there are about 30,000 other than apartments. This translates into a city size of 234.4 square miles or approximately 639 people per square mile.
Modelston is crafted around a grid pattern, with superblocks and minor blocks. Subdivisions are few; most people live on straight city-maintained roads or streets that connect to the grid in both directions. A good percentage of "city" roads are unpaved. Speed limits are generally high on roads; however, they also have wide shoulders on both sides for bike traffic and sidewalks.
The city has very lax zoning laws, and business permits are not required for light retail or even very light industry. People run a variety of businesses from their homes, ranging from auto shops to garden centers to small cafes. Spacious driveways or even makeshift parking lots are common.
Major retail, gas stations, etc. are centralized in strip malls, located along highway strips. Modelston's "downtown" is a combination of three "lifestyle centers" - basically inside-out malls. Large discount stores, category killers, and plenty of free parking surround the downtown area, as do apartment complexes. Office parks, on the other hand, are clustered around the city on the arterials that form superblock boundaries. Office parks generally have lush campuses, as do schools. For example, the city has two public high schools, one of which is on an 80-acre campus with nature trails and athletic facilities.
There is no regular public transportation service in the city other than school buses. Dial-a-ride is available for those who are unable to drive.
A high inhabitant-to-household rate often means that senior citizens live with their children or relatives live at the same address. A common arrangement is for the "secondary" residents to live out of a loft above a detached garage, a portion of a pole building, or a parked recreational vehicle. For example, the Johnson household could consist of two parents and two minor children, the father's youngest brother living in a travel trailer, and the mother's widower father living in a bedroom.
Because of the disperse nature of the city's population, life is less hectic but more private than in most cities. People tend to do things and entertain at their homes, which feature ample space, allowing most residents to engage in such space-intensive hobbies as amateur radio, hobby farming, and car collecting. Often one will find in Modelston several out-of-service or spare older cars. The legal age to drive in Modelston is 15, and by 16, most students have their own cars. Overall, the city has 1,100 cars per 1,000 residents. The North Side of town, less populated, has an extensive ATV trail network.
The city is more egalitarian than most, with few outstandingly rich residents and a decent mix of socio-economic classes throughout. One can generally tell the social class of the resident not by their neighborhood but by less delineated factors such as the presence of indoor furniture on porches and decks, the presence of cars on stands, and the size of their house and whether or not it is modular, and whether or not they have an outdoor pool and how large it is. The poorest generally live in mobile home complexes, two of which form the city's closest equivalent to a "ghetto", with high welfare recipient rates, poor quality housing, and youth gangs.
Crime rates are low in Modelston compared with similar-sized cities; the main concern of the local police are traffic accidents, which are quite frequent.
Sounds like you might be a redneck if you live in Modelston. Shares a good deal in common with Frederick, MD before the DC suburbs reached there, though your description has more of a newer, Midwestern feel.
Sounds like a city where they've tried to take full advantage of the autocentric model by emphasizing all of the advantages. Essentially, the perfect autocentric city with the best of that lifestyle, without any bones about trying to preserve the older urban model at all. It's an interesting thought experiment.
Sounds like an extension of a typical suburb that zones out lower income population and enforces the transportation policy that everyone drives everywhere. Or designed to be the urbanist's nightmare. Not a place I would like to live or work.
It kinda sounds like I place I used to live in down in Bolivia:
(not my picture BTW)
Minus the 1/2 acre lots, trailers (mud brick is cheaper) and low crime rate. Oh, and you know who's rich by finding out who works for the cartels, not by checking for "redneck decorating skills".
Sorry, my percentages are wrong. 10,000 out of 150,000 is 6.7% (the trailer-inhabiting population) and 5,000 is 3.3% (the apartment-inhabiting population).
Signs like cars on stands and indoor furniture on decks are indicative of a family that is lower on the socio-economic rung. The presence of a pool is a sign that one is middle-class or higher; a large pool or pond, or both, is a sign of an upper-middle class person.
Speed limits are generally high on roads; however, they also have wide shoulders on both sides for bike traffic and sidewalks.
the main concern of the local police are traffic accidents, which are quite frequent.
The picture you paint is of a city with high pedestrian and bicyclist accident and fatality rates. Wide shoulders make drivers more comfortable, which leads to higher speeds. Higher speeds mean that not only does a driver have less time to react, but the force imparted on the impactee will be much higher.
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