Urban Design of Your Cities?

[Vitius]

So, what is your cityscape like? Does it vary, or is a common element seen in most of your cities?

Vitius is a large nation filled with mountains and a harsh, freezing climate. Many cities are built upon small flat pieces of land; most cities have very large populations, filled with skyscrapers that are sometimes built into the sides of mountains.

However, arches and small (heated) plazas often dot the landscape of Vit cities. Buildings are usually seen with glass coatings that are usually scrubbed down with an anti-freezing element. A tudor revival style of architecture is also highly popular. As mandated by the Federal Act of 1215, all government buildings must have domes.

What about your nation?

[Meowfoundland]

Apart from the major (by Meowfoundland, small by world standards) cities of Tonkinaise and Erinienstadt, all urban centres in Meowfoundland are small and generally comprise mainly of stone or brick townhouses, or cottages. Major public buildings in the capital and cities other than Tonkinaise are either in a Neoclassical or Gothic Revival style, while Tonkinaise's buildings are generally much more modern, incorporating steel frames and plate glass to create a modern look for the nation's largest city.

[Dagnia]

Without zoning laws and not much in the way of building codes, our cities grow rather organically. Our cities are filled with skyscrapers, most classical design styles are frowned on in favor of futuristic modern style architecture. Art Deco is one of the few old styles that is common.

[Maraque]

Tsvarchi is a planned city, with clearly defined commercial, residential, and industrial zones formed around a grid pattern of streets and avenues. The nation's architecture is cutting edge modern, with the majority of buildings being very sleek with predominantly glass facades made of steel in very intricate design elements with a lot of curvature - they're also very tall, which a small nation of 14 billion demands since we've all but built out, so we must build up.

Every few blocks there is a pedestrian plaza ("Party Square"), which is usually set around an avenue where all types of commerce and partying goes on. There is also a specific area for people to cool off with water spouts and a misting machine. The most famous of these pedestrian plazas ("Party Squares") is Tsvarchi Square - known for its rave party atmosphere every hour of the day, with its mud pit and wrestling cages. It also has a stage for concerts.

The city itself being a union of eight individual cities ("boroughs") with their own individual cultures and traditions, each borough has a distinct style. The wealthiest boroughs like Darkaan will tend to have a more modern and much more swanky architecture and amenities, while poorer boroughs like Cuerak, which is still nice, will have older buildings and a 'less than' infrastructure.

Tsvarchi is a largely flat city, with the occasional elevation change, with the only remarkably different elevation changes happening in Darkaan, which is a very mountainous and hilly borough, and so buildings tend to be built upon those hills and beside towering mountain ranges (and in Darkaan specifically some skyscrapers are actually taller than the mountains they're built beside).

Tsvarchi's landscape also has a series of lakes and rivers, which sometimes intersect streets and avenues. Instead of building bridges to go directly across, a highway system was constructed along these rivers and lakes as to prevent damage to the ecological system with a series of bridges sprawled out across the waterway over a series of several crossing it. In these areas outdoor cafes are abundant because Tsvarchivans love the water and will usually go for a dip after a cup of tea.

In each residential zone there is a farmers' market and small commercial center for people to just run quickly to the store, instead of head out downtown to the bigger urban centers. There's also parkland in every neighborhood. This keeps wildlife in the area and allows for the people and animals to co-exist together. The residential zone also has its own neighborhood orientated fire station and police station, which serves just that community.

Commercial zones are a stones throw away from residential zones, so people don't have to travel but just a few blocks from their home to go shopping for their daily needs and wants. The commercial zones are a 'buffer zone' between residential and industrial zones, which have to remain a certain distance away from each other, to maintain land values in the residential zones, but to also keep the residents happy who may not like an industrial campus right on their doorstep.

[Gallade]

Due to the freezing temperatures experienced in the Galladian Empire, cities tend to be large, sheltered and densely populated. Other than that, urban design differs greatly. Older, more traditional cities, such as the capital of Bastioforre, have both an upper and lower city. In times long past, the upper and middle classes resided in the upper city, while working and lower classes lived in the lower city, or slums. This still holds true to this day.

In newer cities, such as Camp Beauford or Fenturra, cities are planned, linear and divided into districts. The upper and middle classes reside in the more central districts, while the working and lower classes live either in high-rise apartments near the outskirts, or underground chambers beneath the city.

[The Matthew Islands]

Luton is a very old city, so much of its centre is narrow and cramped, however as it has expanded, from about 1950, most of the new areas added to the City are planned and designed to for maximum efficiency and space usage.

In modern times many of the buildings in the centre of the city are occupied by government agencies, while businesses are usually located further out in business centres. Some still operate in the centre but to combat congestion, the cars are banned from the city centre, except emergency vehicles and those with a special license. Instead a cheap and effective underground operates throughout the city with large protected multi story car parks located outside the city.

This has proved immensely effective in combating congestion and crowding, and its now repeated across most of The Matthew Islands cities.

Newer cities, such as those in the colonies, are planned from the offset.

[Bears Armed]

Our 'cities' aren't very large, in fact the largest three's populations are only between 100'000 & 150'000k each -- even by the most generous [reasonable] definitions of their extents -- and all of the others are smaller than this. (However, note that the country's actual population is a lot lower than the World Survey claims).
There have traditionally been few 'zoning' or 'planning' rules, so businesses and residences are often intermingled, but then we don't have much in the way of [seriously] polluting industries anyway. Also, the older parts of the cities tend to have been built primarily for pedestrians and so the roads there are therefore not necessarily suitable for powered vehicles to use at any real speed.
Most buildings are only 2 or 3 storeys tall, with 5 or 6 as the normal upper limit apart from some official buildings (including old fortifications) and temples... A few new hotels are a bit taller than this, but most of those are (and are legally required to be) on the outskirts & surrounded by reasonably wide exapanses of parkland. Construction is generally in brick or stone, nowadays, although some timber or timber-framed buildings still survive from earlier times, with those new hotels (and maybeso some nations' embassies) as the main exceptions that use more 'modern' materials instead.
There are LOTS of trees.

[D-16]

Cities in D-16's rule tend to be on the massive side, when comparing to modern Human cities. Unlike human cities as well, height is not the biggest part of the cities, many buildings only being 40 feet above ground. Large cities tend to be around 200,000 to 400,000 Km on Earth, all easily visible in space. Small cities, in comparison, are the size of normal human cities, of course lacking the height that some major urban areas hold. There is no artistic design with the buildings, many being box or circle shaped for easy production. Factories tend to be the only buildings in large cities however, with smaller buildings made for housing biological slaves and situating super computers...

[ArghNeedAName]

In ArghNeedAName, we don't buy into high-rise architecture that much. The plains where much of our nation exists are subject to earthquakes. Because the ground is made largely of deposited silt, it shakes like jelly when an earthquake happens, which can easily destroy towers. Although new technology has enabled skyscrapers to spring up in some districts of cities, such as the Financial District of Ankh Morpork and Hilltown in Psuedopolis, the city cores are usually low rise. The term 'low rise' is a bit misleading, since nearly all buildings in central Ankh Morpork are at least 6 stories tall.


(Buildings in central Ankh Morpork, with flats located above the shops)

The city centres tend to be populated, with people living in flats above shops. In small cities, usually only the owners of the shop will live above it, but in large shops will have a number of flats beneath them let out to students, single people and low-income families. Outside the centre will be suburban housing. The inner suburbs are characterised by tightly packed rows of terraced housing. Tower blocks are almost none-existant. The government began a tower block building program in the early 1960s to replace slums, but after the 1964 Bismouth Earthquake, it was stopped and most were demolished.


(Terraced houses in Westwood, Psuedopolis just a few miles outside the city centre)

As you head further out, the suburbs became gradually less densely populated, house prices and paychecks go up, and terraced houses become replaced by semi-detatched houses, then by detatched houses. The "Semi Detatched Belt" is often used to refer to the dividing line between the terraced houses of the inner suburbs and the detatched houses of the outer suburbs. However, this convention isn't always the case.


(suburbs on the outskirts of the medium-sized city of Thorbad)

The concept of "zoning" doesn't really exist. You rarely get business parks within cities, instead the offices are either in the city centre or dotted around. Suburbs often have high streets where their own shops and businesses are concentrated.

When it comes to transport, our cities are often congested. City centres and inner suburbs were generally built without consideration for the car, which is why parking is so difficult to find. Outer suburbs usually have higher car usage, but even there we have high usage of public transport. We have 32 tram/light rail networks, 12 commuter rail networks and 5 metro networks. Every town with a population of 30,000 will also have a comprehensive bus network.

Only our largest cities will have grade seperated highways running through them. The most famous is the Ankh Morpork inner ringroad, a busy 8-lane motorway around the city centre. Cars drive at 80mph when they're not hindered by congestion, slipways come flying off both sides of the highway and one wrong turn could easily send you off in the wrong direction.

[Maximinia]

here's what our small towns look like above ground...

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/02/fa/dc/the-park-across-the-street.jpg

And underground

The standard suburban housing system works like this...

This middle class home holds four families comfortably

and looks like this...

[Imperial DaiHan]

Without zoning laws and not much in the way of building codes, our cities grow rather organically.Our cities are filled with skyscrapers, most classical design styles are frowned on in favor of futuristic modern style architecture. Art Deco is one of the few old styles that is common.

This. Only, rather than your nasty art deco stuff, we use beautiful, traditional Central Asian architecture alongside rather dumpy apartment buildings, creating a strange effect in which a city's downtown area will be dotted with pagodas and arfully designed federal buildings, somehow decreasing crime rates. Some areas which are inconvenient to build on are simply left alone, creating large gaps of dense forest cutting into the center of heavily populated cities from their edges.

Truly a sight to behold.

[Gratslova]

Our cityscapes are a perfecting marriage of our old architecture of large stone buildings adorned with carvings and lavish bell towers and modern skyscrapers of glass and steel. Over the years these two elements have intertwined and made up some truly and stunningly diverse cities.

[Saurisisia]

Our cities are extremely varied in architecture and style, with many buildings being of one architectural style or another.

[TurtleShroom]

Our cities are extremely varied in architecture and style, with many buildings being of one architectural style or another.

^ This.


However, most TurtleShroom cities are one of two things. Either they are as cramped as Tokyo or as hick-town rural as Mayberry. Most "cities" in TurtleShroom are little towns and villages that are incorporated. These usually have a city hall, a fire station, a police station, and either a public or privatized post office, depending on the tastes of the council.

TurtleShroom's capital, Jonesboro, is the nicest and most well-designed city. It's built like the city of Savannah, Georgia, in that the city is divided into perfect little squares and the buildings are set in there. The roads crisscross every which way, but it's very orderly because of the way it's built.
However, this uniformity is shattered because of the nation's capitol. Remember the Capitol Issue? I chose the amusement park option. This means that, in the dead center of the capital, is a big amusement park with rides, roller coasters, vendors, and all sorts of things mixed in with governmental offices.
The legislative building, five stories tall, has roller coasters going in, out, and through it, as well as rides that take them through the balconies to view debate. The Senators (TS' lawmakers) are used to the noise by now, but still, that rollercoaster going straight through the main chamber is annoying to say the least.

The amusement park is called "Capitol Land".

[Helghast empire]

[Lelf]

Our cities are generally small in size but large in population. We have many skyscrapers in each city, the current highest has 314 floors and is 3,561 feet tall. To find a building with less than 40 floors is rare.

[Polkopia]

Our cities are mostly coastal so we don't really have many skyscrapers. People generally own a 2-story building. The first floor is usually a store where people sell whatever they grow or catch. The second floor is where they make their living.

[BrightonBurg]

Neo-Classical is very popular,so are brownstones,and lots of other brickwork,so is this!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture

[Octabrinaland]

Our standard city design in based upon the Hoyt model.

[The Planet Carpathia]

< South | North >

Forthaven (our only city) was not built with any one distinct plan from the outset but it has become distinctly more ordered as time has progressed. The South and East of the city is primarily residential, with industry being centered around the West and North West of the city. The Core (the large ship type structure in the centre of the image) is in the North East quarter of the city and houses most of the Government's structures including the medical centre and General Council's meeting room (though if it becomes an elected assembly the Council will have to be moved, owing to it instantly outgrowing it's current quarters which will serve as cabinet meeting rooms and committee meeting rooms). The North of the city is largely utilities, notably the solar electricity generation plants, as well as some medium to light industry.

[Chernobyl-Pripyat]

Lots of high rise housing units that stretch for around 2 blocks in length. There's a 200 meter spacing between each, which contains a wooded area which is not maintained by anyone, or a paved market area. Commercial areas are often mixed in, with many two or 3 story buildings being the typical shop or venue. Industrial areas are always in the outskirts of town, down river if possible. Citizens in suburbs live in smaller scale apartments or private houses. Some larger cities have color theme with buildings, to assist in common confusion due to some cities being somewhat identical. Public transport was designed to be most convenient, so street cars, under and above ground trains and buses are common sight.

The typical housing unit has anywhere between 1 and 3 bedrooms, a living room/kitchen and a bathroom. The complex has a common room on each floor, and lifts in a central area. Unknown to most, many of these apartments are heavily reinforced concrete, built in the 80's and 90's for the cities defense against potential invaders.

[Seperate Vermont]

Locales in Vermont are designed via necessity, and are usually centered around a small square and township hall. Burlington, the only real incorporated area deserving of the term "metropolitan area", has 50,000 people and is not planned, although it hasn't been growing since 2009/2010. Zones do not exist, mainly because Vermont is rural and has roughly half a million prople

[Syreene states]

Urban planning in the Confederacy of Syreene States centers on walkability, the accessibility of mass transit, community creation, and quality of life for the residents. So, there are high densities and massive amounts of Green space. Sprawl is considered undesirable, and High-rise buildings are extremely common.
As shown in the annotated hypothetical site plan below.

Examples of site plans, extant neighborhoods and the general mixed architectural styles of the neighborhoods.

[West Cork and Kerry]

This is a map of the New Killarney area. New Killarney is the capital of West Cork and Kerry and has around 600,000 inhabitants.

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g39 ... larney.png

In the urban areas there are many high rise office, apartment and hotel buildings, the highest being An Saol Nua (New Life) with 70 stories and at a height of 280 m, which houses the flagship hotel of the WCK Presidential hotel. The penthouse at the very top, taking up 4 stories is owned by the president, though not his main residence.



In the suburbs, there are two main types of housing: modern and traditional style.





There is a very reliable Metro system which has 45 stops around the city, a heavy rail connection to the rest of Ireland, and a MagLev Connection to Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Great Britain.

There are two orbital motorways, one weaving around the city centre, and one circling the entire city.

[Bensyltonia]

Based off the massive population numbers we see in NS I would say a fairly average NS city would look like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNYuysU3DCg&feature=related or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRaUatGBxuk