Artonsville

Downtown Artonsville

Aquilia College 

https://opengeofiction.net/#map=15/-37.8163/142.9662

Artonsville is the capital of my project, though it has less people than Nenova. It's an isolated city center with a large connected suburban municipality, like a splintered Cheyenne, Grand Island, or Minot- by referencing those cities in particular I'm talking about lacking the small town air of some cities like Bismarck, Casper, Laramie... though the similarities are greater than the differences. The forked road in the downtown, molded into two primary one ways, is an unambitious addition, present in Grand Island, North Platte, Cheyenne, Greeley, etc. The "main street" is Capitol Boulevard, and the downtown radiates from these two axes. Follow either one and you leave downtown- but still see a lot of strip malls, isolated buildings, apartments, etc. Alleyways follow the Capitol Boulevard axis- suggesting that this was the first path of development. The grid system in the downtown is slanted to follow a rail line- one that wouldn't have led anywhere then, and leads hardly anywhere today, but early rail lines were built often without a major purpose. This finds itself in direct opposition to the PLSS system, which creates a grid clash, as you see in more than half of Midwestern cities but most abruptly in Western ones, such as those in Idaho or California. The position of the clash represents the time of development- if it is far out, like in Green Bay or Detroit (remember Michigan's PLSS is distorted, Dearborn is not "organic"), then the town center is usually, but not always, older. If it's close, like in Wausau or Saint Cloud, then the town center is usually newer, though not "new". Cities that don't follow it at all can't be dated using this method. They could be very old or brand new. Small towns and Texas don't follow this logic. We can then estimate that this town, with a good distance of tilted grid, is older, booming in the early 1800s. This is why Artonsville is the capital, and not Nenova, which is several decades newer. We can also assume that its declined- though I'll cover industry in some later blog post because there are a lot of interesting points to make.

In the downtown are the necessary executive implements, both on the county and state levels. Not only is there a capitol building, but an administrative annex, a hospital, department of energy headquarters, and a good many more departments that are untagged. The town was originally called Muir, whose house is preserved behind the capitol, but was renamed after Nathaniel Arton- a controversial figure in Aquilian history, though I haven't sketched it out well. It's likely that there was something like the Colorado War involved in taking the galena, bauxite, and silver rich mountains of the Aquilian Piedmont and the fertile prairies of the Akogama Valley that explains why native reservations are relegated to scrublands in the northeast. In any case, his statue is still standing (unlike our real-world Columbus' statue of Columbus), though it's not without graffiti. Maybe there's an ongoing movement to change the name, like there is in Columbus, but there wouldn't be much of a way to show that, except maybe a few restaurants with contradictory names. 

Otherwise, the downtown is stocked with restaurants and other shops with huge amounts of parking, as there is absolutely no public transport and only a few sidewalks. There are several banks, but otherwise, the city is pretty sleepy. Without the North Dakota sign, it'd probably look not unlike Minot:

By Bobak Ha'Eri - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6912943

Aquilia College is a small liberal arts college, not a university, founded by Jens Millards (whose statue is still visible by the Food Bank). I haven't finished mapping it, but eventually it will be renowned for its agricultural sciences program, but not much else. There are still a few dorms and a cafeteria on the map, and as with any college it contains an overwhelming number of pathways, particularly in its green.

In the future, I'll present Sidney Yards, and some of the bauxite (aluminum) refineries. But for now,

Thanks for reading,

Jacob