Part 38: Fit the Thirty-Fourth : Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You

Fit the Thirty-Fourth : Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You


After the random acts of god over the past few years, as the city entered the Nineties it seemed like a good time to start a few other projects that had been on the drawing board for a while.


For instance, the southern tunnel. Not particularly cheap, but hell, we had the money, and it would provide a direct route between Snottingham and Greenfield.


Hopefully the bastards would use it.


As for the hill itself, we'd probably just plant lots of trees on it, as it looked particularly barren as things stood.


Meanwhile, just over in Greenfield, there were one or two issues to deal with.


Funkytown had seen its fourth city jail built in recent years to deal with an inexplicable crime wave over the last decade, but with that out of the way, the fourth had become a white elephant. Empty jails cost the same as full ones. Time to get rid of it.


At the same time, the first couple of incinerators, built in the early years, were becoming less efficient due to their age, and would need to be replaced.


For that Incinerator #1 in Greenfield was decommissioned and its replacement built in Devil's Corner - the region bound by the city limits and the freeway connections to City Name and Achewood.


Back to Snottingham Hill, a scenic route was being constructed up across the ridge. We'd also allow a few houses to be built there, but not at the expense of the look of the hill.


Way across to The Reach, the stretch of riverbank between Firetop and Boot Hill, more gaps were being filled in behind the freeway.


Further development was slated to continue north from Pismo Beach to what was provisionally called North Pismo.


1990 had turned out to be a busy year, with no calamities. And I was running out of ideas about what to do with all the money, though I guess something would turn up. Until then, we could waste money on stupid crap!


Like solar plants. Very clean, but very expensive. We had a few greenies in town insisting that we use these to replace the nuclear plants, but the footprint required to power the city with them would flatten a whole suburb.


Another milestone, with the city ticking over the 400,000 mark.


The greening of Snottingham Hill continued, with the scenic drive continued, some housing zones allocated around it, a windmill built to power them without the need for lines, and a lookout park placed on top. Very nice. It'd probably all burn down after the first bushfire, but that was a risk I was prepared to take!


The northern shore was not neglected either, with Boot Hill slowly being filled in as well.


Yeah, we were really rolling in it now.


More Boot Hill development...


... more uncovered bodies.


The subway network was a little behind the times. Here was something we could sink money into.


A northern loop was built, which would connect many of the northern suburbs with each other and into the centre of town.


We didn't really need a water filtration plant, though they'd been available for decades, as the water was relatively clean anyway.


But I decided to commission one anyway. Just to see what would happen.


Some good news for the kiddies, the city had been selected as one of the stops of the Candizilla festival with such leading alternative bands such as The Bashful Virgins, Deathbunny, Sandwichmaker and The Knights of Wotan coming to town.


Some big new edifices had emerged in the heart of town to join the usual suspects, this one gleamed in the sun.


There was a slightly more tasteful look to this one.


Everyone's favourite bureaucrat, Orville, finally made his return to town, offering a suggestion too mysterious for mere mortals to understand. Even I had trouble comprehending it.


Mortimer was sceptical...


And I agreed with the sentiment. Orville was crestfallen when I told him what I thought of his goddamned stupid-ass idea.


Oh, but we did build a solar plant. Just to see what it looked like. Gus had to sack one employee because he kept turning the mirrors around to burn ants, which, on top of the marshmallow episode, was a step too far.

The ridiculous ideas kept coming.

Wal. I have an excellent idea.

Hmmf. OK, what is it?



Let's have a parade, it's been so long since we had a parade, so let's have a parade! Let's invite all our friends and all our friends' friends! Let's promenade down the boulevards with terrific pride and light in our eyes, twelve feet tall and staggering, sick with joy with the angels there and light in our eyes.

... what? Randy, can you help me out here?



Brothers and sisters, hope still waits in the wings like a bitter spinster, impatient, lonely and shivering, waiting to build her glorious fires.

Neither of you are making any sense.

It's because of our plans man, our beautiful ridiculous plans!

Let's launch them like careening jetplanes, let's crash all our planes in the river.

Let's build strange and radiant machines at this Jericho, waiting to fall.

I'd rather not.



They can look at a calendar, like normal people. We'll celebrate Buy Nothing Day instead, is that OK with you?


In 1993, nothing much happened, aside from the usual tinkering around the edges.


Another incinerator had to be replaced.


So we did that.


Shifting more of the pollution burden from Greenfield to Devil's Corner.


And so another year ticked over.


The water treatment plant began to have an effect around the port. It had been surrounded by black sludge for goodness knows how long, but with the filtration it began to dissipate.


More interesting buildings cropped up, this one was a rather snazzy apartment block, very much in keeping with contemporary architecture. It would look really kitsch within the decade.


I made a radical decision to give Pompeii some breathing space by dezoning some of the sprawl and placing a row of playing fields in their place.


There was another quite big apartment block being built in the centre of town, but by the end of 1994 it had not been completed. Since I didn't handle building approvals, it was going to be as much a surprise to me as anyone else.


Same old, same old, massive profits, nothing interesting to spend it on. That might change soon.


The population had levelled off a bit, no doubt partly due to rezoning of established areas, at one point it was up to 425 thousand, but given that we were pretty much done with the rapid expansion, we'd probably reach the half million at a more leisurely place. Some of the residents were even reaching retirement age, which meant that the proportion of the population that worked would decrease, so we would need less jobs per head.


Not all the easily exploitable land had yet been covered, but given that I still wanted to retain buffer zones between residential areas and factories, there'd have to be more strategic planning as a whole. We still had a whole ridge to the east to cover when the north-west was finally subdued.


Land value at the centre of town was through the roof, though there were one or two pockets of lower incoming housing nearer to town - I wasn't sure what was causing it, but it was perhaps a good thing to have one or two bohemian quarters to give the city some diversity. At least until they got gentrified again.


I'll tell you one thing, though; damn, we had a lot of bridges.