Aethelcatt VIII
Active Member
On the surface, my city is booming these days, with bigger and fancier buildings going up left and right. Underneath the surface, though, I’m beginning to sense a serious housing crisis brewing.
Back in the days when we only had dirt trails in the city and there were no buildings more than one story tall, everybody lived in a house. Granted, for quite a while those houses were just cheaply built little huts, but at least they were what the Census Bureau would classify as “residential buildings,” and at 14 people per unit, it was quite manageable for the average household.
Then, as the city began to grow rapidly, urban overcrowding reared its ugly head. First we had 32 people living in one chalet, then we had 73 in a small cottage, then 111 in a clapboard house, and finally up to 156 in a townhouse. Since we are stuck in the Middle Ages without the benefit of running water and indoor plumbing, I can only imagine the stench in those crowded quarters.
And the rich and powerful are not faring much better. In the best neighborhood in my city, there is a beautiful edifice known to the locals as the lord’s manor. With its tall French roof and tall semi-basement, the elegant manor looks quite spacious—until you factor in the fact that a full 600 people are living in it. I doubt the lord would be very pleased with that situation.
But it gets worse than that these days. As more and more houses get “phased out” in our ongoing urban renewal efforts, more and more people have resorted to living where they work, worship, or entertain themselves. According to the most recent census results, we have 688 people living in a watermill and another 1,031 living in a bigger watermill next door. More alarmingly, a total of 2,500 of our hardworking citizens have reportedly taken up residence on two Ferris wheels. I mean, Ferris wheels, for goodness’ sake!
I’m glad we do not have code enforcement in the city yet, but I have spent many a sleepless night worrying about the safety of those folks on the Ferris wheels. After all, our medieval builders and craftsmen are not particularly known for the quality of their engineering and metal work.
And it gets worse even than that. Those people at least have a roof over their heads and walls around them, even if it is just a thin metal sheet. What about the 750 men, women and children who live at the druid temple, where there is only a stone altar to shield their bodies from the bitter winter gale? Or the 412 people who list one of the two royal marble gateways as their home? Legally and technically, I’m pretty sure they would have to be classified as being homeless. The design, construction and appearance of the gateways certainly live up to their “royal” moniker, but as living quarters, you have to admit that they are really not all that different from a freeway overpass.
Being a very concerned city administrator, I decided to study the problem in depth—and went international about it. After a survey of many other cities of various sizes, ages and levels of prosperity, what I found out is that the problem is much more prevalent in the more advanced societies than in developing countries. In the Third World cities (you know, those cities that you automatically think of when a quest asks you to “win three battles” or “defeat 20 units”), as it turned out, people tend to live in traditional residential neighborhoods with neat rows of houses and cottages—nothing fancy, but certainly the kind of environment where you would want to raise your children rather than on a Ferris wheel.
In contrast, many of the more advanced cities no longer provide traditional residential units to their loyal citizens but relegate them to live on board pirate ships or blimps, in crow’s nests and, yes, on Ferris wheels. One fellow city administrator recently told me that in order to build a gigantic federal penitentiary in his city he had to order the demolition of the last few remaining houses and let all the displaced residents live in prison cells instead, which by no means could have been a very popular decision among the affected people.
Here, I’d like to pose this question to the kings and queens of cities in the developed world: Do you really need to deprive a three-year-old the opportunity to ride a tricycle on the front lawn of his house, or ignore the need of a mother to visit her son in a neighboring residence without worrying about the danger of falling to her death from the top of a Ferris wheel, just to put up an outlandish monster of a building called an “arc” or a cathedral that brings you nothing but money and military might? In a more humane society, I believe the correct answer is “no.”
While we are at it, I don’t think you really need all those bulky and unsightly military buildings in your cities either. But that’s just my opinion—from deep down in the conscience of a fellow city builder and administrator.
Back in the days when we only had dirt trails in the city and there were no buildings more than one story tall, everybody lived in a house. Granted, for quite a while those houses were just cheaply built little huts, but at least they were what the Census Bureau would classify as “residential buildings,” and at 14 people per unit, it was quite manageable for the average household.
Then, as the city began to grow rapidly, urban overcrowding reared its ugly head. First we had 32 people living in one chalet, then we had 73 in a small cottage, then 111 in a clapboard house, and finally up to 156 in a townhouse. Since we are stuck in the Middle Ages without the benefit of running water and indoor plumbing, I can only imagine the stench in those crowded quarters.
And the rich and powerful are not faring much better. In the best neighborhood in my city, there is a beautiful edifice known to the locals as the lord’s manor. With its tall French roof and tall semi-basement, the elegant manor looks quite spacious—until you factor in the fact that a full 600 people are living in it. I doubt the lord would be very pleased with that situation.
But it gets worse than that these days. As more and more houses get “phased out” in our ongoing urban renewal efforts, more and more people have resorted to living where they work, worship, or entertain themselves. According to the most recent census results, we have 688 people living in a watermill and another 1,031 living in a bigger watermill next door. More alarmingly, a total of 2,500 of our hardworking citizens have reportedly taken up residence on two Ferris wheels. I mean, Ferris wheels, for goodness’ sake!
I’m glad we do not have code enforcement in the city yet, but I have spent many a sleepless night worrying about the safety of those folks on the Ferris wheels. After all, our medieval builders and craftsmen are not particularly known for the quality of their engineering and metal work.
And it gets worse even than that. Those people at least have a roof over their heads and walls around them, even if it is just a thin metal sheet. What about the 750 men, women and children who live at the druid temple, where there is only a stone altar to shield their bodies from the bitter winter gale? Or the 412 people who list one of the two royal marble gateways as their home? Legally and technically, I’m pretty sure they would have to be classified as being homeless. The design, construction and appearance of the gateways certainly live up to their “royal” moniker, but as living quarters, you have to admit that they are really not all that different from a freeway overpass.
Being a very concerned city administrator, I decided to study the problem in depth—and went international about it. After a survey of many other cities of various sizes, ages and levels of prosperity, what I found out is that the problem is much more prevalent in the more advanced societies than in developing countries. In the Third World cities (you know, those cities that you automatically think of when a quest asks you to “win three battles” or “defeat 20 units”), as it turned out, people tend to live in traditional residential neighborhoods with neat rows of houses and cottages—nothing fancy, but certainly the kind of environment where you would want to raise your children rather than on a Ferris wheel.
In contrast, many of the more advanced cities no longer provide traditional residential units to their loyal citizens but relegate them to live on board pirate ships or blimps, in crow’s nests and, yes, on Ferris wheels. One fellow city administrator recently told me that in order to build a gigantic federal penitentiary in his city he had to order the demolition of the last few remaining houses and let all the displaced residents live in prison cells instead, which by no means could have been a very popular decision among the affected people.
Here, I’d like to pose this question to the kings and queens of cities in the developed world: Do you really need to deprive a three-year-old the opportunity to ride a tricycle on the front lawn of his house, or ignore the need of a mother to visit her son in a neighboring residence without worrying about the danger of falling to her death from the top of a Ferris wheel, just to put up an outlandish monster of a building called an “arc” or a cathedral that brings you nothing but money and military might? In a more humane society, I believe the correct answer is “no.”
While we are at it, I don’t think you really need all those bulky and unsightly military buildings in your cities either. But that’s just my opinion—from deep down in the conscience of a fellow city builder and administrator.
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