Building The City

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XXII - Ardthorpe

The former Urban District of Ardthorpe was incorporated, against the wishes of its inhabitants,  into Stovesby in 1953. The UD comprised the industrial towns of Ardthorpe and Donsett (home to a large steelworks), two pit villages and an overspill estate. There are serious concerns about industrial pollution in the west of the district. The area is heavily industrial and utterly Working Class and, unsurprisingly given its three collieries, local politics is dominated by the Miners union. The old Ardthorpe UD was a Socialist stronghold (the Party typical won all contested seats with the exception of the occasional Independent or Independent Socialist) something that has not changed with incorporation.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XIX - Hellsby Wood

The parish of Hellsby Wood was added to Stovesby in the same boundary changes which brought in Ardthorpe. It was originally part of Saltforth Rural District and is largely fields and wasteland. There are old industrial facilities on the boundary with Ardthorpe, a few farmhouses, the Hellsby Colliery and a few rows of terraced housing near the pit. That's about all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XI - Sanker

Largely developed in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Sanker is a mixture of by-law terraces and (near the river) industrial facilities, including several large factories. It is an unremarkable Working Class district with strongly Socialist voting patterns and no serious social problems. Local politics is dominated by the Engineering union.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

V - Shaddyside

Its name apparently a result of its position under the cliffs, the Shaddyside is a large and diverse area largely developed between 1820 and 1880 and is Stovesby's traditional immigrant district. A majority of people in the district are of Irish descent, but was also the historic home of the city's Jews. The tradition of immigration has continued and the Shaddyside now has the largest population of Commonwealth migrants in the city. Housing is of a decidedly mixed quality, ranging from crumbling slums to Stovesby's first council houses (which are generally of a very high quality). The area was once a Liberal stronghold but has voted Socialist since the 1920's (with the exception of 1931). Political life is, however, decidedly fractious and internal stich-ups and messy deselections have become common.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

X-Stovesby Island

Stovesby Island was once an unassuming stretch of saltmarsh to the southwest of Stovesby. Industrialisation brought major changes; the construction of the inner docks and the Ship Canal seperated the area from the mainland and the area was turned over to purposes of heavy industry. The waterfront of the largest of the inner docks, Leip Dock, is on Stovesby Island as are many facilities relating to the massive outer docks. Stovesby Island is also home to a vast landscape of warehouses and small factories and foundaries, as well as a large modern steelworks. The area is connected to the mainland by two bridges, a railway bridge into the heart of Stovesby and a road bridge linking Stovesby Island to the homes of the bulk of its workforce in Isaacstown and Sanker. But Stovesby Island is not without a resident population; when the docks were built so to were houses for dockers, generally of an appalling quality and small size. Most of these were bombed out during the War, but some survive and remain in a dreadful state. Stovesby Island has traditionally been united with Isaacstown for electoral purposes.

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XV - Outer Docks and Industrial Estates

There's no need to say much as no one lives here. The area includes the things that the name suggests (and also a coal-fired power station). It is probably Stovesby's economic hub, though was only incorporated into the city in fits and starts (between 1923 and 1952).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XVI - Eastridge

Eastridge is perhaps not the most interesting part of Stovesby. A largely rural area as late as the 1920's, it is now dominated by classic interwar suburbia (much of it ribbon development). Though there are a few small estates, it is largely owner-occupied and middle class. While affluent rather than rich and lower middle class rather than truely bourgeois, its residents are nonethless well aware of the social gulf between Eastridge and the likes of Shovington or even Upper Stovesby. Local politics in Eastridge has long been dominated by the Eastridge Residents Association, but votes solidly Tory in national elections. There is a Socialist vote in Eastridge, but it isn't large enough to win or even come close.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XVIII - Upper Stovesby

Upper Stovesby is not a name that many of the residents of this diverse slice of suburbia would use to describe where they live - the area includes owner-occupied suburbia from the interwar period and more recently, along with several 1930's council estates. It is, on balance, more working class than middle class but not by a massive amount. Plans exist for more council housing to be built in the area, but details have not been agreed on and the matter has stalled. Politically it contains a mixture of strongholds for both parties and an unusual amount of swing territory for a city as polarised as Stovesby.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XVII - Shovington

The pit village of Shovington was built in the middle of the nineteenth century, an active colliery remains in the area and much of the district still has the feel of a mining community. But Shovington changed beyond recognition in the 1930's as overspill estates physically linked the area to Stovesby and as a huge new industrial estate was developed north of the old village. As a mixture of council estates and miners cottages, Shovington is predictably Socialist. The Miners union remains a considerable force in local politics, though (unlike Ardthorpe) it doesn't have total control over candidate selection.

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XIV - Frodsby

Named for the former parish of Frodsby, this district is much like Eastridge being largely comprised of interwar suburbia and being large middle class. There are, however, several notable differences. The first is that it includes a large section of Wedlock Wood (leading, in turn, to higher property prices than Eastridge), the second is that there is no Residents Association in Frodsby. It is, however, not uniformly Conservative in municipal politics - the Municipal Liberal Association remains unusually active in the area and only lost its last councillor in 1951.

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XII - Gawther

Gawther is essentially a mixture of by-law housing and (towards its eastern end) interwar suburbia, including council estates. It is a largely working class area, but not to the extent of Sanker or Isaacstown (and has considerably higher average rates than both). Gawther only swung to the Socialists in 1945 and the Party has yet to consolidate its hold over it - it appears prone to bolt away from the Party in poor years (in contrast to the districts to its south) and concerns exist about the possibility of a backlash against the Commonwealth immigration into the neighbouring Shaddyside district. It is, however, one of the few usually Socialist parts of Stovesby where candidate selection is not dominated by union branches.

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II - Chamberlain

Chamberlain was Stovesby's first real suburb - an area built to allow the bourgeoisie to escape from the industrial fumes of St Jude's and the noise, small houses and horse dung of the old town. Large houses with huge gardens were initially the norm, though as time went by the area became more and more a perfect example of villa suburbia. The University of Stovesby has been based in Chamberlain since 1882 and its foundation can perhaps be seen as the high point of Chamberlain's existence. Since the end of the First World War things have started to change. Many Chamberlain residents were no longer satisfied with life in villadom and moved out into the new suburbs. The area is moving downmarket over the longterm, a process that has been accelerated by the development of a new red-light district on the Chamberlain side of the old town walls. The leadership of the Municipal Conservatives have concerns about the longterm safety of what was once their greatest stronghold, but have not voiced this in public.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

XXI - Hellsby

Hellsby is the largest building site in the city. Although home to several 1930's estates it remained largely rural until recently - when the city council decided that it was the idea location for a massive council estate, larger even than Willow Tree. House by house and year by year, the Hellsby plan is coming into fruition... though criticisms have been levelled at the slow pace of construction.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...so we just need SMC Ltd.* to do its job and Stage One will be complete. Yay

*Smid Metalworking and Construction. See what I did there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Couple of notes...

1. I'm working on a provisional ward map at the moment (won't be final until Smid develops the last district).

2. I'm also making changes to the rules to make the game more intimate (so that the game can easily be played with only a small handful), more unknowable (so that much of what goes on will go on between the players only - the GM will not be party to deals between one PC and another) and easier to run in general.

Anyway...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The provisional ward map:

As the game moves on, the ward map will change. At this stage the oldest parts of the city are heavily over-represented - this won't be the case later on.



I'll explain a bit about how wards will work in the game now, just because.

Basically, there will be no registration by ward. Instead, you will register by district... and not only where your PC lives, but (if you want) where they work, where they own property and so on. Essentially, in order to run in a ward in a given election a PC will have to have some formal link to the district that it is in. Only residence must be on the 'white' form - the rest can all be kept on the 'black' (private) form if you wish. In order to stand in a given ward you must be selected as a candidate for that ward - I'll probably waive this for the first election and it will usually be a formality in later ones (though not always).

There will be three councillors per ward - the overwhelming will be NPC's, obviously.

[Smid]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=102332.msg2189369#msg2189369 - Just so you can see what I've done. Am happy to adapt it if necessary (travelling for the next few days, but after that). I'll delete this post later so it doesn't get in the way.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Other than St Albans perhaps being confused with St Albans, that's fine

[Smid]

Other than St Albans perhaps being confused with St Albans, that's fine

I'm not quite sure I follow. Is there a St Albans that is too famous for this to have one? There's a St Albans in Melbourne (which I presume was named after somewhere in Britain) which is a really working class area, but I always thought it sounded like a nice name.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Other than St Albans perhaps being confused with St Albans, that's fine

I'm not quite sure I follow. Is there a St Albans that is too famous for this to have one? There's a St Albans in Melbourne (which I presume was named after somewhere in Britain) which is a really working class area, but I always thought it sounded like a nice name.

Yeah, St Albans in Hertfordshire. Though St Alban or even St Alban's would cause no problems.

[Smid]

Other than St Albans perhaps being confused with St Albans, that's fine

I'm not quite sure I follow. Is there a St Albans that is too famous for this to have one? There's a St Albans in Melbourne (which I presume was named after somewhere in Britain) which is a really working class area, but I always thought it sounded like a nice name.

Yeah, St Albans in Hertfordshire. Though St Alban or even St Alban's would cause no problems.

Corrected!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A minor error - now fixed. Thanks.

[Platypus]

Can I propose a slight edit to IX? I'd like it to be my area of residence and to be a bit more focussed on docks and dockworkers. I'd suggest it to be the center f the Irish and Catholic presence in Stovesby, and dominated by a combination of the church and the G&TWU. There are certainly protestants in town, though, but no or very few immigrants.

I'd also suggest a name change if possible to East Stovesby, in keeping with the idea of it being built rapidly in the 1860s or so as the port grew and the area was developed as part of the expanision of Stovesby. I think it's important that the area Was built as an outlier that then just got accidentally surrounded by circumstance, but is still not culturally integrated with the rest of the city.

East Stovesby (or Port Stovesby or Newtown or whatever) would basically be somewhere that largely self-regulated; underfunded by the council with the difference largely made up by the church, it votes for the MSP but mainly because the MSP candidates are always Catholic in the area, and the other parties never nominate Catholics at all. I don't think reliion should play a major role in the game (certainly it should be a Protestant city) but the dockworkers should have a historical link to Ireland and a still firm link to the Catholic church.

It's 3:30am here so this might not be fully fleshed out, but let me know what you think.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Can I propose a slight edit to IX? I'd like it to be my area of residence and to be a bit more focussed on docks and dockworkers. I'd suggest it to be the center f the Irish and Catholic presence in Stovesby, and dominated by a combination of the church and the G&TWU. There are certainly protestants in town, though, but no or very few immigrants.

I'd also suggest a name change if possible to East Stovesby, in keeping with the idea of it being built rapidly in the 1860s or so as the port grew and the area was developed as part of the expanision of Stovesby. I think it's important that the area Was built as an outlier that then just got accidentally surrounded by circumstance, but is still not culturally integrated with the rest of the city.

East Stovesby (or Port Stovesby or Newtown or whatever) would basically be somewhere that largely self-regulated; underfunded by the council with the difference largely made up by the church, it votes for the MSP but mainly because the MSP candidates are always Catholic in the area, and the other parties never nominate Catholics at all. I don't think reliion should play a major role in the game (certainly it should be a Protestant city) but the dockworkers should have a historical link to Ireland and a still firm link to the Catholic church.

It's 3:30am here so this might not be fully fleshed out, but let me know what you think.

Not a bad idea actually (dockers were as often Irish Catholics in Britain as in your part of the world). What I'll probably do is split the area along the ward boundaries I drew, so that the area near the docks fits in with your description, while the bit further north sticks to Labour Aristocracy stereotypes.

I'll be putting all of these descriptions into an easy-to-get-through thread and some point (and changing a few minor details here and there to 'fit') later today, probably, so I'll do it there.

[Platypus]

Idea for a little bit more character within areas: suburbs.

Ta-Da! The Northwest. Obviously this isn't canon but I thought it might be a good idea. Also, the suburbs can change names if you don't like them. I tried to choose already listed names where possible.



XX: Willow Tree (top)
Y: Deepchurch
W: Sutton Hill
B: Willow Tree
P: Manningtree
R: Oldbridge
G: Four Princes

XIII: Saint Michael (2nd to top)
Y: Almawood
W: Old Saint Michael
B: La Côte
P: East Saint Michael
R: Aviation City
G: Walsh Acres

VII: Culzeansands (lower west)
Y: Culzeansands
W: Trondwick
B: Kirklachlan
P: St. Andrew's
R: Muckle Ferry
G: Zelburgh

VIII: St Alban and Sunnybrae (Central)
Y: Murrumburgh
W: Chadstone
B: Sunnybrae
P: Sunnybrae Fields
R: St Alban
G: St Alban South

VI: North Liberty (southeast)
Y: Soult
W: Shepp's Hills
B:  Francistown
P: North Liberty
R: North Liberty Junction
G: Dromesby St. George's