Astoria

I recently decided to start growing another metropolis on the same region as Nyhaven, on the RL site of the city of Astoria, OR (hence my keeping the name). It's still very young, but I thought I'd share my work on it thus far. Currently, the city has about 55,000 residents and is entirely on one large quad.


This mosaic shows the green heart of the city. Fort Astoria looks down on the city harbor from atop the hill, in its own National Historic Park. Below it stretches the civic center, which has important city service buildings, cultural venues, Astoria City Hall and the Pacifica State House lining a large park.


A view of the west side of the civic center. Visible in the top left corner is the Astoria Convention Center. The other buildings on that side of the park date from the 18th century, when the civic center was redeveloped from an old warehouse district adjacent to the harbor.


Pacifica State University, Astoria is on the south side of the hill on whose crest stands Fort Astoria. I'm planning to develop the unseen area to the south of campus in a manner similar to the area south of UC Berkeley (minus the homeless people), with shops and restaurants lining a one-way couplet and a neighborhood park.

Nice pics!

woodb3kmaster wrote:I'm planning to develop the unseen area to the south of campus in a manner similar to the area south of UC Berkeley (minus the homeless people)

I laughed at that.

Nice start to the city. I can't wait to see this in comparison to the airport.

Wow. Amazing and beautiful "re" creation.

Thanks, guys!

Emgmod mentioned the airport, which, as it turns out, I've already built. Since I won't be able to play SC4 for the next couple of days due to my last research paper ever, here are the pictures of that airport to tide you over. Astoria International Airport is Lower Columbia's second-most important international gateways and the primary hub of its other national airline, Theta Airways.


An overview of the airfield. The terminal arrangement was inspired by both Phoenix and Denver - the former inspired the center part of the terminal complex in the middle of the reversed (LHD) passenger roadway, while the latter inspired the satellite concourses, which are connected to the center terminal via an underground tram. I built the airport before the NWM was released, so I haven't yet converted the dual OWR-2s to OWR-5s.


The northeast part of the tarmac is home to the airport's service areas - hangars, fuel depots etc. - as well as the cargo facilities and general aviation area.


A closer look at the cargo center, which I custom-lotted.

Nobody wants to say anything about the airport? Very well then, maybe a few more pics of the city will appeal to you all:


In the oldest part of Astoria stands l'Église de la Sacre-Cœur, in front of the Place Sacre-Cœur. The first version of this church, the very first built in the city, was consecrated in 1566, one year after the city was founded. The current structure, however, dates from 1689, when Astoria had outgrown the old church.


This is Astoria Harbor. It was a major seaport and gateway to Lower Columbia in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but it was later eclipsed by Nyhaven, some 20 miles to the east. Today, the harbor serves as the city's main marina.


In the heart of the University District, south of the campus of Pacifica State University, lies Burgess Square (which I named after the 200th poster to the SC4D version of Nyhaven). College students and artists enjoy gathering in the square and visiting the shops, theaters and restaurants surrounding it. I'm probably going to plop some Smalltown USA ploppables here to give it even more atmosphere.

For those who are interested, Astoria is still all on one quad (not counting the airport), but its population has climbed to 99,329.

Nice!

The airport's pretty impressive.Some grass would do nicely there

That airports massive man

That's all amazing. I really like the marina and tram lines.

Amazing job. Astoria is still 40,000 larger then Strathmore currently.

Thanks a lot, all of you! kccl35, I don't particularly want to plop grass all around my airfield, partly because I've had trouble with airport quads crashing in the past when I plopped a lot of airport grass lots and I want to play it safe, and partly because my terrain mod is pretty grassy already

After a bunch more playing, Astoria is finally reaching the quad edges. Thanks in part to a couple of residential megalots that grew, its population is now at 242,551. Now, since the next Nyhaven update mostly takes place in Astoria, I figured I'd show it to you guys early. So here it is!



Life was great in mid-1974. With my ring on Jane's hand, I was truly a happy man. As a result, I put more effort into my work than before, and Mayor Lundgren took notice. He saw how much I was working and decided to reward me by letting me take a vacation. After two and a half months of working at top speed, it was a welcome break.


All the same, I decided not to go vacationing in the far-off mountains of Upper Columbia, but instead, I chose to spend a week in Astoria. On July 6, I took the MetroRail to Nyhaven Central Station to board my train.


It was more than 20 miles from Nyhaven to Astoria by rail, but it was a nice trip, even if it was short. Before long, I was passing through Kendall.


Eventually, the train left the capital's suburbs behind and entered the countryside. It was nice seeing some open fields and dense forests outside my window.


At last, the train arrived at the Astor Square Station, next to Astoria's central business district. As I stepped outside the station with my bags, I saw cars and streetcars passing by along Charter Avenue and people milling about across the street, in Astor Square. I hailed a taxi and set out for my hotel.


Astoria was an old city and had lots of historical sites, so I checked them out first. My first stop was Fort Astoria, at the top of the hill overlooking the city's old harbor.


Just across the street was Astoria's civic center. The city was the state capital of Pacifica, the state that contained Nyhaven and Kendall, so I was able to visit both the City Hall and the State House pretty easily. There was plenty else to see at the civic center, too.


In the oldest part of Astoria, I saw the Église du Sacré-Cœur and its associated square. All these sights were easy to visit because of the city's extensive streetcar network.


Next, I headed over to the waterfront to check out the sports venues. I knew that Astoria had recently finished transforming a former warehouse area into a series of stadiums, arenas and luxury condos, so I had to take a look.


I was impressed. The new stadiums were both beautfiul and functional, and they were well-served by the streetcars.


Not far from the stadiums was the other part of that urban renewal project - the waterfront. The old docks had been replaced with a big cruise ship terminal, and there was also a picturesque wooden boardwalk close by. They had sure done a good job on turning this area around.


On my last full day in Astoria, I headed into the suburbs to visit Adventure Forest, the local amusement park. It was quite a park! Its main-street-style shopping area reminded me of the trips I had made to Disneyland while I was in Los Angeles for college.




There were plenty of rides in this park, too. I had a blast going on each of the park's eight rollercoasters. It was a great way to end my vacation.

Great job! Just one thing about the train pictures:

There is a way to get rid of that green UDI plumbob. Take another screenshot over the same area, place it in a new layer, line up the two layers, and cover the plumbob with the second layer.

I'm liking this! Can you tell me where you get all the lots with the "marketplace" props?

Awesome! I love that second picture with the train and apartments.
Looks like a fun amusement park too!