Two Other Potential GTA-Style Video Game Settings – The City of Arbuthnot/The City of Cheshire & The State of Ottumwalla

 The City of Arbuthnot

A full map of the City of Arbuthnot (click to enlarge).

A map of Arbuthnot's neighbourhoods (click to enlarge).

A map of Arbuthnot's metro system (elevated rail and subway) (click to enlarge).

The City of Arbuthnot - June 10, 2016

Celebrating its 300th anniversary, the City of Arbuthnot bravely looks on to another year of prosperity, commerce, industry and leisure in a day of age where all things political and economical may very well get more dysfunctional.

Background

Arbuthnot was founded by immigrants from France and Great Britain on June 10, 1716 - and it wouldn't take long for the settlement on what is today Downtown Arbuthnot to thrive and evolve into one of colonial America's most important cities. A bustling hub that served as a trade-point for British importers and European fur traders, the city had helped contribute troops to the American Revolution which saw the colonies gain independence. But this was just the tip of the iceberg of things to come for Arbuthnot. The Industrial Revolution saw the mass manufacture of steel, iron, textiles, chemicals and other machinery in Arbuthnot as well as other places in the United States and Europe, and before anyone else knew it, Arbuthnot was basically an island version of cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland. A relatively safe and peaceful place, Arbuthnot would soon see its crime rate rise starting in the 1850s - heightening during social tensions suffered amongst other urban places in the North during the Civil War and softening back to prior times in the 1890s. Ever since the 1840s, Arbuthnot had been dealing with the issue of pollution - even during the Great Depression when 25% of Americans were unemployed, factories, mills and such industries were still productive as ever. Arbuthnot's industrial economy would soon take a turn towards finance and tourism following the conclusion of World War II as Downtown Arbuthnot's skyline began to evolve from low-rise buildings toward major commercial office buildings and skyscrapers. Nevertheless, Arbuthnot remains to this day an important port town and hub for shipped goods intended for other destinations across the United States and the world. Beginning in the 1960s, following the legalization of gambling in the city, the Philbin District transformed into a casino town with hi-rise hotels and vast gambling halls being constructed across the neighbourhood. Crime would soon spike in Nathan Harbor and some parts of Kennedy Island starting in the 1970s, and the illicit drug trade began to blossom in the 1980s, with contraband drugs gaining popularity amongst housing project dwellers in the area. That would swiftly change in the 1990s, though, when the "Crackdown of the Century" hit local crime lords and drug kingpins hard - from 1993 to 1997, over 390 arrests were made with over 200 convictions. Today, Arbuthnot maintains a strong financial-based economy with the city continuing to embrace tourism and attract people from the nation over. Arbuthnot, as of 2016, has an estimated population of 688,423 citizens. When taking office in 2014, Ryan M. Escargot (1984-present) became the youngest mayor in the United States at age 29. His policies currently concern future improvements to the city's infrastructure and the quality of health and education amongst Arbuthnot citizens.

The city of Arbuthnot is divided into five boroughs - Downtown Arbuthnot, Kennedy Island, Maubry Island, Nathan Harbor and New Raleigh. Downtown Arbuthnot's skyline started to really take hold in the late 1970s, and the district is world-renowned for its canals, which were constructed in the 1860s. The district is home to the ballpark and arena, where baseball's Arbuthnot Skipjacks, basketball's Arbuthnot Knights and hockey's Arbuthnot Ice Kings play their home games. Kennedy Island is home to Central Kennedy College, the Kennedy Coliseum (home to football's Arbuthnot Bruisers) and some housing projects. Maubry Island is best known for its significant populations of Russian and German immigrants as well as the Maubry Island Nuclear Power Plant, which replaced many coal-fired plants across the city in 1978 and has thankfully been serving the city well since. Nathan Harbor is considered a very undesirable part of town but still important as nearly half of the Arbuthnot shipping industry's GDP comes from activity at Nathan Harbor. This troubled borough, which is akin to the Bronx except without nearly as much the crime, also plays host to housing projects, the Sencindiver Market and strip clubs. Then there's New Raleigh, which if the rest of the city was New York, would be the New Jersey part of town. New Raleigh's political and social relationship with the rest of the city would be even more acrimonious if it had not been home to Arbuthnot International Airport (ANT), which is one of

the busiest airports in the United States. This borough is also known for Northport, the New Raleigh Thruway and its share of things found in the other boroughs.

The Arbuthnot Metro started with the elevated rail system that was first constructed in 1901 and which today serves Downtown, Kennedy Island and Nathan Harbor, while the Red, Green and New Raleigh lines of the subway system each opened to the public in 1915.

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The City of Cheshire and the State of Ottumwalla

The flag of the City of Cheshire.

The flag of the State of Ottumwalla.

A full map of the City of Cheshire and the State of Ottumwalla (click to enlarge).

A map of the neighbourhoods of the City of Cheshire (click to enlarge).

A map of the neighbourhoods and areas of the State of Ottumwalla (click to enlarge). The State of Ottumwalla has one county, Ottumwalla County.

A map of the Cheshire-Ringgold Subway system (click to enlarge).

The City of Cheshire and the State of Ottumwalla - April 5, 1994

The 1990s - a decade of relative peace and prosperity following the collapse of the Soviet Union (a landmark event that ended the decades-long Cold War), and which saw the rise of the Internet that ushered in a new era of communication, business & entertainment. The Greatest Generation and Silent Generation were either beginning to retire or rise into the most senior ranks of corporate & political leadership, Baby Boomers were beginning to achieve their foothold in society after much economic & social progress on their part in the past three decades, and Gen Xers were experiencing a new reckoning of societal angst and bewilderment regarding the establishment. The City of Cheshire and the State of Ottumwalla each have a respective history often intertwined with one another as the two political jurisdictions are depicted here in this retrospective map.

Nicknamed "the beacon of the Atlantic," the area that is now known as Cheshire and Ottumwalla was first settled by indigenous peoples 3,000 years ago and would become colonized by the British around the time of the Puritan witch burnings in New England in the late 1690s. Cheshire would soon become a beacon of mid-Atlantic trade and establish itself as one of colonial America's most important cities after New York, Boston and Philadelphia. The city continued to grow through the 1800s with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, and played an important part in the manufacturing of steel, iron, and chemicals (especially concentrated in Annacis, Princebrooke and Tecumseh Island) while the city's northern neighbor Ottumwalla forged in the industries of agriculture, lumber and fishing. Through the 1900s, the bustling commercial hub of Quinlan Island saw skyscrapers and massive office complexes built even as the city withered through the Great Depression. During the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force built a base in Muck Valley and the military would build underground testing facilities and laboratories in Collinswood State Park in the late 1940s and early 1950s, all but three of which have since been demolished. Through the 1950s, Ottumwalla began building its freeways and expressways while there were "expressway revolts" in Cheshire throughout the 1960s and only a 1/4 of the planned freeways and expressways in Cheshire were built. In the 1980s, Ottumwalla undertook a massive step in its commitment to alternative energy resources by allowing American Petrochemical Enterprises (APE) to construct and operate the North Ringgold Wind Farm. The state also allowed gambling in 1978, allowing for the construction of casinos to proliferate throughout the 1980s.

Today, Cheshire is an important city on the Atlantic Seaboard, ranking high in commercial trade as the United States begins to take steps to allow a more service-based economy after decades of agriculture and manufacturing dominating leading America's industrial output. The Ethae Marie Gibson Cheshire-Ringgold International Airport (named after Cheshire's first African-American female mayor, who served from 1971 to 1988) is one of America's busiest airports and commands traffic from elite destinations in the world such as London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo and Buenos Aires. The state of Ottumwalla, run by the powers that be in Ringgold, is a mix of urban and rural life with agriculture, commerce, suburbs, beaches, forestry and wildlife abound. Ottumwalla boasts the University of Ottumwalla in Ringgold (home of the Ottumwalla Otter Rats) and the Ottumwalla State Fair in Larchstone.

Initially constructed from the late 1910s to early 1920s, the Cheshire Subway system serves Annacis, Princebrooke, Quinlan Island and Tecumseh Island and since the 1960s also serves Ringgold as part of an effort to get Ottumwalla commuters to travel to Cheshire via the subway. The most recent station, Halfheart Island, was opened in 1991.