Background and Facts
New Riverdale is a midsize city of around 170,000 residents situated amongst the salty ocean coast and several fresh-water rivers. Today, New Riverdale sports world-class universities, an international airport, many active and well-funded cultural institutions, a massive park system, and plentiful jobs spanning everything from ore mining to space exploration.
The bustling and buzzing city we see today didn’t pop up overnight, of course. The first settlers put down roots in today’s Financial District around 180 years ago. Like many small cities, New Riverdale was initially grown with the help of heavily polluting industry. In the almost two centuries of its existence, the city has pushed the industry farther and farther outside its boundaries and has worked diligently in rectifying the natural abuses it committed. In fact, much of the area that most recently served as industry and refuse processing has been decontaminated, reforested, and incorporated into Victoria National Park, a massive natural preserve designed to prevent future environmental destruction, as well as to educate visitors on the value of protecting our environment.
Today, most city-dwellers don’t live in the Financial District, where their ancestors settled. Instead, the City Center neighborhood, just to the north, hosts relatively affordable apartments tucked between city government buildings. This neighborhood is bordered by two of the oldest parks in the city: Fortuna Park to the south, and Garnet Park to the north.
Garnet Park was the first park recognized in New Riverdale. It’s circular shape and large, central hill make it the natural place for public gatherings and events. Aside from a few added amenities and a parking lot, the park is largely unchanged since its creation. However, around the city’s centennial, a small eastern part of the park was redeveloped to host a neighborhood school.
Fortuna Park, separating the Financial District and City Center, is a larger, more formal park built to celebrate the city’s centennial. At that point, the city had had several population explosions, and much of what is now the City Center was demolished and reorganized in an effort to consolidate city government and services. Fortuna Park was initially conceived as a wooded mall that would take folks to and from City Hall. However, the design was altered to include a curved portion to the south. This addition intended to memorialize some of the original (and confusing) street design, as well as to provide the location for a massive golden statue of the goddess Fortuna herself, a symbol meant to bring luck and prosperity to all citizens.
While the park is known today for the statue it contains, it was originally dedicated as “Smith Grounds,” after one of the founders of the city. In-depth looks at these, and other, areas can be expected in future blog updates.
South of the Financial District and across a very wide river are the tree-lined “Avenues.” This working-class neighborhood features brick buildings, old-growth trees, and frequent public transit. The parallel avenues are stepped along a rolling hillside, allowing many of the residences within to enjoy phenomenal views of the downtown area.
The Avenues used to form the southern border of the city. Beyond the brick buildings was a stretch of highway that connected to the larger outer loop. As the city has grown, however, the highway was replaced with at-grade streets and a great traffic circle centered on the Space Elevator.
The Space Elevator and the surrounding Space Elevator Park form the centerpiece in the latest expansion of the city. To the north of the park are the existing Avenues, while to the south is a large Green District, featuring self-reliant systems and electric cars.
Currently, two higher education institutions serve the city: Washington Technical Institute, located on Washington Island, and New Riverdale University, perched atop University Hill, overlooking The Avenues. A very large liberal arts college, Westpoint College, recently closed after a decrease in attendance.
While educational service closures seem like a bad sign, the decreased attendance Wespoint saw was actually a positive indicator for the city as a whole. Education levels across the population have been rising over the years, and New Riverdale now boasts some of the best test scores in the country. Westpoint’s campus is now being redeveloped into additional neighborhoods, as well as an amusement park, thoughtfully connected to the River Walk- a complex network of pedestrian walking, running, and biking paths extending from Cherry Point to the west, all the way to Cathedral Park to the east.
The Future
As New Riverdale continues to grow, the focus of the current administration is to make the city as beautiful and pleasant for every person who live, works, or visits it. The following are the current goals of this government:
- Refine and optimize traffic flow
- The massive increase of our industries has caused several stretches of highways to regularly turn into parking lots. This devastates the local economy if it goes on for too long. We will continue to study traffic patterns and actively search for long-term solutions.
- As a part of this, public transportation is a priority. As much as is possible, we want to encourage individuals to travel via bus, subway, or other transit option. Better and more frequent transit makes moving about the city for residents or tourists significantly easier and quicker, and frees up roads for industry and commercial shipping.
- Continue to fortify the Barrier Islands
- Earlier in our history, New Riverdale was pummeled again and again by tsunamis. The Barrier Islands are a set of islands (natural and man-made) which have been altered to, as much as possible, break the massive walls of water.
- While we can now easily survive category 1-5.5 tsunamis, we are still susceptible to bigger waves. Even though we haven’t had to deal with an emergency of that nature in several years, we believe it’s a good idea to be prepared.
- Our goal is to fortify the islands in a way that is attractive, sustainable, and protects as many citizens as possible.
- Continue to focus on Industry Optimization
- As the industries of New Riverdale continue to boom, we need to ensure these companies are doing the right thing for the city, not just for the shareholders. Despite the massive wealth these industries produce, our emergency shelters are almost always out of food. Why is this? This government aims to right this wrong.
- Expand our park systems
- New Riverdale has a park system to be proud of, and a rate of growth to be astonished by. Since it’s dedication, Victoria National Park has more than tripled in size, most recently incorporating the north and west sides of University Hill.
- Parks are an essential part of a healthy environment and happy citizens. We want to ensure ample and beautiful parks that are easy to get to and to travel between. One of our most successful public works has been the River Walk. Our goal is to take what worked in that project, and apply it to the rest of the city.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this introduction to our fair city, as well as our future plans for it. Keep an eye out for future communications which will explore our city and track our progress. Thank you for reading, and may God bless New Riverdale!