How to plan a city, with different Transportation technologies

[Christopher]

As a Fantasy Hero GM, you might be asked to design a village here and there. And then you have to ask questions like:
Does this town have a smith? A village smith or someone equipped and trained to make weapons?
How far is the next city?

How far the next bigger city?

I just found a video on that mater and 10 miles (16 km) seems to be about the magical number.

 

Another intersting video is about trains. Here the range "at wich trains are cheaper then flight" is 200-300 miles:

[bigdamnhero]

Interesting. My wife the city planner could give you a lengthy rant about just how badly they've oversimplified a very complex subject. And they overstate an awful lot of their points. ("Cities must have..." rather than "It's generally beneficial for cities to have..." and so on.)

 

But for gaming purposes, yeah close enough.

 

When researching my 11th Century historic fantasy game, I was struck at just how little "wilderness" there was in Europe & the near east even in the Dark Ages. Walk in any direction for a day and there'll likely be some sort of town nearby, especially if you're following roads. Not much need for camping out.

 

FYI, the stuff about Eurasia having an advantage from being oriented horizontally instead of vertically comes straight out of Jared Diamond's book "Guns, Germs & Steel." (Tho IIRC, Diamond didn't originate the idea, just popularized it.)

 

One thing I did find pretty humorous in the video tho was that immediately after talking about how cities can't survive without water access, their very next shot (@ 6:17) was of Denver. But the overall point is valid.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think the best thing you should keep in mind when designing cities is that, barring some catastrophic event requiring a rebuild or Romans showing up to build a new city from scratch, they grow organically, so there's no neat planning involved at all.  Its a jumble of illogical streets and sectors without any zoning or forethought at all.  When London doubled in size every few decades for a century, it turned into a horrendous mess.

[bigdamnhero]

Well, that's a bit of an overstatement. England didn't have much of a tradition of city planning, true. But elsewhere the Egyptians, Minoans and Mesopotamians were practicing it in the 3rd Century BC. (The Epic of Gilgamesh even talks about it.) Most ancient city cores were laid out in a classic grid pattern radiating out from a central plaza. The Greeks and Romans turned it into a science. Like a lot of stuff the Greeks & Romans figured out, Western Europe kindof forgot about it for a millennium or so, but even then you built where the Lord said you could build and nowhere else. And most of the great Islamic cities built during that period like Baghdad were meticulously laid out.

[TheDarkness]

Plus, if a city has a long enough history, it will be sacked and rebuilt, trying to avoid the problems of the old design.

 

And then grow organically again.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sure, when they built new areas they'd be very organized (see my note about Romans) but Rome its self was a jumbled mass around several temples and the Equestrians living on the hills.  Athens wasn't neatly laid out, etc.  Through history, the "planned city" with a design was the extreme exception, because cities grew up with the culture and over history, so by the time people got to the point they were interested in planning and design... it was already a city.

[TheDarkness]

Sure, when they built new areas they'd be very organized (see my note about Romans) but Rome its self was a jumbled mass around several temples and the Equestrians living on the hills.  Athens wasn't neatly laid out, etc.  Through history, the "planned city" with a design was the extreme exception, because cities grew up with the culture and over history, so by the time people got to the point they were interested in planning and design... it was already a city.

That's what fiddling and fire are all about!

[Christopher]

Interesting. My wife the city planner could give you a lengthy rant about just how badly they've oversimplified a very complex subject. And they overstate an awful lot of their points. ("Cities must have..." rather than "It's generally beneficial for cities to have..." and so on.)

 

But for gaming purposes, yeah close enough.

 

When researching my 11th Century historic fantasy game, I was struck at just how little "wilderness" there was in Europe & the near east even in the Dark Ages. Walk in any direction for a day and there'll likely be some sort of town nearby, especially if you're following roads. Not much need for camping out.

 

FYI, the stuff about Eurasia having an advantage from being oriented horizontally instead of vertically comes straight out of Jared Diamond's book "Guns, Germs & Steel." (Tho IIRC, Diamond didn't originate the idea, just popularized it.)

 

One thing I did find pretty humorous in the video tho was that immediately after talking about how cities can't survive without water access, their very next shot (@ 6:17) was of Denver. But the overall point is valid.

Of course it is over simplified. It is a Video of Youtube, not "a complete City planning education in 10 minutes".

 

Denver also does have "Direct water access". It is literally in a River Valley:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Platte_River

I think there might be a mixup between fresh water and water for transportation access.

Direct Freshwater was still a requirement last century. But with railroads and roads, this is no longer true for transportation purposes.

 

Edit:

There is no mention of Denver at 6:17.

[bigdamnhero]

Sure, when they built new areas they'd be very organized (see my note about Romans) but Rome its self was a jumbled mass around several temples and the Equestrians living on the hills.  Athens wasn't neatly laid out, etc.  Through history, the "planned city" with a design was the extreme exception, because cities grew up with the culture and over history, so by the time people got to the point they were interested in planning and design... it was already a city.

Sure, there are examples of cities that grew organically - planning wasn't ubiquitous. But planned cities were hardly "an extreme exception." I can post some actual professional references if you really want, but honestly the Wikipedia article I linked to above is a decent overview and gives several ancient, medieval & Renaissance examples. And that article doesn't even touch on the Muslim world, where basically *all* the major cities were planned from the dirt up.

 

Of course it is over simplified. It is a Video of Youtube, not "a complete City planning education in 10 minutes".

I was mostly joking - sorry if that didn't come across. And it's not a matter of what they didn't include: some of the statements they made were just flat incorrect, and it wouldn't have taken a second longer to state them correctly. But again, I'd say it's close enough for gaming purposes as long as you don't take it too literally.

 

Denver also does have "Direct water access". It is literally in a River Valley:

The Platte River is not a navigable waterway; it would barely qualify as a stream Back East. It had very little impact on Denver's founding or economic growth other than as a source of fresh water. Well, that and flooding the town every 5-10 years.

 

There is no mention of Denver at 6:17.

The shot they cut to of the city view with the light rail in the foreground is definitely Denver; 14th & Stout to be precise. I live 2 miles from that intersection.

[Christopher]

The Platte River is not a navigable waterway; it would barely qualify as a stream Back East. It had very little impact on Denver's founding or economic growth other than as a source of fresh water. Well, that and flooding the town every 5-10 years.

 

The shot they cut to of the city view with the light rail in the foreground is definitely Denver; 14th & Stout to be precise. I live 2 miles from that intersection.

I pretty sure they did not mean Denver in particular, just using some "Stock Footage of a City crossing", not bothering from where it came.

It was not actually mentioned as one of the "largest cities in the world". Indeed it is only place 19 in the US, with the American continent only having 2 of the 15 largest.

 

Denver was mostly founded as gold miner town in 1858. As such international transportation access was not the main concern. And they propably had acceptable access to the transcontinental Railway, so there goes the problem of moving stuff. So if anything there were referencing Denver in the part that followed - Resources.

[bigdamnhero]

I pretty sure they did not mean Denver in particular, just using some "Stock Footage of a City crossing", not bothering from where it came.

Oh, I'm certain they didn't do it on purpose - that's why I found the juxtaposition so funny!

 

It was not actually mentioned as one of the "largest cities in the world".

Um, I never claimed they did. What they said was "Until the last century or so, cities could not survive without direct water access." That is a demonstrably false claim. The majority of the world's major cities have certainly been built near water, but there are and have always been exceptions. (Tehran, Johannesburg, Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina...)

 

If they'd said "Most cities are built on water" or "Direct water access greatly contributes to city growth" or something like that they would've been fine. (And note that would not have taken any longer to say.) That's what I mean about them misstating general trends as absolutes. There were several other places where they did that, like finding one place where several towns are all exactly X miles apart, and then claiming that as some kind of universal rule rather than a good example of a general principle. It's not that they're wrong exactly, they just overstate their case a few times.

 

It's a fine video, I enjoyed it, and I'm sorry if you thought I was slamming it or you. I'm just saying take it with a grain of salt.