Designing Cities

[Hilarious Joke]

Hey everyone!

I love cities. In our world, I love the cosmopolitan buzz of Sydney, the massive skyscrapers of New York, San Francisco's steep streets, London's history, Rome's culture, Bangkok's bustle, etc, etc.

Its the same in fantasy books. I love the lagoon-city of Braavos in George R R Martin's series, the grandeur of Caemlyn in Robert Jordan's books, the sensory overload of Ankh-Morpork, the tiered brilliance that is Minas Tirith, the colourful trading hub that's Bingtown, I could go on.

My question here is (although half of me just wants to have a big ole discussion about cool cities in fantasy books) is how you go about designing a city. Should you pick a type (trade/historical/etc.) and work from there, or perhaps a location on your map? Is it a good idea to plan it out in quarters or sectors with streets and such? Should you start with a race or a culture and then build a city around it?

Enlighten me!

 

[Aes]

I'd say a bit of everything you mentioned, really. Map location is pretty important, because the surrounding terrain should have a noticeable influence on a city built upon it. Culture is pretty important in terms of your city setup, as well -- just look at how distinct the various cities built by different cultures of the world (especially the earlier ones) all were.

To sum things up, I'd say start with the culture you want to build this city, then think of the terrain type they're most likely to consider an ideal site. From there, imagine how they would build it.

In terms of smaller details, such as city sectors, envision the inhabitants in even greater detail; will there be lots of poor people, middle-class people, rich people? Is it to be a capital? Is it located at the center of key trade routes? Is it located on a lake, river, or ocean? What about crime?

There's a lot you could and should ask yourself if you want to go all out on the detail.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Thanks Aes! Great approach! This is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for.

You wouldn't happen to have an example of a city you've done would you?

 

[iansales]

If it's not a stupid question, why are you designing a city? You only really need as much detail as is required by the story. Get too involved in world-building and you're in danger of cluttering up your story with unnecessary and indigestible info-dumps.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Fair call, fair call. I suppose that's another question I should have asked: should I even go out of my way to plan a city? World creation (and city creation) are fun though, nonetheless. I'm trying for the story I'm writing a mixture of drawing maps and planning while writing (as in, I'll write some then develop a family history, then write some more and so on). Any thoughts on that, iansales, or anyone else?

 

[woodsman]

As ianslaes Said, don't generally put too much detail in, it can hold a story up too much. Then Aes suggestions seem great. Culture for me is the key, after all culture innfluences the architechture, trades and people. One thing you could do is choos a time period, say Middle ages 1300-1500's and then look at some old city plans (they do exsist) and base street plans around that fitting your culture and architechture around the basic design.

I guess if you creat a lot of background detail about cities, when you actually write about them they can become more alive ass you have a clearer idea of what their like, without writing masses into your story?
Also look at where they are in relation to resources and key features. A city in the mountains is more likely to be full of tough hardy people with a mining based economy. A city near a river mouth however is likely to have large swathes inhabited by 'foreigners' and be based around trade. Many of its inhabitants will be sailor types. Then culture kicks in to flesh out these very basic details.

basically look at it from every aspect. Jot down some notes for each 'influence' and then move on to more detail.

Just seen your new post, I would plan some stuff out, background, drawing etc. Because even if you never use it in the book it will enable you to get more of a feel of your world and land and so I think will enable you to make the description etc, more real and believable. just a Thought

Cheers, Jez.

 

[iansales]

World-building is fun, sometimes more fun than actually writing Which is the main danger - you expend more time and effort on your story's world than you do on your story. There's also a tendency to try re-inventing everything, which results in you throwing everything into your story and cluttering it up.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Thanks iansales, jez. I particularly like that old city plans idea.

I have a feeling that these warnings aren't going to prevent me from pouring too much time into designing some cities, ...but at least I'll be having fun.

 

[thecommabandit]

You should also keep in mind how cities are made; they grow from tiny settlements. So buildings aren't likely to be in grids and arranged all nice and regularly unless it's an artificial city (like Washington D.C I believe). It's also worth noting why settlements appear where they do - if it's in an arid climate they're not likely to be more than a mile or two from a decent-sized river, they'll usually be by rivers anyway since in earlier times (or present if you're writing fantasy) it makes it very cheap to get goods in and out by boat.

On the subject of world-building: designing the city in anal detail isn't a problem; just don't put more detail in the story itself than what's necessary.

 

[iansales]

One trap to definitely avoid is the Dungeons & Dragons method of map-making - i.e., bunging stuff on a map with no thought on placement, such as towns nowhere near a water supply, cities in the middle of mountain ranges (where there's no land to grow food)...

Which is something that needs to be considered when designing a city - why is it where it is? Why would people settle on that particular spot? Is it at the junction of several trade routes? A sheltered harbour? Easily defensible?

 

[Julie Bertagna]

I totally agree with Ian - spot on. When I was imagining a futuristic city, I could have happily wasted months on it - meanwhile forgetting Iwas supposed to be writing a book!

Why not keep a separate notebook and plan/ sketch it all out in as much detail as you like - that way you can feed your obsession and anyway, you need to be excited about it and understand it all, as woodsman says, and the 'logic' of your world needs to be really sound - but when you come to write about it only let your reader experience it as your characters do, step by step. If you keep inside the skins and minds of your characters and reveal what they see and experience, it helps break down the 'indigestible info-dumps'. It's definitely harder to feed in necessary bits of info this way than to have a page of (lumpen) narrator info, but it's much better writing that way - and not so hard on your reader!

That's my experience - but it's all trial and error.

 

[woodsman]

Go with Julie, a notebook of any interesting information will enrich your ideas of the world and therefore your work as well, whilst hopefully keeping you from the crazy obsesive stuff.

Ian's suggestions definately work well, take a look at as amny real world examples as possible and you'll find Cities in some quite surprising places!
Remember also, religion can play a key part in the design of your cities, In an Arab based city for example Minnarets(sp?) will dominate the skyline and cities couls be cetnered around some holy artefact, e.g. Meccah or jerusalem. take into account the religion of the world/race and how that will influence the overall feel of the area!

All the best, Jez.

 

[Aes]

Thanks Aes! Great approach! This is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for.

You wouldn't happen to have an example of a city you've done would you?

I have a few both in my head and on paper, but with no way to scan and no way to put them into the computer*, none that I can give as examples.

As others have said though, you don't need to go into too much detail, although having a rough sketch of your city's layout makes writing about it much easier -- make notes of district arrangement, important locations, building style, type of inhabitants, surrounding geography, and anything else you might deem important to enriching your story.

* Not yet, anyway -- I'm making an access database to make this kind of thing a snap for organizing my worlds, characters, story timelines, world geography, and any other important thoughts. Alas, that's something for another topic.

 

[Peter Graham]

I'm probably just echoing the excellent earlier posts in this thread, but I'd have in mind the following ground rules:-

1. Cities need trade. People will only gather in a city if there is money to be made. This gives you two choices - the city is supplying trade (making things, cutting things down or mining things), or the city is supplying services (garrison towns being the best example).

2. The location of the city never happens by chance, although growth might! In our first example, a city will be near the natural resource that is being exploited - the mine, the forest etc. In the second example, the city will have been built for a purpose - a garrison, at a religious shrine, a colony for old soldiers (the English cities of Lincoln and Gloucester started this way) or whatever. The location will reflect that purpose - a defensive site, for example.

3. Cities need food and water. I cannot think of a single ancient British town or city of any size that is not on a river or which does not have a hinterland of agricultural land fairly close by.

4. Cities have some fine buildings. The headquarters of the secular authority always gets the best site - the castle, the basilica or whatever. Religious cultures will have temples, cathedrals etc. If the city is sufficiently advanced, a merchant class will probably have arisen. They will have nice houses.

5. Cities are nearly always partially planned (or highly planned, in the case of Roman towns). They grow out from the centre, so at the very least you are likely to find a square, market or forum in the middle where all the roads meet. The civic and public buildings are usually in the centre with the nice houses close by. As you come further out (and especially if you get outside any city walls), planning will collapse and you'll probably find a sprawl of poorer residential areas, ostensibly flanking main roads but soon descending into architectural chaos.

6. Cities have some form of governance. This often means law and order is better in towns than in the countryside, despite what the tradition of the dangerous fantasy city tells us. By way of example, outlaws of the medieval period in Britain took to the greenwood. Barnsdale and Sherwood were both notorious areas of lawlessness (Robin Hood, anyone?). At the height of Anglo-Scottish border disputes in the 15th and 16th Century, the two places where the cattle-thieving, house burning, feuding thugs who controlled the countryside would be most likely to behave were the two cities - Carlisle and Berwick. It's one thing robbing an old widow in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, quite another to kick off when you are surrounded by hard-nut soldiers and crowds of angry locals.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Ursa major]

A long time ago, in a galaxy not far from Wolverhampton....

Location is not just about rivers, hills and so forth. During an otherwise long forgotten geography class, we were taught about the placement of villages and towns in, I think, Bavaria. Where no other factor was involved (e,g, borders and river crossings), all the settlements were spaced equally across the plain. This part of Bavaria was, at the time the settlements were first established, an agricultural area. Mining and maunufacture came later.

Some settlements were larger; these, too, were spread equally, but tended to have at least one small village between them. Then there were fewer, and more widely spaced, equivalants of English market towns. And so on and so forth.....

So, in designing the environs of your city (for all those maps!), try to think why your featured settlement became a city and why those nearby didn't grow as fast, and also that your city may have been a hamlet back in the mists of time.

 

[Thadlerian]

Oh, this was just the thread I was waiting for - city design. Like you, HJ, I love cities. And when writing in the fantasy genre, there is so much you can do. Nothing sets the atmosphere like a city.

I also disagree with those posters questioning the need for city design. A detailed backstory, etc, can easily be skipped, but whatever you do; work on the feeling of the city.

As for PG's ground rules, I'd say break them if they stand in the way of a good setting. In fantasy, you might deal with a completely different kind of human beings, with different tempers and motivations.

I'll return to this thread whenever I can find the time.

But take this advice: Read Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities as soon as you can!

 

[Nik]

Cities have a back-story.

Usually, they grow around a nexus-- crossing, resource, market, Royal Charter, castle, border...

Some really were planned, a complete town with out-lying settlements plonked down in un-developed land. This happened in parts of 'Medieval' Europe, with land-grants intended to build a buffer against raiders & warring clans.

IMHO, some cities may endure after their 'reason' goes away. A port-city may re-invent itself after the coastline silts and recedes. A trading city may survive diversion of eg Silk Road due distant unrest. Others continue because there is no alternative, cling to their fastness and isolated culture in the face of adversity...

Figure your back-story: work up from oasis / ferry or whatever, grow the market square and grand houses, burn down a district, rebuild, shift the fashionable quarter, riot & raze both Nob Hill and the Shambles, throw in earthquakes & flash-floods etc etc. Has anyone had sufficient power to 'plan' changes ? A great church or temple ? A 'modern' fort ?? Did the exigencies of war clear a defensive 'trace', build barracks and bastions ??

The map will become a palimpset, layer upon layer of development, oft-unfinished or revised while still work in progress...

Remember the inhabitants must live. Food, shelter, water. Deep wells, gradually deepened as the aquifer depletes will not permit wide-field farming. Terraces and dew-ponds may claw greens from steep slopes, grazing may be seasonal. Buildings may divert their roof's run-off to vast cisterns. Orchards may be walled, or semi-underground to be nearer the water-table, sheltered from arid winds or winter snow...

Buildings MUST suit the climate. They may have imported decorative twiddles, but a seasonal Fohn, dust-storms, winter snow, monsoons etc enforce their own logic on design...

Have fun !!

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Thadlerian,

As for PG's ground rules, I'd say break them if they stand in the way of a good setting. In fantasy, you might deal with a completely different kind of human beings, with different tempers and motivations.

Well said! All rules are there to be broken. But I'd add the caveat that there isn't much to be gained by breaking any literary rules if you don't need to! Writing is hard enough without having to invent a new definition of humanity on top of the invented worlds and the invented species which inhabit it.

And I rather like "PG"....

Regards,

Peter

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Thanks everyone!

Thadlerian, I will get on to that book after I finish 'Interesting Times' by Pratchett (5). Glad there's another city-lover out there!

Nik, thanks for your excellent post, there are a number of thoughtful and precise questions to answer when designing a city that I would never have thought of.

Also thanks to PG and all the other posters. I feel quite inspired (I may even buy a fresh notebook for designing cities and the like).

 

[mosaix]

Has anyone mentioned defence? Hilltops, bends in rivers, edges of cliffs, availability of material for walls - all important if times are 'troubled'.