Cartographer's Block

[vid]

I've been working on a geofiction map for a few months, based on the island of Grand Calumet, Québec, with a city, inspired by Stockholm, as its capital. I've reached a point however where I am starting to run out of ideas on what to do with it. Similar to Singapore it is dense and public transit plays a major role (because if someone from here is making a fantasy world, it would probably be dense and public transit would play a major role ). The population of the whole island might be about 1 million with around 600,000 in the capital city, though that could go up or down. (I'll determine a more accurate population later on.)

Here is an overview:


(Turtle Island was a working title; it has been changed to North Island--there will be other islands in the "nation".) The map data is a trace of data from Natural Resource Canada's Toporama website, © Department of Natural Resources Canada. All rights reserved.

Anyway I am posting this thread because I can't figure out what to do with the rest of the space on the map below (the light green). I want to get it pretty filled in before I move on to the next 'ring' of maps. Here is a a more detailed map:


(Click to enlarge - 2400x2400, 1.5 MB legend--scale is incorrect because it has been resized)

The map covers a 6x6 square kilometre area (the notches in each corner are one kilometre wide). I started drawing in the middle, then moved to the bottom right (with all the purple and red) and worked counter-clockwise around. They grey thumbnail in the bottom left is a basic plan of the metro system for anyone who is interest. Click here to see a map of above- (light) and under- (dark) ground parts.

Basically I am open to any suggestions on what to do with the undrawn parts of the map, and if you have an idea on how to improve the existing areas you can share those too. The map is SVG so its easy to redraw.

[huggkruka]

Just looking at different maps of Swedish cities or towns would help I think. Maybe a peek at Copenhagen and Oslo as well. I have to say, that is a fantastic map, what software did you use?

[vid]

I've spend a lot of time looking at maps of cities in Scandinavia but I'm still kinda stuck. The biggest source of my frustration is the large light green island on the bottom left. I can't decide what should go there and it is driving me nuts.

I use Inkscape (and make liberal use of layers--about 50 in each panel), a free, open source SVG editor.

[Pingyao]

Wonderful Geofiction city map, you inspired me to download Inkscape! I think you should add more general residential areas to that section. Probably wealthy neighbourhood. Your city needs an airport too, although the road links look better in the north for an airport. Or you could go a bit crazy and put in a space centre/theme park/sewage treatment plant/military installation/particle accelerator?

[The Dirt]

Seems like the peninsula towards the south could work as a former port/warehouse district that is now undergoing gentrification and infill, so it could easily have a mixed use urban neighborhood centered on a small park square.

This area has good topography as a shipping port. You could use a lot more piers and docks. Consider adding a cruise ship dock, a battleship or submarine museum, a naval base or academy, oil refineries, and manufacturing facilities. You could also model the area after Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC.

[vid]

Originally Posted by Pingyao

Wonderful Geofiction city map, you inspired me to download Inkscape!

Hooray! It takes some getting use to but its a great programme, just don't forget to save regularly (ctrl+s) because it can crash if you do something wrong, and I haven't figured out what "something wrong" is yet.

Originally Posted by Pingyao

Your city needs an airport too, although the road links look better in the north for an airport.

If you look at the thumbnail map, there is a freeway heading north to the middle of the island with a major airport, and there is a minor airport on the west edge of the larger scale map.

Originally Posted by Pingyao

Or you could go a bit crazy and put in a space centre/theme park/sewage treatment plant/military installation/particle accelerator?

Sewage and water treatment isn't something I have added yet. I could label one of the buildings at the university as a particle accelerator or do something out in the rural areas. I'll add it to my list of stuff. I'm not sure about military facilities, maybe I'll add something along the coast somewhere.

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Seems like the peninsula towards the south could work as a former port/warehouse district that is now undergoing gentrification and infill, so it could easily have a mixed use urban neighborhood centered on a small park square.

This area has good topography as a shipping port. You could use a lot more piers and docks. Consider adding a cruise ship dock, a battleship or submarine museum, a naval base or academy, oil refineries, and manufacturing facilities. You could also model the area after Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC.

I'll keep those things in mind.

[le calmar]

Very interesting. I wish I could on work on such an interesting project Unfortunately the place where I work this summer is a small and remote town, so no resorts, airports, freeways or skyscrapers here! I find the project I am working on interesting though, since it will allow this isolated place to develop and the population will probably be twice as large when this development is complete in a couple of years. I guess imagining Canada supporting a population of 100 million is my wet dream, with the government opening new cities on Grand-Calumet island, new cities in the North on the Hudson Bay, smaller communities getting bigger... Unfortunately I'm not sure what you should do with your vacant terrain, but thanks for allowing me to dream for a short moment But wouldn't a wind farm be interesting?

Here is the project I'm working on, it's not very exciting though, since I pretty much have to do what the city council wants, so it's residential-only and you probably won't find any new ideas for your concept. The north-western area includes a dead-end street since this zone is considered for a wind farm project. The faisability studies cost 15 000$ and the city council is still thinking about wheter they go ahead with this projet or not. It is the last phase, for a total of 5 phases. The area in the SE with the thin lines is already developped.

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[vid]

Looks like the southwest corner of Thunder Bay, except if windfarms were that close to their homes they'd start rioting. The nearest one is over a mile away from a house and that still isn't good enough for them.