Editing Paradise City:Urban Geography (section)

===Southside City Projects:  ”The Towers”.===

[[Image:04-09-06canyon.jpg]]

“The Towers” is an area originally designed to house the unemployed, but now mostly populated by semi-skilled government workers.  The neighborhoods are clearly very poor, but the locals are a step above the welfare recipients who fill most government projects.  The area is seeing increasing commercial development as Downtown expands, bringing some employment, but also raising housing prices forcing many residents to move to even grimmer government projects.

Transport:  The city government keeps a rudimentary bus system running.  There are also many cheap taxi companies serving the area.  Taxies are popular given how difficult Towers streets can be to drive in.

Police:  South CityPol ultimately rules the streets here, but their severe under-funding has led them to give up on the idea of trying to enforce all the laws.  South CityPol wants to keep the peace and they ban theft, fighting, carrying a weapon, or damaging public property.  However, they don’t care if gangers kill each other, rarely bother to prosecute simple assault, and famously, don’t bother enforcing traffic laws unless a driver actually damages something.  Police offers here are typically issued a machine pistol, an auto-pistol, and a stun baton.  The department is well supplied with tanglers, shotguns, rifles, and submachine guns.

Gangs:  Southside gangs are plentiful and, famously, many of them are highly mobile.  With no traffic laws to hold them back, go-gangs on fast motorcycles proliferate through the area.  Such gangs frequently raid into other territories – usually other government projects, but sometimes into nearby Corpzone territories – as far as Eastgate and Westgate on rare occasion.  Gangers typically carry a concealed auto-pistol and some kind of melee weapon, but there is considerable variation.  Gangers going to battle are likely to be carrying illegal weapons, such as shotguns, machine pistols and submachine guns.

Organized Crime:  The Towers is at war in its heart.  Economic renewal near Downtown has brought new opportunity for illegal profit and has brought new competition.  Valuable rackets and territories have been attacked and invaded both by hungry organizations from the Towers and rich organizations from Downtown.  The Downtown groups wield money and business sense that the Towers gangs found hard to match and have already taken the choicest territories.  They continue to spread their influence, slowed only by their inability to cooperate with one another.

Entertainment:  The residents enjoy all of the mindless entertainment that the internet has to offer.

Sport:  The locals have a passion for racing above all other sports.  Even combat sports tend to involve racing elements here, as athletes with vehicles attack each other with melee weapons and try to make each other crash.  Combat motorcycle events are particularly popular.

Points of Interest:  

“Mad Town” is a Durocorp sponsored colony of ex-nomads living on the borders of the Towers, in a reclaimed dead neighborhood.  Conditions are primitive – tents are common and even those who live in buildings are mostly housed in ruins without running water, with power coming from local generators.  Exactly why Durocorp has set the refuge up is unclear.  They certainly hope to recruit employees from the residents and have been able to hire nomads for even less than they pay urban workers.  The locals are often resentful to see nomads taking the few jobs that are available and conflict is frequent. 
          
The White Room is a massive medical supply warehouse / drug emporium / dance-club, in that order.  It is located in a particularly run-down neighborhood near to the Warzone.  Most of its money comes from the medical trade – it supplies medicine, in bulk, at economy prices.  It also sells recreational drugs, from old-fashioned heroin to the latest thing from Kyoto or Jakarta.  The White Room boasts that it can sell you any feeling you want.  The dance club fills a warehouse, but is a minor part of the business.  The major pharmacy corporation continually pressure The White Room to join their chains, but the operation remains independent.
          
The fabulous Casino New York stands in the vanguard of Downtown’s expansion into the Towers.  Outside, the casino is all lights and special effects, offering a dazzling holographic show.  Inside, hundreds of different games of chance are offered, with some bets reaching hundred of thousands of dollars.  Rich and famous people come to play at the casino and great care is taken to make sure that they remain safe.  Some parts of the casino are more exclusive than others and many mysterious rooms are not open except to the most affluent of customers.  It is rumored that some very unsavory games go on back there, possibly involving unwilling participants.  It is well known that the casino is at the heart of some kind of feud between different organized crime groups, but so far, any violence has been kept out of the gaming rooms.

Weapons:  Southside CityPol does not tolerate anything other than improvised weapons, such as knives, chains, or bats with nails.  How the owner of a restricted weapon is treated depends on the situation – a clean-cut stranger who innocently wandered down from Downtown into the more commercial areas of the Southside with his auto-pistol sitting in a holster on his hip is liable to given a light fine and told to leave, while a local ganger caught brandishing a pistol in a dark alleyway is probably going to get the choice between a substantial fine and a short prison sentence.  Anyone caught with a weapon of LR 2 or below weapon is almost certainly going to prison.  However, actually being scanned for weapons by a police officer is not common, except for those who have already been apprehended for something else.

Smuggling:  Citizens may enter and leave The Towers without being scanned by the police.  In fact, police scans are rare in the area and generally only occur if an officer is already suspicious.  The system is not effective in keeping much out, although military hardware, such as assault rifles, is generally felt to be too hard to hide.