Dirt Vegas: leaving room for a city

A highway-side industrial district, a stronger downtown, and a future that reaches beyond the next empty lot.

I have spent a fair amount of my administration answering the city’s loudest complaint. More homes. More jobs. Another school. Each answer helped, but eventually a mayor must lift his eyes from the complaint form and decide where the whole enterprise is going. Dirt Vegas deserves a future more deliberate than whichever patch of grass happens to be nearest the road.

So this time I opened the map and kept the cheque book shut. The city stayed paused: 15,501 residents, 13 owned tiles and ₡525,653 in the treasury, exactly as we found it for this survey. We bought nothing and built nothing. What we produced was a first regional plan, still a proposal for review. An inexpensive afternoon, by my standards.

A city with more than one center

The ambition is a city of distinct districts, connected well enough to belong to one another. Downtown should earn its position as the commercial and civic heart. The campus should grow into a place where learning, work and ordinary life meet. Industry needs room to operate without putting its loading bays against somebody’s bedroom. New neighborhoods need destinations and connections before they need another grand entrance sign.

Give industry somewhere intentional to go

The strongest candidate from this short survey lies roughly four tile widths beyond the present industrial district, along the existing divided highway. The sampled ground was dry and fairly flat. That makes it worth investigating; it does not make an interchange, water connection or fire service appear by municipal optimism.

I would reserve that area now and prepare one usable tile first. We need access to both highway directions, utilities, service coverage, and a proper look at noise, air pollution and water sources. Freight should reach the district without borrowing the campus streets as a shortcut. Separation from homes needs to be meaningful, not a ceremonial line of trees.

There is railway elsewhere on the map, but we did not establish rail access at this industrial site. Cargo rail can remain an option to study. It does not get a place in the brochure as an existing amenity.

Make the places we already have work better

The first work remains close to home. Our college has opened, and its avenue has a morning queue. Butler Street has homes beside industry with noise complaints. Those are real obligations. Before a large new housing wave, I want the next administration to trace the bottleneck, improve the useful connections and examine that uncomfortable industrial boundary.

From there, the proposed transit spine links campus, the established core and a later residential center on the same bank, to the right of town in the map above. We can begin with useful walking routes and buses when demand supports them, while leaving room for greater capacity. The dotted line is a reservation of intent, not a surveyed route or a promise that trains arrive next Tuesday.

The waterfront deserves continuity and public space, but the industrial shore has a pollution history. Recreation comes after checking the conditions. Across the water, the far-bank district is deliberately marked as a long-term option. We have enough room on this bank to make progress before commissioning a bridge large enough to become my financial obituary.

Buy the first chapter, not the whole ending

The order matters. First, consolidate campus and downtown. Next, compare access options and price a complete first industrial section. Build it when workplace demand returns or when we have a deliberate, funded reason to relocate activity. The previous gameplay session ended with no industrial zoning demand; drawing a yellow circle does not create any.

Land is only the opening charge. The tile menu showed monthly upkeep running into tens of thousands, before roads and services. My proposed rule is to retain at least ₡200,000 after the entire first package, with an operating surplus that can carry it without assuming new tax income arrives immediately. That is a planning choice, not a law of the game. Exact costs must be checked again before spending.

Development points should serve that sequence. Unlocking a useful capability and constructing it are separate decisions. We need not hoard points until the end of civilization, nor unlock expensive toys simply because the button is available. Choose the tools for the next funded stage.

Later housing should open in manageable sections, with jobs, essential services and a useful connection to the other centers. Greater density, higher-capacity transit and perhaps the far bank follow demonstrated need. A megacity is an ambition. It is not an excuse to skip the plumbing.

A plan the next mayor can inherit

The map now has a written companion with coordinate anchors, proposed corridors and conditions for each stage. Future sessions should say which part they advance. If the terrain, budget or citizens make a better argument, revise the plan and explain the change before building across a reservation. Continuity should leave room for judgment.

What exists—and what we are making room for

For tonight, the roads we have not built can remain lines on a map. Let the lake keep its open edges, and let the empty ground hold a little room for our better judgment. Dirt Vegas, I intend to leave you more than a collection of hurried answers.

Choo Choo Sinclair, Mayor of Dirt Vegas