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Zenith City - One Page Overview

Zenith City Location Description (One Page)

In the not too distant future South Korea had completed its first artificial city and, in an ode to world peace, proposed something grander: an artificial airborne city located over the Pacific Ocean. Japan quickly came aboard, Mexico and Canada soon after, but it would take over a year for the United States and China to both agree to the proposal. The resulting project was named Zenith City and it was decided to place it roughly halfway between Tokyo and San Francisco, positioning it north-west of Hawaii. While the project got official backing from other nations as well as the United Nations it would ultimately be the six founding nations that put the most resources into the project. A joint team of South Korean, Japanese and American engineers ended up developing the magnetic field drive that would keep the city securely suspended in mid-air, Mexico and Canada helping to design fail-safes while China provided the majority of the building materials.

It took nearly ten years to fully complete Zenith City, though the first phase was completed after only three, and by the tenth year the city’s population had reached half a million. The six founding nations offered incentives to those who wished to move to Zenith, causing the population to double within only another three years. Thanks to the city’s placement it quickly became an invaluable hub for air travel, with advanced aircraft even able to take advantage of new airdock designs while older, more conventional aircraft still had traditional runways available. Zenith City’s standard distance from the ocean is roughly 1,500 meters (or 4,900 feet), though it has the ability to reach 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) with full output from the magnetic drive. In addition to fail-safes that include the likes oceanic impact reduction zones and emergency hydrogen lift balloons (not designed to keep the city afloat so much as stopping any impact on the ocean minimal) the city’s walls are designed to reduce higher atmospheric winds from rushing through the city as well as avoiding fatal accidents by being too near the edge.

As a city build primarily on mined materials the surface is a mix of liquid granite and solar panels, the panels throughout the city and able to light up to help with navigation as well as produce some heat. The streets are lain out to be for multiple vehicles, there being specific roads for cars, specific roads for driver-less cars and specific paths for either pedestrians or non-motorized vehicles like bicycles or scooters. The city lacks a bus system but instead as a combination of a monorail and a subway, the two systems merged and designed with the city to offers coverage for everyone. All lower class workers tend to take the rail system while middle class frequently employ traditional cars, driverless vehicles primarily employed by the upper class. For convenience various city services are also available at every block, including a city banking machine, a city phone booth, public restrooms and a public wireless internet location.

Due to the lack of room for too much expansion on Zenith City there is strict regulation on housing and personal property. Nearly all homes are apartment based, the main variety being the size and if it comes with a parking place. What few private homes there are do not have lawns and are only allowed up to two private vehicles. The city does have a park that uses proper soil, though it was transplanted and is kept alive by sophisticated gardening care equipment buried underneath it. While the city’s major industries are driven by its international status and transportation hub nature it also has a large water sector, there being several areas of the city dedicated to gathering moisture in the air. The moisture gathering, wind reduction and heated panels help make the city more bearable to live in, though all buildings are equipped with air filters as well in case the outdoors become too unbearable.