Recreation: San Diego County---Rebuilding America's Finest City! UPDATE! 4/27/11

[GreekMan]

An F-18 passes over San Diego Bay. Hey! I have this as a background form my computer!

WELCOME TO SAN DIEGO, CA!

San Diego is America's 8th largest city with a population of 1.3 million within the city and 3 milllion in the county itself. San Diego was discovered by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542, naming the site San Miquel. Around 1769 Father Junipero Serra, renamed the area San Diego found Mission San Diego de Alcala and from then on San Diego become known as the , "Birthplace of California" since the first of the 21 missions was established in San Diego. The original town of San Diego was at Old Town, at the foot of Presidio Hill (pictures will come soon!) several miles from the water. The city was incorporated in 1850. In the 1860s, a man named Alonzo Horton bought land in what is now Downtown San Diego. He began to sell lots to his large piece of land and San Diego grew. Years after the Navy came to town in 1901 and from then on, San Diego has become mainly a military city with the presence of several military branches. After that the rest is history! When the military came to town before World War II, San Diego flourished and this once sleepy town became a a major city in the US. San Diego's main economy is defense, manufacturing, and tourism. San Diego is a very popular destination  thoughout the year. San Diego boosts an average of 70 degrees F throughout 201 days of the year.  There are over 100 neighborhooods throughout the City of San Diego. Anyway there is just a little bit of history of this great city! More more info visit Wikipedia.

About this MD
I have had this vision of mine for the past 3-5 years about rebuilding my hometown of San Diego.  You see a lot of people rebuilding New York, Chicago, LA or other cities. That's fine and all but I like a little diversity so I am going to rebuild this city because San Diego is underrepresented and is always in the shadow of Los Angeles. I intend to recreate this city as best i can. I obviously can't rebuild everything but I am going to try. Freeways will go in there exact location or as close as I can get them. So will also major streets in the city. I will also try to provide with a little history and some real pictures of what I am currently building, like neighborhoods and such. You will see what I mean soon. I am going to get as close as I can to making the real San Diego and this willl be be no easy feat. I have no idea how long this will take. My approch is to build the freeways first, then major roads and just generally fill up the rest with sprawl. Without further ado, Welcome to San Diego!

[kelis]

Great start my friend ! Welcome to the world of the recreations 
Good luck and keep up the good work.

[Ninevah]

This should be awesome

[ldvger]

Good start, looks like a fun project, I'll be keeping an eye on it as I lived in San Diego (well, La Jolla, actually) when I was 6 years old.  I don't remember much except the warm waether, so welcome after living in Detroit, The Race Track, and The Zoo. 

Recreations can be tricksy, I tried one of San Francisco Bay Area last year and got bogged down before I ever built my first road or house.  And while putting in the transportation systems early is a great idea, you may want to consider the above sea level water features (rivers, creeks, lakes, etc.), too. 

Lora/LD

[Tomas Neto]

Nice start!!! 

[GreekMan]

Thanks for Comments!!!!

UPDATE: Downtown Grid System



As you can see from above, Downtown San Diego has a grid system in which numbered streets run North-South and leter streets run East-West. Obviously I can't really recreate this 100% but this is pretty damn close to the real thing. Lttle Italy, where Grape and Hawthorne Streets are can't be like the really neighborhood. Also I am missing streets 13th to 17th streets as u can see in the map above. I ran out of room to place them but I willl put them in the other tile. The street system around Petco Park is still not completed. Also I did not place the trolley system yet, next update. You will see what I mean!





Freeway are laid down first. Intersate 5 runs around downtown and CA 163 runs through Balboa Park and ends in Downtown.  Pretty close resemblance to the real thing.



An hour later streets are laid down.......



The map that was provided will give you all the names of the streets in downtown. The large squares are for the Civic Center and Horton Plaza.



The waterfront with realisitc piers that are similar to the real ones in San Diego. Refer to map for names.



Above is Seaport Village. I am pleased with my grid system!



I obviously can't make a bridge like that in Sim City.... so this is the Coronado Bridge in MY San Diego



Please feel free to leave comments!

[Tomas Neto]

Wow..., really a fantastic work!!!   

[Terring7]

Looks interesting
I think that a slope mod will make the network a bit more smooth and nice

[ldvger]

Looks GREAT!  One question:  did you rotate your map before you started so that you could run your grid in a true north-south-east-west manner or are the streets of SD really laid out in a true NSEW pattern? 

Looking forward to more!

Lora/LD

[scott1964]

Looks interesting  Only to San Diego once long ago.

[rooker1]

 Great work on this.  It's going to be very interesting to see how the city fills up.  I agree Elias (Terring7)....you do need a slope mod.  The streets and roads look okay, but the highway is too bumpy and it's hard to see but I can assume that the rail won't look nice up close.
Looking forward to your next update.

Robin 

[RickD]

Great work recreating the downtown grid. I am a huge fan of "recreation MDs" so I am very happy to see another one. 

[Kcrimsonsim]

looks like quite an undertaking, keep it up!

[penguin007]

Looks likes an interesting project here and the road network looks good

Will

[peter007]

Really nice and realistic progress

[GreekMan]

Comments:

Thanks for all the comments: Tomas Neto, Terring7, scott1964, rooker1, RickD, Kcrimsonsim, penguin007 andpeter007. To those about a slope modd, i will look into finding one!

To  ldvger the streets here are really laid out in a NSEW pattern. Thanks for the comment!

UPDATE: Downtown Trolley Routes

Today's update will focus on the trolley system in the downtown area:



Santa Fe Depot is the main train station for San Diego County.



C Street Station where City Hall is located



City College &12th Ave Station



Seaport Village Station. In real life this part of the line is on the ground. Due to the placement of that street and lack of a diagonal GLR track piece, I am placing the trolley in the air for this section.



The trolley runs along 12th Ave all the way from City College to PETCO Park. City crews are building this segment of the trolley in order to rebuild San Diego!(hehe)



Here is an overview of the trolley downtown. I still have some more work to do with the trolley but that will be for another day!

Feel free to leave comments!!!!

[Terring7]

Looks very good

[bat]

Nice start there! 

[GreekMan]

Thanks for the comments guys!!!!

TEASER Here is a small teaser of things to come later this week. I am waiting for ST to be upgraded in order to finsh Coronado, since i have to download some BATs. The SC4 pic is of the center of the City of Cornado. The street system is pretty similar to the real thing, hence why I posted a "real" street map of Coronado! I will let you be the judge of how real I am trying to make this CJ.....






I found this picture on wikipedia. Stunning huh?

Please feel free to leave comments!!!!

[samerton]

Very nice! This MD will be something very special.