Alba Concordia

Alba Concordia
Avenue of the Nations, with Palace of Nations visible
Flag
Motto(s):  "E pluribus unum" (Latin) "Out of many, one"
Territory	League of Nations
Founded	1 June 1956
Population  (2034)
• Total	96,401
Demonym	Concordian
Time zone	UTC+0 (Urceopolitan Mean Time)

Alba Concordia is a city in eastern Levantia, and serves as the headquarters of the League of Nations. A city-state in international territory, Alba Concordia is governed by a council of commissioners appointed by League of Nations officials. Most of the residents of the city are of non-Lapodian descent, either being transient diplomatic staff or the descendants of former diplomatic staff. The city, once a village on the outskirts of the Lapodian city of Rufus Concordia, was chosen by the League of Nations as its headquarters after the League was established following the Second Great War.

Alba Concordia is not a member of the Levantine Union, but is covered under the free trade and free travel provisions of that organization. While having its own defense force, the city-state is mostly dependent upon the Levantine Union for its military defense.

History

Alba Concordia, like many settlements in Dericania, was probably initially settled as a Gaelic ringfort, and archaeological endeavors have shown the earliest settlements on the site dating to ca. 1100 BC, one of the earliest settled sites in Dericania. The site was abandoned in the 600s BC and was resettled in the first century BC. During the Levantine Social War, the city of Concordia - located somewhere in the modern Urcean province of Eastglen - lead to the deportation and scattering of its residence. The defeated remains of its population were resettled into two villages - Rufus Concordia and Alba Concordia, meaning red and white Concordia respectively. The sources of the names are not clear, but some scholars have interpreted “Rufus” (red) Concordia to have been made up of those captured in battle, thereby having chose blood and war, symbolized by the red; Alba Concordia would have been founded by those Concordians who chose to surrender.

The two villages, separated by a river, remained relatively obscure until the 1200s, when the Dukes of Loreseia constructed their castle in Rufus Concordia due to its hilly central prominence and potential for a port city. Alba Concordia, south of the river, was soon dwarfed by its neighbor, though the need for food and agricultural products gave the rural community increased economic activity.

The industrialization of Dericania that followed the Third Caroline War elevated Rufus Concordia to the status of an industrial center, making Alba Concordia something of a proto-suburb during the late 1800s and early 1900s. During this period, it became a proving ground for would-be urban planners, as small residential areas and pastures were crossed by sweeping boulevards. A small functioning port was also constructed in Alba Concordia during this period, and it reached its pre-League population height - approximately 15,000. Spared during the Second Great War, Rufus Concordia was sacked during the Third Fratricide in 1940, causing mass disruption and chaos in what was once the Duchy of Loreseia. Consequently, Alba Concordia became largely depopulated during the 1940s.

The newly formed League of Nations began the search for a permanent home upon its foundation in 1955, and it quickly identified former Dericania as the potential place for its headquarters, given the lack of a central power that could threaten the organization combined with the relative availability of land in the war torn country. Alba Concordia was quickly identified as a potential home given its preexisting urban grid and port infrastructure. Primarily paid for using bonds from Urcea, the League purchased the village and its environs south of the river for five hundred million dollars. Subsequently, the League began to organize and rebuild the city. By 1960, the population of the city reached 10,000 as most of the world’s embassies were firmly established, building a new, nascent economy. Until 1963, the territory was directly governed by the organs of the League of Nations, a relatively bureaucratic and ineffective system. The Alba Concordia Commission government was formally chartered by the League of Nations General Assembly that year after having adopted an appropriate part of the Code of the League of Nations in 1956. International observers considered the reconstruction of Alba Concordia complete by 1964; the improved fortunes of Alba Concordia also lead to a recovery for Rufus Concordia, and the two cities continue to share a symbiotic relationship. By 1980, the city reached a population of 45,000, and by the 2030s the rapidly growing city reached nearly 100,000 people.

Government

Alba Concordia is governed by a five member commission - the Commission for Alba Concordia, a Commission under the Protected Lands and Sea Lanes Authority - as established by Chapter 4 of the Code of the League of Nations. The Commission is entrusted to "provide for the laws, security, and police for the City" and to further include some form of popular input. The Commission, consequently, is the central legislative and executive body of a larger governing apparatus known informally as the League Municipal Government, which employs fifteen different Departments beneath it used for administering the City. The Commission, by tradition, is composed of two representatives from the Deric States and one representative from each of the three permanent members of the League of Nations Security Council - Urcea, Caphiria, and Kiravia. Commissioners typically serve coterminous five year terms with the Provost-General of the League of Nations.

Per the Code of the League of Nations, the League Municipal Government employs the use of popular petitions, which requires the signatures of two thousand permanent residents of the city. These petitions, which address an issue area and make recommendations to the Commission, are often cited and used by the Commission to make new laws. The City has an elected "Mayor-Attendant", who sits in on meetings of the Commission in a non-voting capacity; though the Mayor-Attendant has no voting authority, he or she is respected as the full representative of the local will. The Mayor-Attendant is elected annually. The League Municipal Government, which functions using a body of laws known as "Practical Commission Law", functions closely to a normal Levantine municipality, providing a number of public services. Unlike other cities, however, it operates its own public healthcare administration and also has a small defense force known as the "Commission Guard", which primarily serves as a gendarme in support of organized neighborhood watch committees. A small police force is present, but the Police Department of Alba Concordia often contracts out law enforcement to neighborhood watch groups due to the considerable cultural differences within the city.

Demographics

As much of Alba Concordia's population is composed of career diplomats and their staff, the city-state has an unusual age profile. Whereas most developed countries have around 35-40% of their population either younger than 16 or older than 65, in Alba Concordia nearly 90% of the population are aged 16-65. This is because few children are born in the city, except to the native Lapodian minority who form the backbone of the local economy, and relatively few diplomatic personnel or attachés opt to retire as Concordians either. All told, children constitute barely 5,000 of the city's 96,000 residents, with retirees making up a similar number; there are consequently only around 20 schools in the city at primary and secondary level combined, not counting mini-schools in diplomatic compounds, simply because no more are required.

As noted above, Lapodians only form around 35% of the city-state's population, with the other 65% a potpourri of nationalities on account of the many diplomatic missions located in Alba Concordia. One further demographic quirk resulting from this international presence is that Alba Concordia has the highest number of chefs per capita of any country in the world, due to different missions' craving for the varied flavours of their homelands and their relatively high levels of disposable income. Approximately 2.5% of the city's population listed their occupation as "chef", "cook" or equivalent terminology in the 2021 Alba Concordia census, against a wider Levantine average of 0.2-0.5%.

The most widely-spoken languages in Alba Concordia are Junglish and Lapodard, with Junglish spoken almost exclusively as a second-language lingua franca and Lapodard as the most common mother tongue. Many diplomatic missions run either voluntary or compulsory Lapodard courses for long-term resident staff, but the preponderance of Junglish in Concordian daily life remains a source of resentment to many locals. Petitions to make Lapodard the sole official language of Alba Concordia were a common feature of Concordian domestic politics throughout the 1990s in particular, but were consistently vetoed by the Commission on the heavily criticized rationale of "internationalism".

Economy

Alba Concordia's economy is almost exclusively based on service sector amenities, ranging from housing to restaurants to hotels and all of the necessary suppliers for those types of businesses. The city is home to a large number of foreign diplomatic personnel as well as their staffs, necessitating high society amenities for its clientele. Accordingly, Alba Concordia is an extremely prosperous city with a very high median income, even among the lowest rung of service workers. Alba Concordia generally maintains an expectation of luxury, including both luxury experiences and luxurious goods, making it a large importer of high grade foodstuffs, clothing, alcohol, and other materials, primarily from Rhotia and Lapody but also from among the most exclusive producers of exotic goods in Audonia. Due to the very high standard of living and expectation of quality, the city is home to a relatively small tourism sector. Demand for tourism is high but the city is too small to accomodate non-diplomatic staff, leading to visitation waiting lists. Day tourism is the most common form of tourism, with individuals and families living in Lapody and Burgundie taking day trips to experience the city's highly-acclaimed restaurants. There are also three major casinos in Alba Concordia which receive thousands of visitors per year, both from domestic day travelers and international staff. Alba Concordia is one of the few places in the vicinity of the Levantine Union where escort agencies are legal, as are many drugs otherwise illegal in Levantine Union countries, leading to significant unreported sex and drug tourism.

Military

Alba Concordia's primary defenses come from its agreements with the members of the Levantine Union, which have guaranteed the sovereignty and safety of the city per treaty agreement. In addition, the City has its own defense force known as the Commission Guard. The Commission Guard, which includes the Commission Air Guard and Commission Naval Guard, includes 10,000 personnel, most of whom are members of the Guard on a seasonal or reserve basis.