Escarda

Escarda
City
Nickname(s):  Capital of the North
Country	Kiravian Federacy
State	Devahoma
Countyship	Dannen
Government
• Body	Escarda City Commission
• Provost	Tomás Grémar (EPP)
• President	Michael Vick
Population	14,205,000

Escarda is the second-largest city in the Kiravian Federacy and the largest in the state of Devahoma. Located at the head of Dannen Bay and the mouth of the Swadesh River on the North Coast of Great Kirav, it has long been an important commercial port and grew rapidly as Upper Kirav became a major industrial region in the 21100s.

History

In XXXXX while on a reconnaisance mission against the Cromwelutes, Imperial Coscivian military leader Selvur Kalarin's armada came upon a Cromwelute trading settlement at the mouth of a navigable river. Kalarin's forces attacked and razed the settlement later that year, and the site remained abandoned until six years later, when a Coscivian trading post was established on the opposite bank of the river from the ruins of the Cromwelute one. Named Escardun ("Fort Escard") after the High Admiral of the Coscivian Imperial Navy at the time, Arvandus Eskard. Escarda's proximity to Drail, the most technologically and economically developed Urom society (and therefore the one best-suited for gainful trade with the Coscivians), as well as the reliable availability of food from the good farmland to the south, allowed the settlement to prosper. With the coastal lands further west being less fertile and home to Urom groups with less to offer the Kiravians in trade, Escarda became the westernmost major Coscivian population center on the North Coast.

After the defeat of Drail in the Continental War opened up the hinterlands of what would become Devahoma State for Coscivian settlement, Escarda became a burgeoning port, exporting the abundant minerals and produce sent up the Swadesh from new settlements downriver, and becoming the main conduit for manufactured goods shipped in from the East to supply these communities. The mineral and forest wealth of the Westron Mountains eventually allowed Escarda to become an industrial center in its own right, producing products for export across the North Coast and as far east as Levantia over the famed Kilikas trade routes.

Urban Planning and Character

Escarda's urban environment has been variously described as "an endless sea of high-rises", "the distilled essence of urbanism", and "what Strathannan or Canova [cantons of Valēka] would look like were they not surrounded by water". Indeed, the Escarda cityscape is dominated by high-rise buildings, with the tallest buildings mostly concentrated near the waterfronts on the Coscivian Sea and Swadesh River. Escarda's buildings are significantly shorter on average than those in Saar-Silvera or Valēka's Ansalon Island, but unlike skyscrapers in these cities, Escardan buildings were not designed to comply with the strict building codes of Saar-Silverda and Valēka that require setbacks and are aimed at protecting access to sunlight and sky visibility. As such, they are more uniformly rectangular, and in many residential districts dating from the Kirosocialist era, quite undifferentiated.

Most of the city is laid out in a loose grid pattern. As the city expanded, the government approved new construction projects block-by-block, expanding east, west, and south in regular, rectangular segments. Many of these segments were meant to be self-contained, and some were designed for the use of a particular ethnic group. As a result, many of the city's more residential neighbourhoods have the same amenities; a house of worship, two groceries, a laundromat, a grammar school; in analogous positions, and can appear to be almost identical to one another. Despite having a grid pattern, Escarda has never adopted a systematic naming/numbering plan for its streets based on their position in the city. Instead, nearly all streets have proper names. This unusual combination is often confusing to visitors, prompting the Primóra-based travel writer V.D. Rostavrin to remark:

It is most natural to imagine that a foreign tourist, say an Urcean or a Daxian, unable to speak any of the city's local languages, could take the wrong bus by mistake and spend several years trying to find their way out of this labyrinth that several million Devahomans have seen fit to imprison themselves in. Many cities of its size make no effort to lay out their roads in an orderly fashion, but at least in these cities the haphazard intersection of streets at the oddest of angles makes it possible to distinguish one neighbourhood from another. Escarda has the peculiar distinction of laying out its streets with no numbers or other scheme to aid in navigation, while at the same time keeping the blocks and even the buildings so regular in shape and configuration that they all blend together. In much of the city, the towers rise high enough to obscure the motions of the Sun, so that even time loses any meaning.

— V.D. Rostavrin

Like Valēka and Eriadun, much of Escarda is a patchwork of neighbourhoods occupied primarily by one ethnosocial group or another, with more mixed-use and multi-ethnic areas near the waterfronts, along major commercial avenues, or surrounding intentional mixed-use zoned areas placed by the city government. Teveran Park, for example, is a predominantly Èrlem neighbourhood. Ravathura Row is divided roughly in half between Sarasoviem Coscivians and Kuatem Coscivians, while neighbouring Frāsertren is inhabited by native Kiravian Gaels and Gaelic-speakers of Fiannrian and Urcean origin. Urom live mainly in low-rent neighbourhoods adjacent to the industrial parks, or in public housing projects on the East End of the city.

Economy

Central business district on the Swadesh

Escarda has long been a manufacturing giant and has more factories within its boundaries than any other Kiravian city. The city grew rapidly as Upper Kirav emerged as a major industrial area, becoming a key center for the production of steel, machine parts, paper, textiles, building materials, and medicaments. Today, the manufacture of electrical equipment, alcoholic beverages, food products, medical devices, composites, and consumer goods underpins the tertiary sector of the economy, which employs some 25% of Escardan workers.

Major corporations based in Escarda include the alcoholic beverage giant ÁLO Alquifer, Pluricontinental Airways, Inzipid Incorporated (mobile electronics), SAK Pretannon (investment banking), Lexicon Group (public relations), SAK Macrohard (hardware retailer), SAK Greenlight (bookmaking), Gantríon Development ÁLO (construction), Lamron Corporation (electronic equipment), SAK Northwest Passage (shipping), SAK Konterra (Domestic appliances), and Radio CB (sattelite radio). Even more top firms are located in Escarda's inner suburbs.

Despite the presence of numerous major firms in Escarda, the city has suffered somewhat as the Kiravian economy has shifted from ordoliberal "Clarendonomics", which favoured decentralisation and multifirm competition, towards a more neoliberal economic model. Relaxation of ordoliberal decentralist and antitrust policies has encouraged many top companies once based in Escarda to relocate to Valēka, Bérasar, and the West Coast to be closer to foreign markets and sources of capital. In response, many Escardan and Devahoman government leaders have made efforts to promote Escarda as Valēka Ðarnagramsk, "the Valēka of the Mittelstand", appealing to Midlands values and adopting policies friendly to small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Escarda briefly became a hub for film production in the 21180s and early 21190s, but was quickly eclipsed by Pontevedra as it consolidated its status as the capital of the Kiravian entertainment industry in the 21190s.

Points of Interest

Economic

• Escarda Mercantile Exchange - Kiravia's largest market for commodities trading, first established in 21023 as a livestock market.
• Alquifer Incorporated Global Headquarters - Headquarters of the multinational liquor giant. Offers informational tours and complimentary drinks to visitors as part of its public relations programme.
• Grand Hall of Labour - Headquarters of the Pan-Kiravian Congress of Trade Unions.
• Abs' Mom's Hoopin' Hollerin' House o' Hellcats - Whorehouse operated by Abs' Mom. Very popular with Hekuvian businessmen, Rumeli tourists, and apostrophe enthusiasts.

Musea

• Continental War Museum - Museum documenting and interpreting the Continental War. Has been criticised as heavily biased in favour of the Confederate Republics of Kirav, and is subject to frequent vandalism and graffiti by local Draili Urom.