Activating Public Space in Cabrillo | Cities Skylines #4

Welcome to Cabrillo, set in beautiful Northern California! In this episode, we build a huge waterfront park and a historical Little Italy district as we discuss the importance of public space.

LINK TO THE VOTE:

ABOUT CABRILLO
Cabrillo is a city set in Northern California with many different influences. A few you might notice are Portland, Oregon, the East Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area, and even Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm building my own synthesis. I'm focused on demonstrating and addressing some of the biggest issues facing Californian urban planners and community activists alike: the housing crisis, auto dependency, air pollution, inequality, and climate change, among others. I won’t be painting the picture of a perfect city; Cabrillo will have its share of all of the problems listed above and many more. But it will be on the right track. A democratic force has swept over the city, a force that refuses to settle for half-measures. How will Cabrillans tackle the challenges facing their city and other West Coast cities in the twenty-first century? Watch to find out, and fight for better solutions along the way to make sure your voice is heard.

SOCIAL

THINGS I MENTIONED

STEAM WORKSHOP

MUSIC
I use the excellent, royalty-free music from Epidemic Sound in my videos and streams.
Cabrillo's soundtrack consists of music by Sarah, The Illstrumentalist.

VIDEO CONTENTS
0:00 Intro
0:42 Inspiration Station
1:54 Timelapse: Building Walker Park
9:55 Timelapse: Building Little Italy
15:35 Results and new vote
17:35 Exploring!

PC SPECS
CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core
GPU: GeForce RTX™ 2070 WINDFORCE 2X 8G
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid Cooler
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 32GB (8 x 4GB) DDR4-2666
SSD: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5"
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM
#CitiesSkylines #Cabrillo #California

[blujitsu]

I really like that you’re approaching everything from the angle of cultural and social value. It makes things so much more plausible, and not even the best buildings really do that extensively. I don’t love all the decisions (I guess that’s politics), but if there’s a real reason, then I can live with them.

[pauljarski]

Thanks for incorporating some of my (Gilded Age) Little Italy buildings. One suggestion, given all your motivations for referencing Little Italy as neighborhood a strong community, would be to add a Church to the district. I'm personally agnostic but to be authentic a Little Italy would definitely have at least one prominent church.

[roylandscottness]

Love the combination of story and politics and economics in this episode! 🌆

[ynd]

City lights books was originally a club made in 1973, hidden behind a quaint little bookshop, as to not arouse suspicion from police officers. Eventually, in 1984, the owner, Paul Renistall was found out and arrested. The shop was left in disrepair for 3 years, until in 1987, it was bought by a local American-Italian family who refurbished it over a span of 3 months. They decided to keep the name as a memorial to the original club. They were offering books at extremely low prices, giving lower class people opportunities to read and learn. The family still runs the shop to this day.

[cbudd]

There's always a good time for Cabrillo!

[SBKWaffles]

The discussion is so nerdy. Which is great! You're discussing the same things we see in architecture school, but for free and while giving us light entertainment with the game!

[daltonbedore]

damn loving the discourse about class rights, spaces, ownership etc. in civil design. this is exactly what i want to study in school and try to work on :)

[rkilla]

Yepp us locals call it Point State Park! Glad to see some Pittsburgh references in this city series!

[winwinstears]

thank you! our spaces in cities are political, so to treat city building as something only for fun or aesthetics excluding politics would not really capture the essence of cities in the first place. i really like your perspective on this, and i know now this series is going to be very, very successful <3

[pingyao]

Love your urban plan for Cabrillo and social history. Makes the whole build so much more alive.

[daFoolgrommel]

Portland used to have a Little Italy in the southern part of today's downtown, which was home to most of the Italian and Jewish residents of the city. When the bridges connecting these neighborhoods to East Portland were built in the 1910s/20s, many residents moved across the river. A lot of the neighborhood was leveled in the 1950s/60s in the name of urban renewal, and in its place today are Portland State University, lots of high-rise buildings, and (you guessed it), the I-405 freeway

[lauren]

I’m loving this series so much, especially because of all your sociopolitical thoughtfulness and introspection

[davidatkinson]

Loved hearing the politics and the story you create. It’s easy for us all to think of cities on a larger birds-eye view (god-like?) scale, when cities are fundamentally about people and your closing shots are a great and unique way of highlighting this. Love it!

[xconzo]

You mentioned "Pres, stop talking about politics". Honestly, its the reason I watch you. I love your perspective as you build these cities, it's truly one-of-a-kind. Keep it up man.

[JacobOhlssonBudinger]

I love this series so much, absolutely insane series already. Please do loads on public transit, that’d be so cool to see.

[ettio]

I enjoyed the discourse added to gameplay! Local politics and urban planning is so important

[luckyluke]

I like the static shots!

About the star monument: it could be a gift from the North Star Mining Company which has been around in Cabrillo since the gold rush. The monument would have been gifted to the city in the early 80's but was then considered in poor taste considering the suspected corruption of the mayor and city council by the North Star Mining Company.
The corrupted politicians or the company were never charged after a trial that involved the murder of key witnesses, but the company has since lost a lot of its relevance and only survives because it owns the railways around the city (which it used to rely on heavily for its mining products back when local resources weren't depleted yet).

It would be nice to have a building in the city which is the HQ of the company. Maybe a building from the late 70's (when business was at its peak) that is now starting to show its age. Some old mining related abandonned industrial facilities and old brick neighborhoods the company built for its workers could be nice too. It would give the city's history a share of troubled times, you don't want it to be too perfect!

[samueldickson]

I would add some more modern high rise buildings to really push the idea that this land is valuable. I’m all for putting parks but density is important too for creating realistic downtowns. Keep up the great work!

[artyoz]

Star Monument Name/Story Idea: During the 1930s-1970s, and especially during the Space Race, Walker Park was one of the more popular stargazing vistas in the city. It was easy to get to from downtown, and on clear nights amateur astronomers would set up their telescopes by the dozens. There was even talk of building an observatory and planetarium at the site, but the issue was voted down during the budget-crunched 70's. When the Hyatt was built in *[year]* it effectively ruined the stargazing experience because of the light pollution, and the community of stargazers eventually dissolved. However, when a bond issue was passed to build a "signature" monument for Walker Park, the winning design was one that payed homage to this part of Cabrillo's history. The monument was named Polaris, for the north star, which is also the "anchor" star for the constellation Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, itself a connection to the flag of California.

An interesting side note: the night after Polaris was first unveiled to the public, numerous witnesses reported sightings of a cylindrical object over the ocean. Photographs of the UFO were of the typical blurry quality, and many who were present that night reported that they didn't see anything at all. However, because of the sighting's connection to a group of amateur sky-watchers, the story gained traction in the UFO community, and to this day it is referred to as the Polaris Object or, less poetically, the Cabrillo Can.

[brunhildeterwilliger]

Love your stuff. Please talk about the main issue regarding public space today - homeless camps taking the public use out of parks.