Snippettsville Ambience

wildsweetone

i am what i am
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This is a step closer to the Setting's Database... We need to discuss the ambience of Snippettsville.

Knowing basically that it's a small town with rural surroundings and some big town connections for residents work and better shopping choices...

How do you see Snippettsville?


As an example...

wildsweetone said in the Map thread


If we're looking at a population of say 1,000 and say, 4 people to each house (averages only), that would be 250 houses in Snippettsville.

There are bound to be several houses that are unlived in, maybe a couple that are derelict and due for demolition, (damn if there's not a story in that), maybe Snip qualifies for a couple of Social Welfare type properties, maybe the majority are average family homes with a few scattered about that are obviously well-to-do type properties...
 
Given what I observe as the general population of Lit. I have presumed Snipps will be an average 'american' small town but hopefully more inclusive than most to 'outsider' types, e.g., non-whites, foreigners, non-Chirstians, non-heterosexuals, etc.

I'm not white so I've created two Russian-Jews and an Irish-Sicilian, one or two or all may be bi-sexually active and perhaps more sophisticated/ecucated than the average stereotypical smalltown type. Obviously I will give them reasons for being in Snipps. (I note too that Gauche has a Yorkshireman character.)

Will characters like this stick out like sore thumbs? Not fit the 'ambience'?

Perdita
 
Typical soap-opera small town: 750% higher than national average occurrences of adultery, serial killers, teenage pregnancy, bombings, adopted children returning to find their parents, crop circles, etc. etc. etc.
 
wildsweetone said:
There are bound to be several houses that are unlived in, maybe a couple that are derelict and due for demolition, (damn if there's not a story in that), maybe Snip qualifies for a couple of Social Welfare type properties, maybe the majority are average family homes with a few scattered about that are obviously well-to-do type properties...

I think this is a fairly good start on the ambience.

Most small towns with any history have abandoned properties scattered throughout the town -- especially a small town that has recently (in the last ten years or so) lost it's primary industry.

Snippetsville's (emerging) status as a "Bedroom Community" for a larger population center within commuting distance will tend to add some ethnic diversification to "traditional" small town dynamics and introduce some unsavory elements via connections at work and "off-screen" interactions (i.e. action that doesn't take place in "Snippetsville.")

Perdita:
... I've created two Russian-Jews and an Irish-Sicilian, one or two or all may be bi-sexually active and perhaps more sophisticated/ecucated than the average stereotypical smalltown type. Obviously I will give them reasons for being in Snipps. (I note too that Gauche has a Yorkshireman character.)

Will characters like this stick out like sore thumbs? Not fit the 'ambience'?

I think your characters would fit the ambience of a "bedroom community" just fine.

I would suggest that there are two main reasons for people to choose to live in a "bedroon community" -- economics and lower crime levels. Housing is generally cheaper in small towns -- even after real-estate prices rise to meet the demand of commuters, and there isn't a big enoughpopulation base to support much in the way of organized crime or gang activities -- with the possible exception of a drug dealer or two there just isn't the market to make crime pay or be worth fighting turf wars over.

Rainbow Skin:
Typical soap-opera small town: 750% higher than national average occurrences of adultery, serial killers, teenage pregnancy, bombings, adopted children returning to find their parents, crop circles, etc. etc. etc.

With the exception of serial killers and bombings, I think the Soap Opera Town analogy is a good one -- I think of Snippetsville as being very much like Peyton Place or Harper Valley (as in Jeanny C. Riley's old hit song "Harper Valley PTA"); a small town where everyone one knows what everyone else is up to but pretends to ignore it. A town full of "Sunday Christians" who like to think they're getting away with their hedonism and hypocrisy.

I'd like to think that Snippetsville will not turn into Sodom and Gomorah and be a quiet peacefull town on the surface that's filled with horny people trying to act like sex doesn't exist.

Most small towns have one real "scandal" about every ten years or so -- most of which wouldn't make the police blotter summary on page fifteen of a big city newspaper, let alone an article to themselves.
 
Thanks, Harold. I like your replies and thoughts for the town. On behalf of my characters, we're feeling more welcome by the minute.

Perdita
 
I see Snippettsville as a typical - it can't happen here - kind of town. This, in spite of all the skeletons that the inhabitants have tucked safely away (they hope) in the back of their closets.

There is a new subdivision, which is opening up the town to become a ”bedroom" for the local city. (We have GOT to get a name for that city.) But the effects have not been fully felt, as yet.

To date, the changes have not completely taken effect.

Green Lake was the pioneer influence in the opening up of the area. Until the late fifties, Green Lake was a local secret.

During the following years, first fishing, then boating, and finally cottages, and even one Children's Summer Camp settled about the Green Lake.

By now, if developers had their way, Green Lake would be completely ringed by private cottages, and cordoned off from regular citizens.

What has saved Green Lake, was a bird sanctuary on the west shore, community docking facilities in [Snippetts Bay?] on the east shore, and a public swimming beach to the north, which kept Green Lake a public body.

An on-going political battle rages between the new bedroom community, which tends to support lower property taxes and improved school facilities, while the original Snippettsville, tends to support historic community sites and traditions, open access to recreational areas, and lower taxes.
 
Across the tracks

There are so many SVille threads that I can't keep up. I mentioned it on one other, but I'll do it again:

There must be some are of SVille where the disadvantaged, undereducated, minority, underemployed and criminal element live. A place of run down houses, cars on blocks in the nicer yards, a bodega-liquor store that stocks lots of MD 20-20 and Night Train. Drug dealing and drive by shootings. A place where my characters Rip Henderson and Sugar Ray Stallings would live.
MG
 
Re: Across the tracks

MathGirl said:
There are so many SVille threads that I can't keep up. I mentioned it on one other, but I'll do it again:

There must be some are of SVille where the disadvantaged, undereducated, minority, underemployed and criminal element live. A place of run down houses, cars on blocks in the nicer yards, a bodega-liquor store that stocks lots of MD 20-20 and Night Train. Drug dealing and drive by shootings. A place where my characters Rip Henderson and Sugar Ray Stallings would live.
MG

Might I suggest the Tornado Alley Trailer Park? Here the young, old and generally unsavoury can all live side by side. Unhindered by landscaping and unique architecture, the just married, just pensioned and just released should all thrive. I think that there has got to be room on that pad for a '73 Mustang that is - "just needing an authentic steering wheel and I'll have her back on the road in no time".

Carrie
My Scribbles
 
OK then how about a failed condominium project begun by Microsoft or Fox or someone without waiting for the permits and then having the project blocked because of the endangered wildlife thing at the lake. Sold to the town for a pittance as a tax write-off and then given over to welfare accomodation. (2bd. thr.lnge. bth. kch. etc.)

Gauche
 
Champagne1982
A trailer park is a great idea!

MathGirl

I believe drive by shootings are more common in highly populated areas. A stray bullet from a hunter's gun, that would work. Oh, and there are also those kids who love to ride around in the back of a truck at night and shoot at mailboxes, beat them with baseball bats, blow them up with fireworks... I digress.

Smiles,
Wantonica:rose:
 
Interesting answers

I'm not 100% with Mathgirl, as so far we only have her villains, but I can see her point. Except possibly for the drive-by shootings. Tom Holt would have them arrested or out of town in nothing flat. Everybody knows everybody in a small town!

I need to argue the point with my co-creator, but I see the population as nearer 2000.

The maps are completed, in first (and I hope only!) draft, but WSO has yet to see them. We'll get them up ASAP.

I like the Peyton Place/Harper valley analogy!

On "The City" - carefully left off the maps! South of Snippettsville on the Interstate. Suggestions for a name welcome. So far we're going with Baggett County (thank you, Quasimodem - your 'Baggett's Island' was the prompt - it's the big island) and the county seat is Mayson, about five miles North of Snippettsville. I haven't placed the Road House yet, but I favour putting it between the two towns. Would that make sense? There's a cross-roads about halfway between.

I have things I've been putting off that I must do, so I'll be keeping a low profile for a few days, certainly until Monday, but I'll try to get the maps up first. (MG - for your down-at-heel quarter I suggest A/7 or D/7. It'll make sense when you see the map.)

Alex
 
Re: Re: Across the tracks

champagne1982 said:
Might I suggest the Tornado Alley Trailer Park?[/URL]
Good idea. That would do nicely. Just make sure there are a couple of Chevys up on blocks and a few smelly, flea bitten mongrels. I can see a family like the Jukes living in a swamp not far from town.
MG
Ps. A one eyed cat always adds a bit of ton.
 
I agree with Wantonica about no drive-by shootings. Country sign shootings, (especially “no hunting” signs) mailbox baseball, tractor races (after stealing the tractors) and cow tipping would be the sports of choice.

With Green Lake, there would be boat theft, speeding boats to catch, trespassing (in the bird sanctuary)and drug trafficking to cottage minors (alcohol, marijuana, occasionally more serious dope.)

There might be a trailer park, or a subdivision of jerry-built houses built during the post World War Two boom, when building codes in Snippettsville were briefly relaxed.

This area would be on the (wrong) other side of the tracks from Snippettsville proper, in the valley drained by Wilot’s creek.

A trailer park on the shore of Green Lake would insure it also was the site of its share of class conflicts.
 
I apologise up front for the amount of threads. I'm trying to keep them to a minimum but the discussions are leading further, slightly sooner than I anticipated. Sorry. *going to tie up WH ;)*



Good idea. That would do nicely. Just make sure there are a couple of Chevys up on blocks and a few smelly, flea bitten mongrels. I can see a family like the Jukes living in a swamp not far from town.
MG
Ps. A one eyed cat always adds a bit of ton.
MG! Don't forget the old man with the tombstone mouth and the limp! ;)

gauche A failed condo project sounds interesting. As simple as a single two or three story structure that's empty and not quite finished...

Alex 2000 population agreed. :)




General consensus so far of 'general drive by shootings'

agree: MathGirl, RainbowSkin

disagree: WeirdHarold, Wantonica (sounds like you know the guys who blew up my neighbours mailbox a couple of weeks ago ;) and i live in one of the 'better' areas hmm), Quasi, Alex

not obvious decisions: PierceStreet, perdita.

My own comment. I see no reason why MG's characters cannot reside in Snippettsville in a stereotypical low class area, and drive off to shoot up people/property in the Big City. Criminals don't always 'do over' their own home town.


This is a great discussion. :)
 
Can I just vehemently disagree with the drive by shootings anywhere. I realise that lots of the world are hardened to death and murder due in large part to 'freedom of speech'.

Personally I'm not. When I saw that piece of live footage from Iraq where the guy with the rocket launcher or whatever took out the building where the snipers were and the onlooking soldiers began a'hoopin and a'hollerin as if it was some kind of computer game. People died. However misguided they were someone's son died.

It made me angry at first, especially when I recalled the incident about the friendly fire killings of a British journalist. Then we were treated to American families praying that their own sons be brought home safely. That made me angrier still. Now it makes me cry.

You have no reason to respond or take heed of any of my feelings about this. All I'm saying is I'm not hardened yet, even in my middle age. People being killed 'for fun' is not my idea of Erotica.

I make no demands or threats, but I will not be willing to contribute to a series which makes so little of death.

Gauche:(
 
Dear WSO,
"Drive by shootings" is not a necessary part of the ambience I wanted, so forget that. I just wanted to make sure there was an area which was disreputable, infested by weeds and low lifes, and generally lacking in attention to personal hygiene and laws against inbreeding. Sounds like you've got it nailed.
MG
 
Okay before this particular vein goes further I'm nipping it in the bud at this point.

There will be a designated area on the fringes of Snippettsville proper that will be stereotypically suitable for the residence of a few unpopular souls.



aside to gauche I apologise for any 'insensitiveness' towards your feelings. I should know better. I have a friend in northern Iraq at this moment. I understand your anguish and have lived with my own for a number of years also.


all
Now, to the opposite end of the scale. Do we have a street of houses that are 'upper class'?
 
Thanks both.

As for the upper class area I am a staunch communist and believe that property is theft. If you have an exclusive upper class area then I for one....

Gauche:rolleyes:
 
wildsweetone said:
Now, to the opposite end of the scale. Do we have a street of houses that are 'upper class'?
I'd prefer not. I don't understand small town life but in a really small town how can there be an upper class section? Why would that type of person want to live there, even if in separate comfort? I trust there will be some variety in household income, but enough to warrant a special side of the tracks?

Thanks WSO and MG for the response to Gauche; I thought I'd wait but I also would not want such a RL aspect to this type of erotica writing project. I've lived with violence much of my life, certainly don't want it in my fantasies.

Best, Perdita
 
Re: Re: Re: Across the tracks

MathGirl said:
Good idea. That would do nicely. Just make sure there are a couple of Chevys up on blocks and a few smelly, flea bitten mongrels. I can see a family like the Jukes living in a swamp not far from town.
MG
Ps. A one eyed cat always adds a bit of ton.

MathGirl,
If I might suggest also, be sure that the old man with one front tooth is wandering around scratching himself, being tormented by the 8-12 year old crowd
 
perdita said:
I'd prefer not. I don't understand small town life but in a really small town how can there be an upper class section? Why would that type of person want to live there, even if in separate comfort? I trust there will be some variety in household income, but enough to warrant a special side of the tracks?

"Bedroom Communities" tend to have a disparity in income between the "locals" and the "commuters." the commuters tend to buy up the Historic Houses and build new modern houses that they couldn't afford to build in the closer to the city because of property values.

I'd guess that a new development of "large view lots" is just outside the city limits, on a hill-side, for the medium to high income commuter types -- probbly not more than 20-30 homes at the moment, but with plans for expansion stalled by environmental concerns and county building codes.

There's also a couple of scattered "country homes" of "mansion" scale for a few Really-Rich commuter types on small failed farms -- either under construction or fairly recent construction.

The bedrom community aspect gives scope for a lot of variation in income levels and a few "snobs" in the population, but the general ambience would generally be the attraction of a generally crime free and insular small-town that the commuters tend to protect as much as the locals do. i.e even the commuter types will grumble about newer commuters "coming in and ruining the town."
 
In my own bedroom community where I live, there are old houses from the original farmland, right through to several subdivisions of new housing. This small township has one garage (petrol station), one mechanics building, a dairy, a fruit and vege shop and a take aways, a school for 5-12 year olds, a playcentre for under 5s, and a new kindy is currently being built.

The majority of residents do not work in this area, rather they travel to the city or other major populated areas.

There is a sense of community here. But it's very localised. More that groups of neighbours within each street are 'community minded'. See, here where I live it's mostly city folk having moved out to the 'country'. Is this how we see Snippettsville?

Or is it more like the entire population of Snippettsville are in each others shoes?

There is a difference, though it may be subtle to an outsider.
 
I would be more inclined to see Snippettsville contain 75% 'hometowners', with the remainder being newcomers from other locations.

Smiles,
Wantonica:rose:
 
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