The Core⌗

Crown jewel of the North, the Core is the cultural capital of the UCAS and the beating heart of Toronto sprawl. Soaked in neon, blanketed in smog and branded to hell and back in AR, many will recognize the streets of the Core from its many appearances in trid and VR. The biggest biz in the sprawl happens here during the day and when the sun goes down, out comes the best nightlife east of Vegas.

In the Core, everything is about image and perception. Barbie docs and popup ‘trixprint cleaner shops are second only to managed AR fashion in the consumer services market here. The local elements of the GTEC spend more money trying to hide the last few meddlesome slums and maintaining their fanatical war against litter than they do on all other budget items combined.

Founded in 2031 the Rogerian Alchemical Research Institute is one of North America’s leading authorities on hermetic magic and the art of artificing. Built around a gothic revivalist mansion dating back to the early 20th century, FARI conducts research on practical applications of magic as well as the nature of mysterious 4th world artifacts unearthed up in the Canadian Shield. A number of the staff here are refugees from MIT&T and the Dunkelzahn Institute for Magical Research, both lost during the quarantine of Boston.

During an altercation in the portlands in 2074 between Argus Security and the awakened, a catastrophic magic explosion occurred, ripping apart both reality and the cyberspace in this area. An area of failed developments lies rotting, with abandoned vehicles, wrecks, and refuse from technological items that just ceased working one day. To this day, the matrix is essentially inaccessible from this region, and devices that enter very quickly cease to function.

Peel⌗

1250 square kilometres of urban sprawl, Peel runs the gamut from high-cost condos near the lakeshore to working class neighbourhoods in Mississauga and south Brampton to lawless barrens up towards Caledon. With a population of nearly 3 million people, many of Toronto’s working class call Peel home.

While the lakeside parts of Peel are quite nice, the further north you go, the more law and order start to break down. By the time you hit Main Street in Brampton, you’re firmly in ganger territory- utilities are barely existent outside of protected corp enclaves, and any semblance order is enforced by whatever petty warlord has managed to take over the block this month.

The result of one of Shiawase’s early, failed attempts at biohousing, the Red Forest is a stain on the eastern fringe of peel. Mostly composed of a genemodded strain of bamboo with distinctive red leaves that escaped its lab and proved resistant to every herbicide Shiawase scientists tried using to bring it back into containment, the forest is growing. Originally programmed to grow the frame for a simple three room house, as the bamboo spreads the programming has begun to break down, creating a labyrinth of half finished houses and insanely connected rooms in its wake. The bamboo was modified to be mildly toxic as a natural pesticide and many locals believe the forest is haunted- so its only inhabitants are a community of dwarves who are unbothered by the toxins.

York⌗

North of the Core, York is host to Toronto’s blooming tech sector. Dozens of B and A rated corps scrabble for power here as the old guard watches from their archologies and skyrakers nearer downtown. Constant corporate backstabbing and intrigue make York prime running territory for those who can stomach working company contracts.

The district serves an important role in Toronto’s media industry. Easy access to the rest of the sprawl for on-location filming and a cheap real estate market a decade ago made the area a mecca for simsense and trid. Horizon has their regional offices here, and a number of smaller studios are churning out all manner of entertainment. The current rising star of the scene is Black Sun Sims, whose breakout hit, Elementary - A Study in Blood, cleaned up at the festivals last year.

York also has a darker side. The district was host to the Miracle Mile Metahuman Protection Camp, a UCAS operated internment camp that housed much of the region’s metahuman population before ‘39. The Miracle Mile is to this day a poorly served goblin ghetto. This may be due to change, though, as local property developers and startups begin eyeing the neighbourhood’s cheap real estate market for gentrification.

Durham⌗

The industrial base of the sprawl, Durham is famous for its gruff, blue collar character and the constant drone of heavy industry that permeates the entire district. Factories in Durham produce at least one part for more than 40% of electronics and vehicles produced in North America, and its port sees over 100 million tonnes of cargo annually. Wuxing has taken interest in the district as a link in its global shipping logistics chains, as have Ares, who view the port as a vital way station between their Detroit headquarters and their overseas operations.

Apart from its industry, Durham is known for two things- the heavy presence of both private and national militaries near Durham Port, and the district’s legendary street racing scene. Hot drek riggers and razergirls riding the most glitzed out cars and bikes you’ll find outside of Miami are commonplace on side streets and abandoned sections of freeway. Every once and a while a group of racers will get cocky and make the ‘port run’, blazing through the heart of the Durham docklands with a good contingent of security drones and bemused soldiers not far behind.

Halton⌗

Where Peel is the home of Toronto’s poor and working class, Halton is where the wealthy go to sleep at night. Biodome enclosed communities and microarchologies dot the landscape between town centers trapped in time by the nostalgic and unaging well to do. Horizon has taken a particular interest in the district, using a number of Halton’s hold out lower class communities as petri dishes for social engineering and public works projects it hopes to roll out to client cities on a mass scale within the decade.

Along with its ridiculously high property value residential neighborhoods, Halton is known for being a hub of urban agriculture development in the UCAS. Aztechnology and Shiawase have invested heavily into ‘GroTowers’, vertical hydroponics systems the size of skyrakers. Some residents have complained about the eyesore the towers cause, but the complainers are almost exclusively those who can’t afford active AR editing, so the complaints fall on deaf ears.

Hamilton⌗

A district in transition, Hamilton is many things. Its iconic lakeside industrial zones grow with the tireless consumerism of the 6th World. Its urbanized uptown swells with capital brought in by simsense and nanotech startups and megacorporate ventures. Its suburbs are split, drifting towards both de-gentrification and gentrification as the unbridled and amoral hand of capitalism does its silent work. Hamilton is a microcosm of the shifting nature of the Toronto sprawl at large, and everyone is holding their breath to see what happens next.

The most distant district from the downtown Core, Hamilton existed as its own city until Crash 2.0 and a complete breakdown of the city’s electrical grid forced the city to cede temporary authority to the Greater Toronto Executive Council. While the order binding the smaller city to the sprawl was supposed to expire in 2066, it keeps getting pushed further and further down the agenda. Hamiltonians are still bitter about Toronto annexing their city, and the district is plagued by low level violence against both municipal buildings and government officials and contractors.

STAR City⌗

An offshore arkoblock built by a collaboration between Shiawase, Proteus AG, and Horizon, STAR City serves as a resort destination for the world’s richest and a shining ivory tower off the coast for every other resident of Toronto to gaze at with envy. Security and PR are top priorities for the directors of the floating city, but even so a steady trickle of accidents, strange occurrences and worker fatalities manages to find its way back to the mainland.