I think the naming and the back story are really what would interest me about this project (but I’m not a planner, just an artist). It would be especially interesting to think about those street names in terms of development patterns. How one section is from the 19th century and is named for U.S. presidents up at that point: Buchanan, Polk, Garfield. While another section might have all Spanish or Middle Eastern street names because of interest from the Spanish American war or the discovery of the Egyptian tombs (real reasons that their are spanish and Egyptian city names in Southern Illinois). Subdivisions whose names have been ‘lost’ over time. Those quirks seem oddly important to me.

This project and this post is very StrangeHarvest and I love it for that. I hope this makes its way to a DC gallery. Thank you for sharing.

I think Omaha was an interesting choice as much of the suburban sprawl in the real Omaha metro is within the center city limits as Nebraska’s annexation laws give big favor to the larger cities. In general this would seem to be good for holistic metro planning, with most of it being under on jurisdiction, however with every new suburban development in the City, the City of Omaha loses more identity as a traditional urban city.

If you have not already done so, I suggest Johannes Bouchain’s professionally designed http://www.stadtkreation.de/en/index.html. This site has quite a few well done maps of “fake cities” as well as Adrian Leskiw’s The Map Realm located at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~aleskiw/maps/home.htm.

Ciao!