#setting background

I want to play on the inherent appeal of such a place, especially to a family from an ugly, polluted, and dangerous neighborhood, (it’s so new and clean! There’s flowers and lakes and fountains! You can walk outside at 2 AM if you like!) with the sort of things that have made suburbia an object of loathing in so much media, especially to teenagers; the boredom, the conformity, etc. As the title implies, I’m trying to tip the scales a little more in favor of the suburb this time.)

A few things that pretty much have to be true, from a story perspective, and their immediate implications:

1) From an in-universe perspective, it’s a new Wonder of the World and a model for the future; no one thought it was possible to Ward an entire town until Florian did it. That makes him and his allies very protective of it and its image. And given that Florian more or less runs the town he basically only sells to the rich and successful; it’s a very upper-class sort of town.

2) Non-humans can’t enter, at least not without help; Lind is stuck outside until Tabby finds a way to break the Warding and let him in. Yes, combined with humber one, obvious metaphor is obvious but I promise you this whole thing isn’t just more immigrant moralism. (There will be Dark Undertones, but not quite the obvious ones.)

Things that I’ll probably do but am not necessarily married to:

3) While alternative urbanism/New Urbanism is only a minor interest of mine, it is an interest, and the time and place would be right for Florian to be aware of those ideas: Seaside, Florida was something of a cause celebre in the 80′s, and Celebration didn’t come much later. Perhaps the protagonists expect some 50′s Stepford kind of thing but what they get is more quirky and artsy.

4) On that note, perhaps a sizeable artsy/new-agey community in town; maybe Florian even marketed to them specifically, thinking that even if they’re mostly full of shit, some aren’t. Or maybe the Sedona crowd are actually the Keepers of Secret Knowledge in this ‘verse. Again, 1998: the time would be ripe for it.

Some more specific ideas for this green-livable-but-weirdly-sinister magical-realist place:

-True to its inspirations, curvy, meandering streets that are hard to navigate, perhaps resulting in a spatial loop or some other weirdness.

-A house at one end of town that looks exactly the same and houses the same family as a house at the opposite end.

-A widely-mentioned, ominous-sounding, but unseen HOA whose targets tend to disappear quickly, but there’s no hard proof of them actually doing anything to anyone.