At 8 am in the morning, the course exam started on time.
The scene in front of them flickered, and at the same time, they appeared in a wide hall.
Around the hall, there were many small parts similar to building blocks, in various colors and shapes. In the middle was a sand table the size of a football field, which was empty and had no buildings or greenery on it.
A line of information appeared in the hover box in the upper right corner——
[Welcome to the <Urban Planning> exam room of the Faculty of Geography]
[This exam was limited to 8 hours. The sand table in the exam room corresponds to the human city, the map zoom ratio is 1000:1, and the area of the city is 7,000 square kilometers]
[You need to name the city you build, every road, every neighborhood, every park, every building must have a name. Please plan the city layout reasonably within the specified time, and the final exam score will be determined by the library after acceptance]
[The exam is about to start]
With the appearance of these last six words, a countdown box popped up on the LCD screen at the front of the hall, showing a countdown of 08:00:00.
Yue Xingwen quickly gathered his teammates to his side and said, “The time limit is 8 hours. To complete the planning and design of the entire city, the time is very tight. For the first hour, we discuss the layout of the city and draw up design plans.”
Zhang Xiaonian took out a laser theodolite and measured the sand table, and said, “The area of this sand table is 7,000 square meters, and 1 meter on the sand table represents 1,000 meters in the city, and the proportion must be remembered, otherwise the building will exceed the standard when the time comes.”
Jiang Pingce said, “First, let’s give our city a name and determine how many districts to divide it into.”
Everyone began to think, and Yue Xingwen suggested, “How about calling it Mingzhou City? Keep it simple and divide it into four administrative regions: east, south, west and north?”
Qin Lu agreed and said, “The four districts are neater and easier for planning.”
Yue Xingwen took out a piece of paper and asked Jiang Pingce to draw.
Jiang Pingce, who had loved mathematics since he was a child, could draw a very standard circle with a pen casually, without a compass, and did not need a ruler to draw straight lines. Handed over to him to make a drawing, Yue Xingwen was very relieved.
Jiang Pingce quickly divided a map into four pieces according to Yue Xingwen’s intention. The straight lines he drew with his bare hands were like those drawn with the aid of a ruler.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Seeing this scene, Lan Yarong couldn’t help but exclaim, “Do all the top students in the Mathematics Department have the ability to draw straight lines without a ruler?”
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Qin Lu made a suggestion, “The east of the city is close to the river, why not call it the Binjiang District?”
Qin Miao followed closely, “This side of the mountain to the west, I think it can be called Qingyan District.”
Ke Shaobin raised his hand excitedly. “How about calling Gaoxin District for the north? Many cities have high-tech zones, which bring together various high-tech emerging industries, as well as youth entrepreneurial incubation parks, etc., and university towns can also be arranged here.”
Xu Yishen smiled and said, “Then the terrain to the south is flat. So why not call it Pingyang District?”
Discussing things with the top students was neat and clear, Yue Xingwen nodded gratefully, “Good, the names of the four administrative districts are decided, Binjiang District, Qingyan District, Gaoxin District, Pingyang District. Next, we will do the road planning.”
Zhuo Feng said with a headache, “All of us here, does anyone know about traffic planning?”
Zhang Xiaonian raised his hand and suggested, “This city, if you look at the top view of the sand table, the shape is relatively regular, it’s a rectangle like a soccer field. I think we can draw a two-way eight-lane main road in the east-west and north-south directions, and then make a high-speed highway around the city, so that citizens can bypass the congested road section of the city and take the highway directly when traveling long distances.”
Jiang Pingce said, “For transportation planning, we have to draw a separate map. It’s better to draw eight main roads crisscrossing the city first, then connecting them with the attached roads and overpasses, and finally determining the entrances and exits of the highway?”
Yue Xingwen looked back at him and said, “Pingce, traffic design, this task will be handed over to you, right?”
Jiang Pingce simply said, “Okay.”
Zhuo Feng said with a smile, “It’s right to build the road before planning! After getting the traffic, you can set up residential areas, living service areas, shopping malls, parks, etc along the main roads.”
Jiang Pingce nodded. “I’ll draw the traffic network first.” He frowned and looked at the sand table. Zhang Xiaonian had already marked the distance on the sand table, the distance from east to west was 100 meters, and the north-south distance was 70 meters, according to the ratio of 1:1000. In other words, their city was 100 kilometers east-west and 70 kilometers north-south.
As Jiang Pingce drew, Yue Xingwen quickly named it, “The one that connects the east and the west is called Jianshe Road, divided into two parts from the middle of the Jianshe West Road and Jianshe East Road. The one connecting the north and south is called Renmin Road, divided into Renmin South Road and Renmin North Road. How about it?”
Everyone: “……”
Jianshe Road and Renmin Road were really roads that every city would have ah! Jiang Pingce marked the road, and on other paths, everyone also began to use their brains, thinking about the road names of their hometown and the city where the university was located, like Bayi Road, Kunlun Road, Xinhua Road, Xiushui Road, Haiku Road. They took a whole bunch of names to put on.
There was no other way, the library stipulated that they must name all the roads and buildings in the city, and a group of people who had difficulty in naming were really going to be bald.
Half an hour later, Jiang Pingce’s road plan was completed.
The dense road was like a spider web road, which shocked everyone.
In addition to the eight main roads running through the east and west, north and south, the middle of the main road was connected by a variety of relatively narrow paths, and the ring highway surrounded the entire city from the periphery. If the people wanted to go from the easternmost part of the city to the westernmost side, or from the southernmost to the northernmost road, they could directly take the highway, bypassing the road inside the city to save time.
The specifications of the Ring Highway were two-way three lanes, the maximum time limit was 120 km/h, and the entrance and exit of the highway were designed every 2 km or so to facilitate vehicle diversion.
Time was limited, and this traffic plan made by Jiang Pingce according to the suggestions of the students was already the limit they could consider. In order to avoid road congestion during commuting hours, they also designed several aerial overpasses on the main road to divert traffic.
After making road planning, Yue Xingwen began to arrange tasks, “Zhang Xiaonian, Ke Shaobin, you two go to the sand table to pave the road first according to Pingce’s traffic planning map, we have to hurry!”
The two immediately took action.
Zhang Xiaonian had a laser theodolite in his hand, so there was no need to worry about accuracy. There were a large number of block-like models around the sand table, and both of them quickly found a gray model representing the road and began to lay on the sand table according to the design drawings.
Others began to plan the city’s facilities.
Zhuo Feng asked, “Do we build hospitals and schools first, or residential communities first?”
Yue Xingwen thought for a while and said, “First, plan the supporting facilities such as hospitals, schools, and banks. Then, use these as the center to plan residential communities in the surrounding area to facilitate the needs of children to go to school and residents for medical treatment.”
Lan Yarong said with a smile, “Don’t forget the courts, procuratorates, municipal governments, and public security bureau, these government agencies!”
Everyone: “…”
When they thought about it, there were really too many things to consider for a city to be properly planned. Domestic cities were developing rapidly, and many old city renovations and new urban areas needed professional transportation, urban, environmental, and architectural talents.
It could be said that the course <Urban Planning> of the Faculty of Geography required the cooperation of students from all majors. They could only achieve ‘reasonable’ and ‘perfect’ if they complement each other’s strengths and drew out their wisdom.
Yue Xingwen was silent for a moment and made a suggestion, “How about this, we design a building similar to a ‘Civic Center’ in each administrative district, with marriage registration, immigration management, pension and medical insurance, household registration management and real estate bureaus, etc., to bring together these common service organizations to facilitate citizens to do things.”
Zhuo Feng slapped his thigh and said, “Good idea! Many big cities have this kind of civic center now, no longer need to run around with documents to stamp like before. If they want to do things, they can go directly to the civic center, everything can be solved.”
Zhang Xiaonian, who paved the road in the distance, said positively, “A five-story building can be built, enough to accommodate all departments. The civic center in our hometown is a five-story building.”
Jiang Pingce suggested the location of the civic center. “It’s best to build the civic center in the center of the four districts, and by the way, build some wetland parks near the civic center to facilitate everyone to walk and exercise.”
Lan Yarong began to ponder the location of the public security bureau, and she said, “There are four districts in this city, and we need four public security sub-bureaus, plus a unified management of the city bureau. City Bureau must be put together with the City Government, and the procuratorate, and the four sub-bureaus are built in four districts. In addition, there must be a traffic police brigade in each district…”
Jiang Pingce copied a road plan map and asked everyone to fill in the location on the map.
Lan Yarong determined the location of the building of the City Government office building in the center of the city. Yue Xingwen confirmed the location of the Civic Center in the four districts, and with the existence of the Civic Center, there was no need to create separate institutions such as the Civil Affair Bureau and the Housing Management Bureau, all of which were concentrated together, saving time and effort.
This was followed by hospitals and schools.
A city must have at least several large general hospitals, Liu Zhaoqing suggested, “Build the largest comprehensive people’s hospital in the City Center; Two specialized hospitals, a psychiatric hospital and an infectious disease hospital, will be built in the suburbs. In other, it’s almost enough to build a general hospital in each district, and a children’s hospital if there’s space available.”
Qin Lu said, “We will build a university town here in the north side of the city according to Ke Shaobin’s suggestion. But, how many universities are we going to build?”
Yue Xingwen thought for a while and said, “The university city covers 5 universities at most, after all, we are only a third-tier city. The key is elementary and high schools. I remember that there are a lot of elementary and high schools in our hometown, and there is a school almost every few blocks for the children to go to school. Think more about the name of the school, and build a few more key high schools.”
Everyone had a brainstorming session and came up with a bunch of school names to write on paper.
Xu Yishen said, “The city’s High School no. 7 is designated as a key high school by you, and the school district house in this area will definitely be very expensive!”
Zhuo Feng also made a joke. “We, a group of people who can’t afford to buy school district housing can now build our own school district housing. We will determine where the school district is, this feeling is really cool.”
Yue Xingwen couldn’t laugh or cry.
Let them a group of laymen go to build the city themselves, everyone was a little messy. However, whenever he heard his teammates make a fresh suggestion and choose a nice name, the strange sense of achievement was really no less than that of personally giving birth to a baby in the Faculty of Biological Science.
A whole new city would be born in their hands, and everyone was thrilled to think about it.
Compared with the previous freezing Ice Age, the second course of the Faculty of Geography was much more interesting.
It’s really fun! We did something similar, but we did in our professional aria! It’s fun and educational
Thank you for your translation 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
aaa, is it just me who is curious about the pinyin behind all the names?
I am as well.