Columbia (Co-lum-be-uh)

Columbia is a city floating in the sky. The city was commissioned by the United States government and founded by Zachary Hale Comstock as a symbol of American political and religious ideals, mostly following American Christian and Exceptionalism morales and ideas. Columbia, capable of flight due to the scientific discoveries of physicist Rosalind Lutece, was completed in 1893, and seceded from the United States in 1902, after the United States government recalled the city due to its involvement in the 1901 Boxer Massacre in Beijing, China.
Columbia floats, for the entirety of its existence, above the North American continent and is comprised of neoclassical buildings similar to those present within the "White City" of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The design relies heavily upon Neoclassical and colonial American influences for its architecture. While reactors, propellers and balloons are present throughout the city, its ability to float is due to quantum levitation which allows objects to be suspended indefinitely. The city is also designed with "rain-catchers" that collect water from precipitation in the clouds to keep the vegetation and populace supplied with water and crops. Other technological wonders such as complex automatons, advanced weapons, recording devices, and even crude cybernetics were developed in Columbia, surpassing and eclipsing the crude and barbaric technology of the surface world down below.
Columbia was designed with docking stations and propulsion devices to allow sections of it to move about independently. Columbia was constructed for long distance travel, allowing for national and international tours, with a regular route across the United States. These routes featured periodic stops near major cities, connecting to relay stations which contain hidden transport rockets which grant passage to Columbia via coded signal. This is speculated to have been the primary method of outsiders transporting into Columbia.
Columbia's internal means of transportation include zeppelins, cargo barges, hovercrafts, gondolas, and Sky-Lines. Bridges are also automated to connect with different moving portions of the city at various stations, scheduled like any other mass-transportation system of the cities down below.

While Columbia was commissioned by the United States government as a "Floating tribute to American ideals and exceptionalism," the resulting fallout between Comstock and the US government after the Boxer Massacre ultimately led to the city secceding from the United States, transitioning the city into a city-state with Comstock as its leader.
Construction began in the late 1870s and completed construction in 1893, in time to present itself as a "technological marvel to American exceptionalism" at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

Type

Large city