Franklin Harbor
Franklin Harbor, the Norlight Confederacy's smallest city-state, is located at the northern end of the gamma maglev line and south of Lake Clearwater. Originally a small settlement based around the maglev terminus, which was extended from Fort James in TN 755, Franklin Harbor quickly grew into a select community of Terra Nova's rich elite. The beautiful, peaceful slopes of the Westridge Range overlooking the waters of Lake Clearwater attracted a select group of colonists and corporate officials to the area and the intense interest drove real-estate prices up to the point that only those with substantial amounts of money could purchase land. Over the following cycles the small community began to develop into an idyllic getaway as numerous spas, mineral springs and health clubs invested in the area, eager to profit from the copious flow of marks from its wealthy citizens. When the Human Concordat withdrew from Terra Nova, Franklin Harbor's population shrunk to almost nothing, but the presence of the lake and the maglev attracted Reconstruction era settlement and the city-state became a small trading power by the TN 1490s, reaching an agreement with Western city-states for secure communication and attracting many settlers from the Badlands. By the TN 1570s, a significant Revisionist community had grown in Franklin Harbor, which provided popular support for the decision to join the NLC as a protective measure against the expansionist United Mercantile Federation.
For two centuries Franklin Harbor remained a quiet community, with exclusive vacation homes providing a small, but wealthy tourist trade. In TN 1786, however, Chimera Holidays Inc., one of the North's largest resort chains, opened up the market and purchased a half kilometer stretch of land on the edge of the city, overlooking the lake. As development began on the expensive resort and people learned of the vacation spot, reservations began to flood in. Before the resort was completed, Chimera had booked the first four cycles solid, with much of the following cycles booked as well. As soon as this information reached the public, six other capitalist groups rushed to purchase land in the area and began to develop resorts of their own.
The citizens of Franklin Harbor suddenly found their peaceful retreat threatened as resorts unexpectedly besieged them. They quickly called a town meeting and passed strict zoning laws that relegated resorts and retirement communities to the eastern sector of the city stretching along the waterfront. The western waterfront was resewed for commercial outlets and residences. Essentially the city legislated itself into remaining a "small town" which profited from millions of marks in tourist revenue.
The city has faced a new challenge in recent cycles with the arrival of the Overlook Jerusalemite Commune. Transplanted from Valeria, it has been the victim of an ugly strain of discrimination. The Lake Clearwater region has always been known for its tolerance, but fevers are running high and some fear drastic measures will be taken by local Revisionist.
Demographics
Home away from home
The 100,000 people who call Franklin Harbor home cycle-round are in the unique position of being outnumbered by the 140,000 who have permanent homes elsewhere and use their residence in Franklin Harbor as a seasonal getaway. The cool lake weather is most attractive in the Summer and the population dips to about 130,000 during the Winter. Roughly 3,000 Franks (residents of Franklin Harbor) are employed by the resorts and live locally all cycle long, hence earning full citizenship privileges. To receive these privileges, a Frank must prove local residence for 140 days out of each cycle. This marks a clear political as well as social divide between Franks and visitors.
The divide between visitors and residents has generated no small amount of mutual resentment. Many Franks view the resorts and the thousands of tourists that come to the city each cycle as an invasion of their lives. Tourists, in turn, are often struck by how the people of Franklin Harbor are so cold and rude when one wanders out of the commercial districts which live off the tourist trade. This attitude, however, has done little to halt the influx of people coming to take advantage of the spas, saunas, mud baths and mineral springs, or those interested in swimming and fishing in nearby Lake Clearwater. Since Franks are well known for their elitist attitude towards visitors, resort staff are forced to compensate. People who travel a great deal have often commented that the resort staff in Franklin Harbor are easily the nicest and most helpful people they have ever met. Only because the resorts have been careful to hire charismatic employees has the tourist industry in Franklin Harbor continued to thrive.
Social conflict has been growing between the religious communities in Franklin Harbor as well. Jerusalemite communities have existed nearby since Reconstruction and coexisted peacefully, but the construction of a new commune using zoning for resorts has brought out latent prejudices in Franks. First Citizen Nathaniel Leecheks has been faced with trying to keep his sleepy community from fragmenting more than it already has. That he has been at all successful is largely thanks to his close friendship with Rebi Yakob Wein, an elder of the native Jerusalemite community of Franklin Harbor.
Government
Direct Democracy
Method of Goverment: Participative Democracy
As Franklin Harbor grew into an independent city-state during Reconstruction, it quickly became clear that most of the inhabitants were unwilling to turn over their decision-making ability to a politician. A participatory democracy was adopted whereby all decisions are passed by vote in a town meeting where any Frank of at least 19 cycles could vote. This system has continued to this day with the only restriction on this procedure being a minimum of 5000 people must be present for a vote to be considered binding. This has resulted in a lack of action on small, seemingly unimportant matters due to low attendance of these meetings. To deal with this, the first speaker, a volunteer whose sole responsibilities are to call and chair meetings, will only call a town meeting if she feels that enough people will attend, at which point numerous issues are dealt with. At times, it will be a season or more before an issue is considered important enough that it might draw the minimum number of citizens, resulting in a slow moving system. On the other hand, however, the populace is considered to be exceptionally content as the progress of their community is truly a reflection of their desires and not the desires of politicians. The First Citizen -along with a small circle of advisors and administrators- can exert a great deal of power by delaying town meetings and directing the city personally in the meantime. Nathaniel Leecheks, who gained the first citizenship in TN 1921, has been accused of using this privilege to represent the wealthy tourist interests away from the eyes of the populace.
In reality, Nathaniel Leecheks has had to face the realities of Franklin Harbor. As religious and political tensions have grown throughout the league, the existent divides in his city-state have gotten worse. Locals. empowered by their citizenship and encouraged to think only of their own community, have become more and more boisterous in their disapproval of the tourist population, despite the fact that it is tourist marks that keep Franklin Harbor alive. The rise of fundamental Revisionism has also brought religious conflict to a historically peaceful community. Leecheks knows full well that town meetings are more and more likely to degenerate into shouting matches and calls for drastic, unrealistic action on the part of the city. The First Citizen has had to limit the number of meetings and impose a very strict agenda on each one he calls, if only to keep the city-state functioning. To support his unpopular position, Leecheks has been forced to make a deal with the devil, in the form of the Forzi cartel of smugglers. In exchange for secure, discreet facilities (and easy access to the gamma maglev) the local Forzi leader (Dunkan Gorell) provides Leecheks with economic support, dirty tricks and other illegal or semi-legal resources to keep him in place.
Industry & Trade
Principal industries
- Tourism
- Health Foods
- Maglev
Franklin Harbor's main legitimate sources of income are tourism, the maglev and health food. A large tourist industry of souvenir vendors, restaurants. resorts and tours feeds off the hundreds of thousands of visitors who amve in Franklin Harbor every cycle. The commercial heart of the city-state, along the western waterfront, may be free of resorts and hotels, but nonetheless exists primarily for the benefit of tourists. Commercial outlets for major nationwide chains, local boutiques and upscale restaurants tend to crowd out the simpler stores that target local residents as their clientele. The gamma maglev terminus, maintained by Terranovan TransRail (TNTR), brings in some of the imported goods for sale in Franklin Harbor along with Western citizens looking to enjoy local resorts. Goods from the Badlands, WFP and even the Southern Republic enter through Franklin Harbor and are shipped elsewhere in the league by train or transport aircraft. Ambitious tourists wishing to attend the gambling dens of Khayr ad-Din also pass through Franklin Harbor. Because it is a port of entry to the league, the Foreign and Treasury Ministries maintain security, immigration and customs checkpoints at the maglev terminal.
The second source of income for Franklin Harbor began as an offshoot of the tourist industry. Eighteen cycles ago, Chimera Holidays Inc. began an advertising campaign espousing the virtues of Franklin Harbor's "pure and healthy" environment. Restaurants in the area began to utilize this advertising ploy to draw Chimera's clients to their doors, contending that their foods were the purest in the city. Suddenly, Franklin Harbor was regarded as the place to go to get the purest food in the North. In almost no time, several companies began to market products made in Franklin Harbor and continued to develop the image begun by Chimera Holidays Inc. Today, one of the most successful products exported from the city is Mountainfresh bottled water. Mountainfresh bottles their water from the Terlaw spring, a deep upwelling of extremely pure water from the MacAllen network located in the Westridge Range overlooking the city-state, and ships it throughout the North to be sold for outrageous prices, which most socialites are too eager to pay. The large spring helps feed the Vale River that flows into Lake Clearwater, just west of the city-state itself. The Crystal Home resort complex straddles part of the river, whose water is cool and clear enough to allow for spectacular underwater visibility. Scuba, snorkeling and minisub tours of the river -and lake- beds are among the resorts most popular attractions.
Franklin Harbor also has a large underground economy. The terminus of the gamma maglev and the quiet nature of the community make it an ideal entry point for contraband and illegal products. In the past, the local community had led a largely successful effort to keep organized crime out of the city, but the accord between First Citizen Leecheks and the Forzi cartel has changed all that. The Forzi now use Franklin harbor as an entry and storage point for their operations (using two different resort complexes as cover operations they keep local street operations to a strict minimum so as not to attract attention. Terranovan TransRail's local station chief has recently been replaced by Klaara Nathaniels, who has proven unreceptive to Forzi "gifts." Nathaniels has requested assistance from NorPol and a major series of operations may well shatter the calm facade of the city-state in the near future. A NorPol Focussed Investigative Unit has already arrived in town and has a few suspected Forzi agents under observation.
Tourism
Maps
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Franklin Harbor
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