The City (Transmetropolitan)
Encyclopedia
Megacity
A megacity is usually defined as a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people. Some definitions also set a minimum level for population density . A megacity can be a single metropolitan area or two or more metropolitan areas that converge. The terms conurbation,...
which forms the main setting for the Vertigo comic Transmetropolitan
Transmetropolitan
Transmetropolitan is a cyberpunk comic book series written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson and published by DC Comics. The series was originally part of the short-lived DC Comics imprint Helix, but upon the end of the book's first year the series was moved to the Vertigo imprint as DC...
by Warren Ellis
Warren Ellis
Warren Girard Ellis is an English author of comics, novels, and television, who is well-known for sociocultural commentary, both through his online presence and through his writing, which covers transhumanist themes...
. Located somewhere in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the City is the largest metropolitan area in the futuristic world of the series (an exact date is never given), and the center of political and social culture.
The City plays a key role in the U.S. Presidential elections described in the series, due to its unusual voting patterns in the past, as Transmetropolitan
Transmetropolitan
Transmetropolitan is a cyberpunk comic book series written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson and published by DC Comics. The series was originally part of the short-lived DC Comics imprint Helix, but upon the end of the book's first year the series was moved to the Vertigo imprint as DC...
's main protagonist Spider Jerusalem
Spider Jerusalem
Spider Jerusalem is a fictional character and the protagonist of the comic book Transmetropolitan, created by writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson, introduced under the now-defunct Helix imprint of DC Comics before being moved to the Vertigo imprint.-Background:Spider is a renegade gonzo...
explains:
"They say the city goes the way the country does. But that's not quite right. It chooses and punishes presidents. It's got a weird pattern of voting against second-term presidents ... and it's a rule of thumb that if the city goes against a president going for his second term, the fucker'll get in anyway".
Little systematic history is given on the City throughout the Transmetropolitan
Transmetropolitan
Transmetropolitan is a cyberpunk comic book series written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson and published by DC Comics. The series was originally part of the short-lived DC Comics imprint Helix, but upon the end of the book's first year the series was moved to the Vertigo imprint as DC...
series. Various incidents in its history are described by Spider Jerusalem
Spider Jerusalem
Spider Jerusalem is a fictional character and the protagonist of the comic book Transmetropolitan, created by writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson, introduced under the now-defunct Helix imprint of DC Comics before being moved to the Vertigo imprint.-Background:Spider is a renegade gonzo...
as the story progresses, but there is no unified narrative that explains its origins in detail.
The City features numerous 'culture reservations' in which particular traditional cultures - including those of China and Japan - can be experienced and lived in permanently, as well as a holographic pre-industrial reservation. The Angels 8 district of the City is also home to a group known as 'transients', humans who have used genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
-altering technology to permanently take on alien characteristics.
The fact that the City features a statue resembling the Statue of Liberty leads many to believe it is in fact New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, or a massive conurbation
Conurbation
A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area...
including several other East Coast cities like those in the Northeast Megalopolis
Northeast megalopolis
The Northeast megalopolis or Boston–Washington megalopolis is the heavily urbanized area of the United States stretching from the the northern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts to the southern suburbs of Washington, D.C. On a map, the region appears almost as a perfectly straight line. As of 2000,...
. The fact that the former Great Lakes are now known as the "Western Lakes" on the City's outer reaches lends further credence to the latter notion. If this were the case this would make the city similar in area to Mega-City One
Mega-City One
Mega-City One is a huge fictional city-state covering much of what is now the Eastern United States in the Judge Dredd comic book series. The exact boundaries of the city depend on which artist has drawn the story...
in the Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...
comic strip.
The City also contains a Richard P. Daley
Richard Daley
Richard Daley may refer to:*Richard J. Daley , Mayor of Chicago , father of Richard M. Daley*Richard M. Daley , Mayor of Chicago , son of Richard J. Daley...
Precinct House, a shoutout to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
The City is also a slang term used to refer to San Francisco, there is a view of the Golden Gate Bridge in Transmet. San Francisco along with the rest of California is also pivotal in United States presidential elections due to their high population and resulting votes in the electoral college. Also the reservations are very similar to San Francisco's various districts home to strong concentrations of certain nationalities such as China Town. The implied proximity to the mountains in the opening of the series (from whence Spider comes down), and the associated drive across a bridge would also imply San Francisco - this is like the three hour drive back into SF from the Lake Tahoe area. However, at a later point in the series Spider uses Farsight technology to replicate himself in California because booking a flight on an airplane would attract too much attention; since Spider owns a car, this implies that California is not within driving distance.
A final point of reference to SF would be the link between the real protagonist the series is based upon. Hunter S. Thompson, who Spider Jerusalem is based on, lived in San Francisco when he was creating what is now known as "gonzo" journalism, and subsequently moved to the mountains (in Colorado, however).
The obviously conflicting references make it impossible to reasonably conclude anything except that The City isn't "based" on any city in particular, and is instead an amalgamation of major US cities with an indefinite geographic location.