Greetings all! Thank you so much CartographersGuild, for giving me this opportunity to interact with some truly creative folks. I've been a visitor off and on the last few years, marveling at the talent displayed here. I hope I can interest you guys in helping me make this the best map that I can!

So, the map. I'm still in the process of working out the street plan, and I should have some images of that available soon. Let me give you guys some backstory, then let you know where I'd really like some feedback on this build.

The background:

PettyIslandNow_01.png

In our (real?) world, Petty Island is located in the Delaware River, north of the Ben Franklin Bridge. It's a historical place, home to pirates, slave-traders, and religious fanatics in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was never a populous place, and for most of its life in the last century or so has been to lay abandoned but for some oil reserves.

However, in my world St. Racquel’s Island was once a heavily industrialized area, a thriving middle class neighborhood where you could raise a family. It was built around the factories the people worked in, and where they expected their kids to work in, pretty much forever.

Then in the 60’s the manufacturing began its exodus, lured by cheap overseas labor, and greased along by political corruption. The factories fell one by one, leaving the neighborhoods to fend for themselves. With legitimate blue-collar employment having all but vanished, crime and vice quickly rose up to fill the vacuum.

By the late 1970’s St. Racquel’s Island was a lawless, bombed-out husk of its former self. Left in isolated squalor, Saint Rox became one of the most desperate slum areas on the face of the earth.

But nearly forgotten in this lawless hellhole of open air drug markets is the rich, haunted, and bizarre history sunk into this island’s very bones.

So, when my story begins it's the early 1980's. I've been mining the history of the island, plus cherry-picked spots from the surrounding areas for street names and points of interest.

Where I could REALLY use some help is from you guys who are versed in more modern city planning (or not, I may be wrong). I'm sure there are some things I'm missing, such as: would they need their own electrical supply, or could they exist from the main city grid? They are located in a river, would they need their own water filtration or purification system? Is it feasible to have a subway spur to the island be built underground, or better if it's slung under a bridge. What other systems/structures are needed for a modern island neighborhood?

I'll have more information coming soon, including my proto-maps for you to take a look at. Any questions are encouraged, and thanks for your time!