HIGHLAND DISTRICT
HIGHLAND DISTRICT
History
The area known as the Highland District is just now starting to come into its own as a suburban wonderland. Much like the Coastway District (q.v.) it was considered a bit too far from the city center by the Dutch that colonized Hub City to really contain all of the merchants and wares a city center would. However, unlike Coastway, the Highland's rolling hills and river-fed gulleys were fertile and much more suited to sustaining crops and grazing. And so, while Coastway languished and never really caught on until the middle of the 19th century, the Highlands-- despite their distance from the city proper-- were dotted with farms and homesteads while Hub City was still in its infancy.
In fact, Hub City owes a tremendous debt to the farmers and homesteaders that carved out livings in the Highlands, because as Hub City grew and prospered, the farmers of the Highlands provided meat, fruits and vegetables for its populace much more inexpensively than could be transported from further inland. For much of 18th and early 19th century, the growth spurts of population in Hub City could almost be directly linked to excellent growing seasons in the Highlands; good crops signaled a content and, moreover, plentiful populace in Hub City, who in turn didn't mind paying well for fresh local crops and making some farmers in the region very well-off. It was a harmonious relationship that flourished through the early 19th century and brought many of the larger farm owners in the area into civic prominence. Before 1850, three state senators and one governor hailed from the Highlands, gaining their notoriety and wealth from owning plantations along the Green River.
That coexistence between Hub City and the Highlands began to dwindle in the late 1850's. With the coming of less-expensive steam travel and their ability to import fresh products from further distances, the Highland farming and ranching community no longer held the monopoly on goods sold within Hub City, and had to keep prices competitive, or even charge less than larger farms further inland-- which meant, in effect, that the days of steady, high profits for the farming industry were slowly passing.
The first death-knell for the Highland farming region began to ring because of two unrelated events that came in quick succession in the 1860's. The American Civil War broke out in Virginia in 1861 and lasted four more grueling years... and Hub City, like most regions, sent several thousand soldiers that never returned home-- including farmers and their sons from the Highland region who left behind farms that lacked the manpower to till fields and provide the spring planting. Shortly after peace finally arrived, the 1866 growing season suffered from humid weather, torrential rains and an outbreak of mildew that ruined a great many crops. By the time the Highland farms recovered in the next couple growing seasons, Hub City markets were importing much of their fresh food from elsewhere, and local farmers were often forced to sell at a much lower price than before to compete.
While advances in agriculture and industry (such as jarring and canning produce) provided spurts of profit for the farmers, the days of the prosperous farmers and ranchers were gone by the 1920's, and when the Great Depression came about, the Highland farms were hit as hard as anywhere. Farms and homes were foreclosed, and all that were left of the once-proud plantations were worn-down edifices that were like gravestones marking the death of the farming community that once worked hand-in-hand with the growing metropolis of Hub City.
The Highlands only really began to grow once again in the 1980's. Up until then, it was largely still spotted with scattered farms and ranches, and the townships were pretty much sleepy, insular communities. But as progress began to boom in Hub City, more families prefered to remain on the outskirts, leaving the more crowded city centers for the suburbs. Housing communities and entire neighborhoods began to appear seemingly overnight where once only fields and abandoned farmhouses once marked the land. By 1985, Fordham Prep School had to petition the city government for renovation and expansion due to the influx of new students. Although Warren Heights and Castle Rock still have some larger rural areas, most of the Highlands District is now a bustling suburban community.
If any jokes are spread about the Highland District, it's that it is a 'whitebread' community that has more PTA meetings per capita than anywhere in the city. The Highland District is what some refer to as a stereotypical yuppie suburb all grown-up. The general concept of a Highlander now days brings to mind white collar professional families, soccer moms, perfectly manicured lawns, and teens whose sense of style is more important than SAT scores. That's a bit of an over-exaggeration, but it has roots in fact: the Highland District first began to blossom when people with good jobs and robust money moved to the suburbs of Hub City, and the more extravagant businesses followed them there. It is only within the last ten years or so that the Highland District has seen a huge boom in housing development and has become much more cosmopolitan.
The Highland District, despite the white-collar jokes and the stigma of originally being a rich and snobbish community, is one of the better places to live in Hub City. Neighborhoods tend to be well-kept and clean, and much of the housing development is very recent, if a bit cookie-cutter. Retail stores, malls, professional and emergency services, and good schooling are all abundant, and many of the neighborhoods are comprised of working-class middle-income families-- moreso recently. It's hardly any surprise that people have begun moving there to raise their families and given the Highlands a new lease on life.
The Highland District breaks down into the following sections:
HIGHRIDGE (31)
.
TYLER'S BLUFF (32)
.
FORDHAM (33)
.
OAK GROVE (34)
.
SOUTHFORK (35)
.
ROBIN RUN (36)
.
CASTLE ROCK (37)
.
GREEN VALLEY SUBURBS (38)
.
WARREN HEIGHTS (39)
.
