Little Asia
Zones
The Industrial Zone
North and northeast of the Business Zone begins a sprawl of warehouses, factories, and packing plants. Many of these are underwaged sweat-shops that employ a large number of illegal immigrants. Some even use child labor. Most of the buildings are one or two level warehouses and stout bureaus. Stained with smog and filth from the narrow, cracking streets, the Industrial Zone is a labyrinth. Narrow, miasmal alleys crisscross roads traveled widely by delivery vans and packing trucks. Products of all sort are made, packaged, delivered, and stored in the Industrial Zone. Many of the corporative giants whose home offices rest in the Business Zone keep a factory and warehouse or two in this grungy section. Other industrial businesses include the Smith-Hidaka Bottled Water Plant and the Huisheng Stereos Factory. Not far from the center of the district was built the Shu Hospital and Healthspan Health Center. Close to the Cultural Heart, the Weilan Catholic School can be found. The Blue River Taxi Service has kept its headquarters in this zone since the business’s establishment decades ago. To the south, the Blue Dragon Brewery sends its products out on a national level. A wide strip of the district extending almost to the tip of the area -- indeed, almost to the tip of the entire city -- encompasses this Zone that is busy day and night.
Patrol Rating: Low
The Wharves
A strip of Little Asia neighboring the Industrial Zone directly up its eastern border, the Wharves are Little Asia’s boating docks and shipping storages on the Blue River. Little Asia’s wharves face the Kansas half’s wharves, but the properties are owned by different people: prominent industrial businessmen in Little Asia keep a tight grasp of the docks. Especially since the construction of the Five Winds Wall, the transportation of goods up and down the river has become a major part of business. The Wharves are not a pleasant place to go for children, however. They are as wretched as the Industrial Zone, dirty. The Wharves also carry a scent not unlike sewage, although the river itself is fairly clean in spite of its heavy use. This is blamed on the moisture of the nearby waterway in the polluted air. It could also be due to the High River Salvage -- basically a junkyard -- built in the geographical center of the Zone, near the river. But the people who work here grew accustomed to it and work diligently, doing their best to ignore this ugliness. And the Zone sees its share of recreation, especially in the multi-venue Merrywoods Sporting Track & Arena found northerly in the Zone.
Patrol Rating: Low
West Side
The other, western side of the Industrial Zone rests a residential area of the district. West Side, as it’s known, is home to the slight majority of Little Asia’s citizens. Though much of it is by all standards lower to middle lower class, upper lower class at best, most of these homes are as well-lived as possible. Though life may not be diamonds and gold for these people, most of whom are first or second generation immigrants, they appreciate their freedom in America. Squalor is only evident nearest the Red Light District. The homes closest to this gaudy area tend to be in the worst condition: tightly-packed townhouses and firetrap apartment buildings. The residents of this Zone tend to be ethnically diverse, though there are a few blocks where many Southeast Asian immigrants are concentrated -- not enough to create a Zone of their own (yet). The southern corner of this Zone boasts Little Asia’s Cherry Blossoms Public Zoo. The center of the Zone, right off the main street, one finds the West End Public Schools (grade and high schools alongside).
And further inward, the homes grow steadily nicer-kept and larger. By the time one reaches the west and northwestern portions of the Five Winds Wall, the homes are spatial family houses with acreage estates in the $200,000 range+. The popular Bamboo Woods Bed & Breakfast hotel can be found out this way. But Asian street gangs, criminals, pimps, and prostitutes roam the slummier, eastern portion of the Zone, but things are much more suburban the further west and north one goes. The Red Light District separates the West Side from the Business Zone, and within this Zone, not far from that strip of vice, one finds the underground ABCs -- where illegal pit-fights take place. The Zone eventually fades into what has become known as Chinatown.
Patrol Rating: Moderate
