Esmeraldas
Esmeraldas is known for its music, eclectic restaurants, tacky seaside resorts, and most famously, for birthing more than a few sporting legends. The district has the dubious pleasure of being second- or third-best in nearly every measure of economic and cultural development. Chakana and Guayaquil have bigger ports, La Costa grows more food, Quinde and Rabotgorod have more thriving industry, and Nihongai and Manta have more money. Thus, the rich and powerful tend to stay out of Esmeraldas, but the district is successful enough to serve as home for millions of working- and middle-class New Angelinos.
Esmeraldas does have a notable culinary scene and a fast-growing and eclectic music community. However, when most New Angelinos think of Esmeraldas, they think of sports. The district hosts the famous Blue Sun Stadium, and a surprising number of New Angeles’ famed athletes come from “up North.” The most famous is “La Jefa,” the renowned captain of the New Angeles Giants, Rose Calderon. She has plenty of local company: her defensive midfielders Eric and Gerald Acosta grew up on New Beach and still own houses there, while reigning holowar killmaster Sandra McKenzie claims to have gotten her start playing in Fissure Arcade after school.
While the district has its fair share of arcologies and high-density development—mostly around Blue Sun Stadium— much of Esmeraldas is lightly built by New Angeles’ standards. Packed rows of thirty-story condo-habs overlook narrow streets radiating outward from isolated arcologies and starscrapers. Rooftop gardens and irregularly tended street-level planters lend a comfortable—albeit slightly shabby—air to local neighborhoods. Esmeraldas is the district where people are likely to know their neighbors and proudly identify themselves by the street they grew up on.
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