Cechiuhnaucan

Cechiuhnaucan is the capital city and tenth constituent entity of the United Zacapine Republics. It is located in the strategic Calacohuayan valley, a depression carved through the mountains of the Mixtepemec Cihuatlampa linking the vital regions of coastal Ayahuatenco and the hinterlands of the northern Yakuzonco basin. Cechiuhnaucan is a planned city established in 1914 to house the apparatus of the federal government of Zacapican, including the Tecpanchan and most National Secretariat headquarters. The city houses 440,000 residents, almost all of whom are government workers or service employees supporting them. The autonomous federal district which is coterminal with the municipal altepetl of Cechiuhnaucan has special representation in the Necentlatiloyan enshrined in the national constitution, making the city the only entity outside of the nine constituent Republics of Zacapican to be represented in the the legislature.

Layout

The layout of Cechiuhnaucan is informed by its location within the Calacohuayan valley. The city was established on the valley floor at its widest point, where there is an area roughly 5 kilometers wide that is mostly flat. Within this area is the Core City area of Cechiuhnaucan which is defined by two major concentric ring roads that delineate the inner and outer perimeter of the core. Within the Inner Ring lies the Federal Ward, which houses the Tecpanchan, various Secretariat headquarters, a number of independent state agency headquarters, and a handful of embassy buildings. The Federal Ward is also known by the name of Ten Tower Ward for the ten skyscrapers that were built there, including the Tecpanchan, before a municipal law was passed restricting the height of buildings in the Core City which blocked the construction of any new towers in that part of Cechiuhnaucan. There are few services and almost no housing (outside of official residences) located inside the Federal Ward. Housing in the rest of Core City is provided into large altepetlianca developments that include residential blocks, schools, grocery stores, hospitals and recreational establishments as part of discrete pre-planned subdivisions. The twin Cities of Art and Science, a major recreational megacomplex, can be found in the northern part of Core City, together with many major museums such as the Museum of Anthropology and the National Aerospace Museum. The major educational establishments of Cechiuhnaucan, these being Cechiuhnaucan University and the National Administration School, are also housed in Core City, together with the headquarters of municipal offices including police and transportation authorities serving the urban zone.

Outside of Core City, the floor of the Calacohuayan valley narrows considerably from over 5,000 to less than 1,000 meters across. The Sunrise and Sunset Wards, which extend along the valley floor to the southwest and northeast of the Core, are built into these narrower sections of the valley floor. Many of the newer skyscrapers and tall apartment structures are built in these Wards, which are outside the bounds of the municipal laws restricting building height, but still on the sediment of the the Calacohuayan valley floor which is considered geologically stable enough for the construction of tall buildings. The South Ward, better known as the City of One Million Stairs or simply the City of Staircases, houses roughly half of the entire population of Cechiuhnaucan. It derives its unusual name due to the extensive network of pedestrian staircases that act as the main thoroughfares of traffic in the Ward in lieu of conventional paved roads due to the extreme slope of the mountainside onto which the Ward is built. Roads and motor-vehicles are uncommon in the City of Staircases, which is mainly connected to the urban core below by the city-wide cableway network as well as an older system of funicular railways that transport thousands of residents down the mountainside to their workplaces in Core City every day. North Ward, which is built on a gentler slope than that of the South, was at once time the site of the worker's village inhabited by the army of construction workers brought to the valley to build Cechiuhnaucan from scratch. The old worker's village, which was never intended to be a permanent community, was built to a lower standard and has largely been demolished or extensively renovated to serve as housing complexes.