Frisco trotted to the edge of the bluff, looking down on the progress below her. The river valley was slowly transforming into the first pony settlement on Earth, after several years of wading through building permits, environmental impact studies, and other red tape. She sighed. A team of ponies could’ve completed all those studies and the associated paperwork in a quarter of the time. Unfortunately, the humans seemed to enjoy delaying the process as much as possible. After talking with other native engineers and contractors, she’d discovered that was the norm and not an exception specifically designed to mess with the equine settlers. It was a small consolation, considering just how far behind schedule she was.
Pony communities were built with the environment in mind, so they’d already done their research before picking the site. She grumbled, wiped some strands of her red mane from her eyes, and sat on her haunches. A team of ponies and humans alike worked feverishly below her. The main street was already leveled and waiting for pavement. They’d opted to pave the streets instead of going with more traditional cobblestones. While quaint and charming, cobblestones had exactly the opposite effect on the vehicles traveling over them. That was fine in Equestria where traffic was primarily composed of pedestrians and wagons, but here on Earth the primary mode of transit were cars that had difficulty with them.
Ponies had adopted to automobiles quickly, and the auto manufacturers had adapted to their new demographic just as rapidly. With their penchant for horse-related puns, Fords had quickly become the preferred choice of a significant number of ponies due to the Mustang and Bronco. Dodge Charger sales had spiked once it was revealed that the model was also named after a type of horse, though the lack of pony badges on the car had made that sales burst short-lived. The Mustang still commanded a healthy majority of the pony market. And because the Mustang was a sports car with a suspension that made sure the driver felt every single bump on the road, Frisco had insisted on asphalt. Not like her own 1979 Lincoln Continental. She could drive that over cobblestones all day long and not feel a thing with that cushy suspension. Why didn’t they make cars like that anymore?
Her assistant, Denim Blue, sat down next to her. Together the two earth ponies watched the scene unfolding below them in silence. A team of earth ponies were working with a crew of human construction workers to raise a wall on what would eventually be Pintosford’s town hall. They were still working on getting the heavy equipment in, but while that might put humans off, there was a job to do, and the ponies were used to manual labor. Just because it was the first day of construction didn’t mean they could just sit around doing nothing.
The union wasn’t happy about that. They’d been less happy when she’d threatened to cancel the various contracts with the various human firms they’d hired and stick with pony teams instead.
“Bit for your thoughts.”
Frisco chuckled. Denim knew her well, but she couldn’t see things. Not the way Frisco could. Some earth ponies grew flowers. Others grew fruits and/or vegetables. She’d even heard of some ponies growing various types of rocks. But Frisco was the only pony who grew buildings. That was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Frisco could sense the ground beneath her in ways that would make paleontologists and seismologists alike jealous. She could sense every fault line in the continental crust. She could feel every rock in the soil. She knew how deep the bedrock was and how strong it was. More than that, she could already envision the town laid out in front of her. She could see how the structures connected to the planet underneath them. She envisioned sewers and water mains and even a subway cutting underneath the burgeoning town. It was to be a town of a few hundred ponies. But towns grew, and Frisco accounted for that. Over-engineering was how she’d made a name for herself in Equestria, and it was why she’d been selected as the principal architect for this project.
In other words, a bit for her thoughts was drastically inflating the value of a bit.
“Just planning for the future is all.”
“How many?”
“Up to 2.6 million.”
Denim whistled in appreciation. She couldn’t see what Frisco saw. She could read the blueprints as well as any of the others there, but she couldn’t envision 2.6 million ponies, humans, griffins, yaks, minotaurs, etc. living there. Five hundred? Absolutely, it’s what they’d planned for. A thousand? Ten thousand? Well, she had been working with Frisco a long time. She knew how the mare worked, and even the leap from five hundred to ten thousand wasn’t that challenging. Beyond that though, it was a mystery to her. She’d help her boss with the planning though. The town would have a future, even after they were long gone. If they followed Frisco’s plans, the town would prosper as it grew. But sooner or later somepony would come along who thought they knew better. Some young hotshot trying to make a name for himself, or an aging, long past her prime never-was would try one last shot for immortality; a project to last the ages. And what better way than upstaging one of the all-time greats?
“Can’t go past that, though.”
Denim looked to the engineer. “Why not?”
“This isn’t Equestria. I expect that once the pony population here expands they’ll resolve the remaining issues, but until that time anything more than that will be too much of a strain on the local environment. Besides, I’ve got this all mapped out.” She unfurled blueprints to share with her assistant. “We’re starting with what will eventually become the historic district in a century or two. The structures here will resemble Equestrian buildings. Right now the town’s tiny. It may never grow beyond a few hundred ponies, but I think we both expect it to expand into the thousands fairly quickly. Which is why the historic downtown is being constructed away from what will eventually be prime property.”
She pointed to the river. “Riverfront values will eventually skyrocket. Taking into consideration our kind’s penchant for natural settings, I’ve envisioned high rise apartment complexes interspaced with parks preserving the natural beauty along the water. The future business district is located on the other side of the historic district.”
Denim chuckled. “I love how you keep referring to buildings that haven’t even been built yet as the historic district. That’s what I call really long-term planning.”
“So many settlements tear down their history before they realize its significance, only to regret what they’ve lost decades later. With proper planning, there’s no need to do that. Growth should be organic. It’s why I’ve already planned the locations of each of the suburbs. None within ten miles, to allow for continued growth of Pintosford without absorbing other communities. The river makes a great natural southern border, while the mountains will stop the town from spreading too far to the north. That leaves east and west as the main directions for expansion. This corridor here will connect to the first bedroom community. That’s where all the big-box retailers, gas stations, and car dealerships can go. A ponymade & manmade barrier to the west. The next suburb can go on the other side of the river, about five miles out. That way it can expand all the way to the river and become a twin city with Pintosford if needed. But somepony else can figure that one out.”
“Why’s that?”
Frisco laughed, allowing herself a rare moment of mirth. “Because I’ll be dead, buried, and long since forgotten by the time there are that many ponies here.” It was morbid humor, but mirth nonetheless.
Denim Blue had been working with Frisco a long time. She didn’t even bat an eye before responding, “Which leads me to asking where the cemetery’s going to go?”
“At the base of the mountains. Where it’s peaceful, serene, beautiful… and out of the way of progress.” More than once poor planning from generations of ponies building things with no real thought to how it would impact future developments had resulted in Frisco’s visions being thwarted by discovering a burial ground in the way. Ponies were adamant about not disturbing their ancestors, and Frisco and Denim Blue were no exceptions. But that didn’t mean they had to make the same mistakes.
Other ponies would gripe about the inconvenience, whether it be for needing to travel miles out of their way to go shopping, or to bury their deceased, because they’d never see the big picture. They’d never comprehend why it was so important to accommodate the needs of future generations when they themselves wouldn’t be around to care. But Frisco had been that future generation too many times to condemn her descendants to lackadaisical planning.
“I hate to interrupt, but we’ve got a problem.” It was the human foreman for one of their construction crews, though Frisco couldn’t remember his name. She did know he was supposed to be working on putting up the frame for town hall.
“And that is?”
“There’s solid rock where we’re digging.”
“Are you digging where I told you to?”
“Yeah. I think.”
Frisco peered over her glasses. “There’s an ‘x’ on the ground where I told you to dig. Are you digging on the ‘x’ or not? If I go down there, am I going to see my perfectly good ‘x’ still on the ground, completely untouched?”
“Maybe?”
Frisco sighed. She’d hoped that humans would prove to be more competent than ponies, but her hopes were slowly being dashed. First by the permit process, and now by the construction crews. She pushed her glasses back up her snout. “There’s a reason why I specifically marked the ground exactly where I wanted that hole dug. Fill whatever you’ve dug back in, and then dig where I told you to and you won’t have rocks in the way.”
The foreman walked off, muttering about how a pony being in charge of a team of humans wasn’t natural.
“You probably could’ve handled that better.”
“Is he filling in his hole and digging where I told him to?”
“Looks like it.”
“Then I handled it fine. What’s the next fire to put out?”
“Coffee.”
“The coffee’s on fire?”
“No, but it’s hot, and you should drink it.”
Frisco took a sip from the coffee. Denim knew exactly how she liked it. “I needed that.”
Denim Blue nodded. “That you did. You need to stop looking for problems. Believe me, they’ll find you soon enough.”
Frisco laughed. “Why solve problems when you can prevent them?” She held up the blueprints. “If everycreature would just follow my instructions…”
The two old friends rolled their eyes and continued supervising the construction. There would always be something else that needed their attention.
Author's Note
Story notes: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/968406/story-notes-we-built-this-city
