Mombasa

Mombasa was a collection of two cities in Africa on planet Earth. It consisted of a run down section known as "Old Mombasa" on the coast of the continent, as well as a prosperous section called "New Mombasa" on a small island just of the coast of the city, connected by a large bridge.

Old Mombasa
All this change and progress was largely confined to Mombasa Island. The area across Kilindini Harbor, on the mainland, was a different story.

The mainland districts were stifled, ironically, by their thrist for growth. During the 21st and 22nd centuries, sea levels worldwide began rising due to global warming. Port cities around the planet were faced with a choice: construct flood control measures, or drown. In Mombasa, it was decided that, rather than shore up the old docks on Mombasa Island, it would be easier to build brand new ports on the mainland, southwest of the city. So massive seawalls were built to hold back the rising waters, and new dock structures extended out into Kilindini Harbor.

For a time, these docks brought prosperity to the mainland. Shantytowns were demolished to make way for new office buildings, highways were constructed, and commerce thrived. But by the end of the 23rd century, global warming began to reverse as new technologies emerged and millions of people departed Earth for colonies in the rest of the Solar System. Sea levels began receding as temperatures dropped worldwide. In time, the port facilities on the mainland were left literally high and dry.

Unfortunately, interstellar travel was discovered just as the mainland's ports became useless. As a result, the space elevator and its attendent port system was constructed on Mombasa Island instead. Consequently, the island-city transformed into the hi-tech metropolis of New Mombasa, while the mainland area languished, closed off behind its useless seawall.

By 2552, Old Mombasa, as the mainland came to be called, had remained much the same. Its architecture is an odd hodgepodge of old and new: 16th-century Muslim arcades, aging 21st-century office buildings, looming 26th-century power couplings. Old concrete homes secured with computerized locks. Clotheslines strung next to power lines. Mechanical gates set into ancient brick walls. The culture also seems displaced; while New Mombasa is populated with industrial workers and ambitious cosmopolitans, Old Mombasa is considered to be more of a slum.

New Mombasa
Mombasa underwent dramatic change with the arrival of the interstellar era. In response to increasing demand for cheap orbital access, the government began construction on one of the wonders of the age: a space elevator. This structure served to lift heavy cargo into geosynchronous orbit without expensive booster rockets filled with fuel.

The elevator transformed the city; Mombasa was now one of the most important port cities on Earth. There was an immediate influx of trade, people, and jobs; as a result, the landscape of the city was completely reimagined. Within a century, the old apartment buildings and hotels on Mombasa Island had been torn down and replaced with the latest architecture: monolithic arcologies, vast industrial complexes, and gleaming office towers. The demand for expansion of the city's services was so great, in fact, that a large canal was cut through the old downtown sector of Sidiriya, to provide docking space for countless incoming cargo ships. It was during this period of tremendous growth that the city became known as "New Mombasa".

By the 26th century the city was a dynamic, cosmopolitan metropolis, boasting such amenities as a mile-long suspension bridge, a highly efficient maglev rail system, an automatic highway network, and large-scale recreational areas.