Mega-City One
Mega-City One is a fictional city that features in the Judge Dredd comic book series and related media. A post-nuclear megalopolis covering much of what is now the Eastern United States and some of Canada, the city's exact geography depends on the writer and artist working the story. From its first appearance it has been associated with New York City's urban sprawl; originally presented as a future New York, it was retconned as the centre of a "Mega-City One" in the third issue.
The Architects' Journal placed it at No. 1 in their list of "comic book cities".
Development
When the series Judge Dredd was being developed in 1976–77 it was originally planned that the story would be set in New York, in the near future. However, when artist Carlos Ezquerra drew his first story for the series, a skyscraper in the background of one panel looked so futuristic that editor Pat Mills instructed him to draw a full-page poster of the city. Ezquerra's vision of the city – with massive tower blocks and endless roads suspended vast distances above the ground with no visible means of support – was so futuristic that it prompted a rethink, and a whole new city was proposed. Art director Doug Church suggested that the city should extend along the entire Eastern Seaboard, and be called Mega-City One, and his idea was adopted.While the first Judge Dredd story is set in "New York 2099AD", prog 3 retconned that and said New York was just part of Mega-City One. The back of prog 3 included an Ezquerra "Futuregraph" poster of Mega-City One, which said the city stretched from Montreal to Georgia and had 150 million citizens; it was part of the "United States of the West". Prog 4 then established that Mega-City One was surrounded by wildernesses from the Atomic Wars. The 150 million population was later revised to 100 million in earlier strips and abruptly bumped to 800 million later on. The United States of the West concept was dropped entirely; a "United Cities of North America" of three megacities was mentioned in prog 42 and then itself dropped in favour of Mega-City One being an independent entity.
In early strips, the Judges existed alongside a regular police force, were popular with the citizens, and the people enjoyed robots doing the work, with the "Grand Judge" saying they would not consent to work more than ten hours a week. Over time, the strip would have the Judges as a feared police-state force with sole power; prog 118 established that citizens resented being unemployed and took up bizarre crazes to deal with the boredom, and this remained part of the strip from then on.
Description
Mega-City One evolved out of a growing conurbation stretching from Boston to Washington DC, which took form in the 21st century to cope with the escalating population crisis in the United States and – as a solution chosen to deal with the high crime rate – led to the introduction of the Judge system.Mega-City One was one of three major areas to survive the nuclear war in 2070, due to an experimental laser missile-defense system built not long before. The other two being Mega-City Two and Texas City. Apart from those megacities, the United States has been reduced to the Cursed Earth.
Eventually, Mega-City One extended to Miami, Florida, which became a holiday resort, and spread west into Ohio and/or West Virginia. The megacity was built over the top of the old cities and the polluted Ohio River, creating the lawless Undercity, though a few buildings like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty were moved to Mega-City One for the tourists. Maps of the city show that in the early 22nd century, it stretched roughly from southern Maine down through Florida and to the north-east has absorbed the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor in Canada. 800 million citizens lived in the city at this point.
The population and city sprawl were halved by nuclear attack and Soviet invasion in 2104, with the loss of the entire south in a saturation nuclear strike. The north-west and upper north were also lost, leaving the city stretching from roughly New Hampshire through North Carolina and losing the Canadian territory. A small part of the north west survived: the North West Hab Zone, separated from the rest of the city by a stretch of radioactive wasteland called Nuke Alley and linked to the main city by a bridge. The population remained at around 400 million from 2104 until 2134.
Mega-City One has a far greater population density than any city in the present-day world. Most city dwellers live in huge apartment blocks, though many citizens live a perpetually nomadic existence in vehicular mo-pads due to inadequate housing provisions. These citizens travel the city via the many public transport routes available, rarely stopping. Some mo-pads are quite luxurious, complete with swimming pools.
Most of the city's energy supply is covered by geothermal energy in the form of a controlled volcano called the Power Tower.
For administrative purposes, the city is divided into 305 sectors, most of them renumbered to fit the new size of the city after the Apocalypse War, and clumped into Central, North, South, East, and West. Sectors 1 to 300 constitute the main city. The North-West Hab Zone encompasses sectors 301-5. The Hab Zone was mostly ignored by the city and Sector 301 became disparagingly nicknamed "The Pit" due to its high crime rate, until Chief Judge Volt had it cleaned up in 2118. Other slum areas have been called "Angeltown" and "the Low Life".
Following the events of the 2011–12-story Day of Chaos, Mega-City One was left in ruins and almost 90% of its population was killed. After decades of being the main megacity and superpower on Earth, the city is now bankrupt and in severe decline with many judges considering the situation unsustainable.
However, over the following few years, the city began to grow again due to immigration, taking in of refugees and the gradual return of millions of citizens who sat out the plague overseas and off world. By October 2137, the population stood at seventy two million and was growing rapidly reaching 100 million around 2139. However, the destruction of the Academy of Law during Chaos Day has disrupted the supply of cadets, and it is all the remaining judges can do to cope with the expanding population, as it will be years before replacement of losses is reliable again.
In 2019, a story set in 2141 stated that the population had been revised upwards to 130 million, due to a number of reasons, including the overestimation of the number of deaths in Chaos Day, a declining death rate since then, and births and immigration. It also confirmed that many citizens fled either before or during the Chaos plague and have been slowly returning in the seven years since, and that the Chaos bug disproportionately killed the elderly ensuring a higher number of fertile age survivors to repopulate the city. By this point, then-Chief Judge Hershey believed the city could once again safely absorb such a vast increase in numbers, as many undamaged blocks remained available to be re-inhabited.
Other territories
Mega-City One has protectorates and colonies outside of the city walls:- Mega-City One held joint jurisdiction over Atlantis, an underwater city located mid way across the Atlantic along with Brit Cit until 2143 when it was destroyed by a mafia hit squad during a failed hit, killing most of its population.
- Various colonies on other planets and on moons, used as both settings and background detail in Dredd and its spin-off strips. Law and the city's central government are enforced by Colonial-Marshal Judges; indigenous aliens and MC-1 colonialists are often oppressed and some cause insurgencies. Military forces are often mentioned as being space based. The spin-off strip Insurrection showed that the Special Judicial Service have an outer-space army to deal with any colonies where the judicial staff declare independence. The main push into space began roughly in 2095, under Chief Judge Goodman, as a way of supplying the city with resources that a post-war Earth could no longer provide. The most famous colony is the penal colony on Titan, where corrupt Judges are sent.
- Various farms, mines, prisons, and protectorate townships in the Cursed Earth. The Cursed Earth Auxiliaries patrol the area for the Justice Department. The city used to have mutant camps, where mutants born in the city were deported, but these were ended after the repeal of the mutant apartheid laws.
- Townships One through Four: since 2130, the bulk of mutant citizens live in large towns outside of the city. Law enforcement is mostly done by mutant deputies, and unlike the city they still use the jury trial system.
City Blocks
Blocks are named after famous or historical figures, often with current events in mind. A typical example – shortly after the Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise separation there was an episode with block war breaking out between the "Kidman" and "Cruise" Blocks. A proposed crackdown on civil rights in Britain led to a block being named David Blunkett Block in one story.
Government
Since the abolition of democratic government in America in 2070, Mega-City One has been a dictatorship run by the Justice Department. It subsequently became an independent city-state following the break-up of the United States and had already been granted autonomy within the Union in 2052. Its ruler is the Chief Judge, in current stories Judge Logan. He is accountable to a council of five senior judges. The citizens are permitted to have an elected city council and mayor, but with no significant power: the idea is that a facade of democracy will placate most people.In 2113 a referendum was held in which the people were allowed to decide whether to restore democratic government, but by this time the memory of democracy had become so distant that the majority of citizens did not bother to vote, and most of those who did opted to retain the status quo.
In the early years of Judge Dredd, Mega-City One had not been established as a dictatorship – "The Purple People Breeder" mentioned "presidential candidate Howard Surb", while "Ryan's Revenge" had the Mayor giving orders to Justice Department. The Luna-One story arc briefly mentioned the governing body "the Grand Council of Judges" and "the Triumvirate", part of a unified state called the United Cities of North America, but this was dropped by prog 61.