To quote Terry Pratchett; "black and white got together to gang up on green", by which I mean that I suspect there is more segregation along metatype lines than ethnicity.

As for immigrants, they always tend to accumulate in the cheapest areas, as they tend to be poor, but I think that is an economic divide. Even so, I don't think you'd find a lot of immigrants in the Barrens, as the Barrens are pretty hellish, and there'd be no point immigrating if they were going to be worse off. Refugees, on the other hand... In RH a not particularly nice region of Seattle has been settled by Elves from the Tir, fleeing the new government, indicating cannon support for segregated neighbourhoods.

There has been an elven ghetto ever since in Seattle-SR: Talislar (sp?).

Yeah, I have to echo ornot a bit here. Seattle has immigrant communities, but mostly just in Tacoma, since it's one of the few places in Seattle with enough unskilled/semi-skilled jobs available to attract working class types with modest resources looking for a fresh start. I just don't see ethnic immigrant communities as we know them coming about in the Barrens though, since the lack of resources means that in most cases desperation trumps any sense of community. The way my group seems to envision things is that racism/segregation is almost a non-issue in Redmond because the place is such a haven for predatory behavior in general. It's not that people there aren't racist, it's just that when it comes down to it, the real hardcases in there aren't going to let a little thing like metatype or skin color get in the way of robbing someone blind or fighting over a prime squat.

I wasn't really saying that I thought there would be huge immigrant communities; I was making an analogy between the exploitation of immigrant labor in the real world and the exploitation of SINless labor in the Sixth World as an explanation for why Seattle's economic recovery has been so lopsided.

Oh, I know. I was mostly just responding directly to G.nome, who asked if there were any large immigrant communities. And Tarislar, the Elven and International Districts and Tacoma's Little Asia seem to be the only potentially big ones.

OK. The way I looked at the Barrens was based on canon and the novels. I played it that there were a few "good" places, but most of it was like Mogadishu, Somalia light. That isn't because of immigrants, but because it is described as being really run down, controlled by gangs and very dangerous and, of course, no police presence to keep order. It isn't quite that bad since there isn't open war going on, but it is close, like a cold war between the gangs that flares up into skirmishes now and then.

Most of the people there didn't things being that way, but they couldn't do anything about it and couldn't afford to live anywhere else. Canon described these people as low end wage slaves, the down on their luck, the lost, along with the criminal element, the addicts on so on. A really nasty, depressing place to be.

If the group likes a bombed-out looking feel for the Barrens the place where the Sense Offenders live in the movie Equilibrium has always seemed like a good fit. The Sense Offenders seemed to actually have a fairly developed "post-apocalyptic" society going. They looked like they had some trade and a little bit of cottage industry and were able to supply a bit of electricity.

In general I think we're dealing with your pretty typical case of "Fantasy Urban Blight". In general the backrounds from Survival Horror games like "Condemned", "Resident Evil 2", "Silent Hill", "Manhunt", etc... probably have it down pretty well.

The Barrens is pretty much an abandoned urban area, that has been further flattened by constant fighting. The "Divide" between it and the rest of the community is similar to a DMZ (indeed there was a Shadowrun Inspired Game called "Downtown Militerized Zone").

Some of the buildings have been fixed up by residents, gangs, and the occasional shopkeeper that sells to gangs. Not to mention the various Shadowrunner residences which might be nice inside (Medium/High or even Luxury Lifestyle) despite the apperance of the exterior.

An area run by a large and powerful gang that has been in power for a while might very well seem like a typical lower class community. Meaning you'd have battered storefronts, streetlights (from jury rigged power supplies) and other things. Other areas might find all the buildings shattered and noone around but squatters/scavengers and resident gangers who live in something more akin to an armed camp than an urban gang.

This is why it's possible for some people who are really brave (or stupid) to go "Slumming" in the Barrens and visit all the little Divey bars, or "Night Spots" set up. Most people however prefer to just stick to the edges near the DMZ/Divide.

The Gangs, especially Go-Gangs, routinely skirmish with Lone Star and Corperate Security Teams as they make hit and run strikes into the areas right around "the line" which is why it's still a dangerous area. As some of the writing has implied, paticularly infamous gangs have managed to actually push as far as Downtown and managed to rampage in the nicer areas before eventually being run off.

I get the impression that ultimatly such pushes happen after someone like Knight Errant or Renraku decides Lone Star needs a kick in the teeth, and funnels some milspec guns to a gang to give them the firepower to get that far.

>>>----Therumancer--->

Anyone seen "Children of Men"? That's what I picture a Barrens to look like.

And Whipstitch: There are several large immigrant communities around the area. The Cnetral District is predominately black, so is the Hilltop in Tacoma. The international district and large sections of Edmonds/Lynnwood are Asian; mostly Chinese and Vietnamese in the Intl. Dist, and mostly Korean up north. There are several good-sized Hispanic communities, some in South Seattle, but also in Tacoma.

Erm, yeah. That's kinda why I mentioned The intl. district and Tacoma. Carbanado in Puyallup is home to the Chulos and can safely be assumed to have a sizeable Latino population, but I was really just trying to stick with the big communities that seem to have an interest in actively promoting the area as a haven for a particular group.

Carbanado in SR is referenced in several places as being an Ork neighborhood. Although I do like the idea of an Ork barrio.

Isn't Carbanado that dwarf mine place? Or am I thinking of another place?