While we stick to the nation where the all but one games in the franchise took place for GTA 6 City of the Week, in Foreign City of the Week, we look beyond the borders of the USA in order to find the ideal candidate as the setting of the next installment of Rockstar Games' flagship franchise.
While taking a break from the Caribbean once more following Havana as our previous candidate, this week we bring a unique edition of Foreign City of the Week. due to the unique position of the two capitals being so close to one another, we decided to mix things up by taking a look at not one, but two cities which could potentially inhabit the same GTA game map, offering two main urban areas as well as a unique dynamic to the story and gameplay.
Buenos Aires and Montevideo
Both cities are the capitals of their nations. Both cities sit on the coast of the large bay formed by the Río De La Plata. Both cities are the most populous in their respective countries, and both rank particularly high on the list of most liveable cities in South America. They've both seen major modernization efforts, they are major ports, and both are major tourist attractions.
Their proximity to one another presents us with the unique opportunity of evaluating the two cities in the context of them being on the same map. While most entries in the GTA franchise featured a map with a single city — or, rather, the whole map being just the city — the first two games in the series as well as San Andreas featured multiple urban locations.
The large bay separating the two cities could be used as the main geographic anchor of the map (and damn, would its use make for some stunning screenshots) with an inverted "U" shape as the rough landmass. Alternatively, the area could be reimagined as two islands connected by a bridge — however, we get ahead of ourselves.
Buenos Aires, also known as the City of Fury, making this city the one with the most bad-ass nickname we've ever encountered in City of the Week, is the capital of Argentina. With a population nearing 3 million, it's also larger than many of the American cities we've looked at recently once we started running out of the truly major cities.
Buenos Aires is an autonomous federal city much like Washington D.C. back in the States. This means it's independent of the surrounding Buenos Aires Province — which has it's own capital — and acts as a unique administrative body.
Buenos Aires has a number of attributes that make it seem like a great choice for a GTA game on first glance. It's rated as one of South America's most livable cities, it's an Alpha global city in terms of economy and it's a major tourist attraction, second only to Mexico City on the whole continent. As a bonus, the city will be hosting the 2018 Summer Olympics, which could easily be touched upon in the story (corruption, anyone?).
Buenos Aires is also known to be the most diverse city in South America. Historically, it saw some of the heaviest immigration on the continent, and many foreigners stream to the city even today. As a melting pot of cultures, the city has benefited much, however, there are also drawbacks. Buenos Aires is struggling with poverty. Looking at the entire metro area around the city, more than 20% of the population lives below the poverty line — and those are just the ones we know of.
Rapid urbanisation. the growth of "Villas Miserias" (the local equivalent of slums or shanty towns) and the limitation wrought by being an autonomous city has led to the rapid decrease of green areas in the city. Add to this an ever growing population, and Buenos Aires fell into the situation of having troublingly little greenery.
The WHO estimates that the minimum healthy limit of green area in a city per resident is 9 metres squared, while 10-15 is ideal. In Buenos Aires, this metric is 2. Yes, 2. Keep in mind that the livability ranking does not pertain to environmental concerns, just economic ones.
Buenos Aires' economy is big. The city alone accounts for a quarter of the country's economic activity and is the 13th largest in the world. It acts not only as a major hub for Argentina but for pretty much the entire continent.
Buenos Aires functions as a major port, with the harbour and docks providing the most jobs and income for the city. The city's historic port has been expanded and modernised, and a new one was constructed southwards of it. The two together handle almost 30 million tonnes of cargo each year, placing them among the busiest ports in South America.
The services and manufacturing fields are the two other major pillars of the city's economy. As the financial hub of the country, financial services make up for the bulk of that field, while the busy ports feed the manufacturing industry, which is grouped around the newer, southern harbour.
Switching over to Montevideo, we're met with a similar yet unique candidate. The city has a population of slightly over a million and is a Beta world city in terms of economy. While Buenos Aires has been often ranked among the most livable cities in South America, Montevideo has been consistently rated as the most livable city in South America.
While Buenos Aires acts as an industrial and economic hub for not only its nation but the entire continent, Montevideo plays a similar role in the realm of politics and trade. The headquarters of both Mercosur and ALADI are present in the city. These organisations are the main mercantile blocs in South America (think something along the lines of the EU) granting great influence to the city.
In terms of economy, Montevideo finds common ground with Buenos Aires in terms of having a major port and being a prominent banking hub. While Buenos Aires has the bigger port activity, Montevideo is more prominent in terms of banking. More than 20 private banks have their main or regional headquarters in the city, and Montevideo has been dubbed the "Switzerland of America".
Another common point between the two cities is the importance of tourism. Tourism is a major source of income throughout Uruguay, and the city's administration has doubled down on making visitors more likely to purchase state services to see the sights Montevideo has to offer.
Montevideo does not suffer from the overcrowdedness, the prominence of poverty or the general lack of green areas like Buenos Aires does. The city is known for its many parks, often decorated with monuments and the like. The city is also more modernised than Buenos Aires and features significantly fewer slums.
When placing the two on the same game map, we can consider what kind of dynamic the two locations would provide for. Buenos Aires would be the larger, more urban, more industrialised area with a grittier, down-to-earth feel (naturally the modern downtown area would still be accurately portrayed) with the slums shown on the outskirts. Montevideo would, on the other hand, be the pristine banking city. It would be somewhat smaller, but the design direction would be more modern and pristine.
Since we are talking about Rockstar here, they'd satirise both extensively. They'd probably put a "corrupt and spoilt bankers" spin on their version of Montevideo, while they'd pursue an exaggerated working-class stereotype with Buenos Aires. You can also bet that they will greatly up the natural rivalry that exists between the two capitals.
In terms of geography, a neat route would be to slice bits out of Uruguay and Argentina, turn them into two islands, and connect them with a bridge. This would allow Rockstar to weave the event of unlocking the second island into the story somehow like they've done in previous games.
