New Neo City

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Neo Olde Tokyo...? Who comes up with these names!?

When a major city or province is destroyed during The End of the World as We Know It, and it gets rebuilt After the End, instead of going back to the original name for it (or naming it something else), it's common practice for the builders to tack on "New" or "Neo" to the original name, probably to show how this incarnation is nothing like the old, destroyed one. If there's still ruins of the old city left, you can bet that the remaining townsfolk will refer to it as "Old"-whatever, as a show of how much they want to forget what happened and move on.

Also happens when survivors from a destroyed planet or country resettle somewhere else; in this case, the "New" or "Neo" title is used to describe how the area will be remade into a better version of the old.

Because of the phenomenon of Creator Provincialism, the city in question will nearly always be New York or Tokyo.

Examples of New Neo City include:

Anime and Manga

  • Because Tokyo is annihilated so frequently in anime, it tends to get this treatment a lot: Neo Tokyo, Mega-Tokyo, New Tokyo-3 (an example of the second type: since the original Tokyo was nuked and flooded, Tokyo-3 is an overhauled version of the nearby Hakone; also, the fleet in episode 8 moored in "New Yokosuka (Old Odawara)").
  • In Aria, the city where most of the story takes place is Neo Venezia on Aqua (formerly known as Mars) and is based on Venice.
  • Romeo X Juliet, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, takes place in the city of Neo Verona. No mention is made of an "Old Verona", however, the implication being that Verona is Shakespeare's one.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's is set in Neo Domino City, a Shout-Out to the original Yu-Gi-Oh!! taking place in Domino City.
  • Nation-wide version in G Gundam. For example, Neo Japan.

Comic Books

  • Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire is based on the planet of New Hong Kong.
  • The backup feature in the X-Men: Noir miniseries was a parody pulp story set in New New New York.
  • Rogue Trooper is set on the planet Nu Earth, and includes cities such as Nu Atlanta, Nu Paree, Nu Georgia, and Nu Memphizz.

Literature

  • The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle has New Chicago and New Caledonia.
    • The latter of which IRL is an island in the Pacific.
  • The capital city of Haven is Nouveau Paris, which only underlines the fact that Haven is a stand-in for Revolutionary France.
    • Many other examples can be found there too. Off the top of my head, there's also New Berlin and New Britain.
  • The Star Wars novels have a planet that goes through severe upheavals every seven years or so, destroying everything on the surface. The planet's colonists don't let this stop them, evacuating and rebuilding whenever necessary. One town has been called, over the years, Hopetown, New Hopetown, Newer Hopetown, Newest Hopetown, and Another Hopetown.
    • In the X-Wing: Iron Fist, there is a town on the planet Aldivy called "New Oldtown". The Big Bad is faintly horrified by this name.

Zsinj: "Surely you're joking about that name." [...]
Zsinj: "You're sure he didn't destroy it because of that name."[...]
Zsinj: "Don't ever say that name again. It annoys me."

After that, his second-in-command calls it the "hometown-whose-name-is-nevermore-to-be-said."

  • The Robert Heinlein juvenile Between Planets has some early chapters set in New Chicago, Old Chicago having been nuked in a previous (non-world-ending) nuclear war some generations ago.
  • In Red Handed by Gena Showalter, there is New Chicago.
  • Lampshaded in John Zakour's Zach Johnson books; the World Council added "New" to EVERY place on Earth, a fact which is occasionally commented upon by the characters, who live in New San Francisco.

Live-Action TV

  • Lampshaded in Doctor Who where the Tenth Doctor explains that New New York (on another planet) is actually the thirteenth New York, so it's technically NewNewNewNewNewNewNewNewNewNewNewNew New York.
  • The first season of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century series took place in New Chicago.
  • The ill-fated colony of New Bajor, in DS9
    • There are also a couple references to the human (but not Federation) world of New Sydney, from all descriptions a regular Wretched Hive mostly under the thumb of the interstellar mob.
  • In Power Rangers SPD the protagonists live in Newtech City - a bit of a stretch considering that it implies that there was a city called Tech and then another city with the same name. It's even more of a stretch given that the series takes place in 2025 - Those must be some fast builders.
    • Of course, who do you think builds the cities after every single Megazord fight, huh?
  • The short-lived TV version of Birds of Prey is set in New Gotham. For Batman fans, it appears to take place in an alternate-continuity future following the "Cataclysm" and "No Man's Land" comic books arcs (in which an earthquake levels half of Gotham).
  • In Star Trek, New Berlin is the largest city on the Moon. We also hear of (but never actually see) a city called New Seattle on a Federation colony world.
    • Another New Berlin is also a Federation colony on the frontier. New Manhattan, New Providence, New France, and New Paris are also mentioned briefly. The Expanded Universe also has examples like New Siberia, New Sahara or New Reykjavik.
  • New Caprica.
    • One wonders how non-Capricans felt about that naming choice.
  • In Terra Nova, the title location, as the names translates to "New Earth".

Video Games

  • In the SNES Light Gun Game Battle Clash, New York, guarded by the Warmup Boss Guido, is left in ruins. In the sequel, Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, no one's bothered to clean up the rubble of the Statue of Liberty, but the inhabitants (those that are left, anyway) refer to the city as "Neo New York".
  • Parodied with the "Neo Olde Tokyo" city of the Show Within a Show "The Steel Samurai" in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
  • In Warcraft, Stormwind City was razed by the Orcs in the First War and rebuilt after the Alliance reclaimed the continent of Azeroth six years later. The original city is referred to as "Old Stormwind" in historical texts. The southeastern district of the city is called "Old Town" in-game, even though it's architecturally identical to the rest of the metropolis and was ostensibly (re)built at the same time.
  • In combination with Punny Name, Mother 3 has New Pork City.
  • In Time Splitters 2 (a series which thrives off of pastiches of stock settings) there is a level set in Neotokyo in 2019.
  • In Civilization 3 and its expansions, when a faction runs out of unique city names from its predefined city list, new cities' default names will go back to the top of the list, adding "New" to the original city name. This can result in a few oddities (New New York) and Easter Eggs (Neo Tokyo, Not Constantinople). When the city list runs out after then, it starts numbering cities, e.g. Thebes 2. .
  • Freeware RPG Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden takes place mainly in post-cyberpocalypse New York, aptly renamed as Neo New York. At one point, the characters visit Proto Neo New York.
  • Freelancer has quite a few of these. New Tokyo, New Berlin, New London are the capital planets of Kusari, Rhineland, and Bretonia, but strangely, Liberty's capital name is Manhattan.
    • That said, Manhattan is in the New York system - so all the capital systems start with New.
  • Armored Core: Another Age does this. Several locations from previous Armored Core titles, like Isaac City, are featured, however they've now been supplanted by newer cities of similar name. Isaac City in particular is now divided between Neo and Old Isaac City.
  • The PC game Megarace featured a few tracks in NewSan, named after San Francisco. One such track went over a bridge probably intended to evoke the Golden Gate Bridge.
  • Hideo Kojima's '80s cyberpunk game Snatcher takes place in "Neo Kobe City."
  • In Halo 2, much of the action takes place in the city of New Mombasa. Whatever happened to our time's Mombasa is never explained.
    • It's still there, in fact, a few multiplayer maps in Halo 2 (and one in 3 which recently came out) take place in Old Mombasa.
    • New Mombasa was build during and after the first Orbital Elevator (The Giant Cable in the middle of the city) was built. Old Mombasa is our Mombasa. New Mombasa is one of the most important cities on Earth since it was the location of the First Orbital Elevator.
    • Halo: Reach has New Alexandria on Reach.
  • Escape Velocity has a bunch of planets and moons named this way.
  • Inversion: the prologue portion of Policenauts takes place in "Old L.A." in 2040, which is the city that used to be Los Angeles after the actual Los Angeles relocated to the north.
  • The setting of Contra Force is actually called "Neo City", even though the game takes place in 1992 (the present year when the game came out). While Contra Force has nothing to do with the rest of the Contra series, the localization staff at Konami attempted to establish a connection between it and Contra III by claiming that the Occupied City stage in Contra III was actually Neo City in ruins.
  • A majority of Final Fantasy VII is set in the city of Midgar, a metropolis built by the Mega Corp Shinra Inc. Shinra's master plan is to built a new city on a scale meant to handily eclipse Midgar's. Its name? "Neo Midgar," what else?
  • Official Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped artwork refers to the future-themed setting as "Neo York"... that is, what would happen if Cortex managed to Take Over the World.
  • Fallout 2 has New Reno.
    • And later on in the series the eponymous New Vegas
  • One of the cities in the game Just Cause is named "Nuevo Estocolmo", being an obvious reference to Stockholm, capital of the developers' native Sweden.
  • Mario Kart 7 has the Neo Bowser City race track.
    • Averted in the PAL release, where it's just called Koopa City.

Web Original

  • Void Dogs features the "celtic revival" planets of Nova Hibernia and Nova Caledonia. (New Ireland and New Scotland)

Western Animation

  • Thundercats had New Thundera when Thundera magically reformed.
  • Played with in Futurama with New New York. Old New York is currently ruins found in the sewers of New New York. The pilot episode actually gives the impression that New York was destroyed and rebuilt twice, but the movie Bender's Big Score reveals that one of these was just a few buildings being knocked down because of Bender's antics.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles variation: Although the 2105's Manhattan seen in Fast Forward is officially "New New York", as evidenced by several signs, it is still usually called "New York".
  • Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century had New London as the capital of Britain. We were never told what had happened to the old one.
  • The 31st-century set Legion of Superheroes cartoon has New Metropolis in the place of Metropolis. In the 41st Century, the ruins were christened Neo Metropolis, making this a double example.

Real Life

  • New Delhi, India.
  • Right after Katrina hit New Orleans, the Internet started buzzing with jokes about "New New Orleans".
  • Any number of place names in North America are this. New England itself is named after the England. New Orleans is named after Orleans, France. Subverted with New York, which was named for the Duke of York in 1664, the man who would become James II of England and VII of Scotland. OK, so he's named for the City of York, England. And before then, New York was named New Amsterdam...
  • This is Truth in Television for many places named by colonists; New Zealand, for example.
    • In Canada, The Province of Quebec was once known as "Nouvelle France/New France", New Brunswick is named after a territory in Germany that was once ruled by a relative of the British king, and Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". "Newfoundland", meanwhile, is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Oh, and don't forget about New England in the US.
    • But then, there is a place called Neu Kamerun (new cameroon) in Germany...
  • Naples (Napoli to its actual inhabitants) comes from words Neo Polis, "New City". The name was given by Greek settlers thousands of years ago, and it stuck.
    • There are about six towns called "Neustadt" (new town) in Germany.
      • And probably none of the dozens of Newtons in Britain were named after newts.
  • New Jersey is named for an island off the British coast.
  • New Lanark, Scotland. About one and a half miles from Old Lanark, Scotland.
  • New South Wales, Australia. As mentioned in Down Under by Bill Bryson, no-one's sure if this is meant to be a new Wales of the South, or a new South Wales. Especially since Captain Cook (who named it) wasn't even from Wales.
  • Carthage literally means "new City". The Carthagenians founded a city in the south of Spain that ended up being called Carthago Nova by the romans ("New New City") that was eventually shorted to Cartagena. In the New World a few centuries later a city was founded called Nuevo Cartagena...
  • New Spain, now know as Mexico.
  • Constantinople, being the new capital of the Roman Empire, was sometimes called "New Rome" even before the old Rome fell to the barbarians. The early Tsars sometimes referred to Moscow as the "Third Rome".