Stem City's streets are where a majority of the city's population find themselves living. It isn't uncommon to see homeless off-worlders with only enough money for the next meal bumming in alleyways.
Most buildings in Stem City are constructed with easy to lay stone. Windows are usually barred and standard doors are made from low tolerance metals. Apartments and homes rarely have heating. It's common for heavy rainfall damage to seep through ceilings.
The paved streets vary extremely in quality, size, and shape based on where they are. There are major streets, each one having dozens of alleyways and smaller roads shooting off of it. Cheap, soulless neon signs are hooked up to what feels like every wall of every corner.
The center sector of the city is full of winding and twisting roads that surround Stem Tower and The Grand Shroom. Gwino's concert stage is present along with many tourist centric business fronts.
The western sector of the city, comprising solely of the noble neighborhood, has a much more polished look to it. Actual care from a few local noble businesses is enough to keep it clean. The streets are wide, kept clear, and its stores are as beautiful as slabs of hollowed stone can be.
The south-western sector is not taken care of at all, many abandoned buildings left to wither among the various noble owned sweatshops. The ancient church lies here.
The northern sector has several skyscrapers full of disgruntled office workers working alongside automated off-world robots purchased from the nearby Nexus. Anything to do with the noble controlled economy, city infrastructure, or security developments is likely controlled from here. Most of the skyscrapers actually are devoid. Squads of the homeless live here.
The southern sector is considered the slums by most of the population. Numerous violent small gangs are located around here and attempt to bully small businesses to get a leg up. Under the Tower's club is tucked within the alleyways and the syndicate has the final say in most gang disputes in its turf. This sector has the cheapest living spaces and most of the actual off-worlder owned businesses. Its roads and buildings are barely kept in working condition, bumps, cracks, and holes everywhere.
The eastern sector is split up into north-east and south-east. North-east is full of cramped apartments and essential living businesses. It's where the checkpoint leading to the Outlands is present. The south-east is dominated by luxurious noble buildings such as fashion stores and casinos made to entice the impulsive and the vain.
Through the streets of Stem City, stems of The Grand Shroom find themselves intruding out from the concrete base where they've been contained. They wrap and twist around buildings. Power boxes draw STEMNET access and infinite electricity from them.
Dirt paths turned to stone in the ruins of the Stems, the 12 tribes united to trade.
Stone paths turned to pavement as the aliens arrived. Rickety and unstable homes were replaced by organized and separated plots of land. Some buildings, for the first time ever, had more than a single floor.
Time advanced, the roads twisted around more than ever. Whenever possible, the city rose itself up from the dirty land it was built upon with fake mountains carved of blocked stone. The massive mushroom's stems were hidden under layers of stone. Cheap neon signs appeared outside of buildings, lighting up the shade that The Grand Shroom cast most of the village within.
The dictator, Count Ahsonov the Great, came to power. Walls were constructed for the next several decades to keep people from leaving the new government's watchful eye. The fortunate natives built as many cheap buildings as possible to limit where the unfortunate aliens could stay. The rich's western land rose higher. Lifts were required to reach it.
Eventually, the city's walls became far too large. The rich could not rent out all their property. Buildings with no people became forgotten and abandoned. The poor, previously stripped of their property, were soon allowed to own the broken down structures throughout the city.
As aliens were allowed to migrate to the city for the first time in centuries, the rich built their cityscape higher in preparation. The mushroom's stems started to grow as new blood entered its domain, winding around buildings as the sands of time continued to fall.
Soon, the walls were pierced. Elevators and trams took people outside the commercialized tumor.