That makes sense. He'll let Vesherti know if something like that happens, though he doesn't expect it either.

Vesherti nods, and then continues with his explanation of city government.

"The other things that go on in the organizers' building — The organizer in charge of goals works with the people in their project to determine what the goals for the city should be, and then to pick people or projects to carry those out. For example, the city has a goal of having enough lightning generated for everyone to be able to use it. The people who work with the organizer in charge of goals figure out how that should happen, such as by building more lightning-generators, and then find people who are willing to do that. The organizer in charge of goals works with a group of four other people, and three of them need to agree in order to set a new goal or start a new project on behalf of the city. The four people are: two people who represent the general people living in the city, the speaker for tradition, and the speaker for children. The two people who represent the general people living in the city are supposed to make decisions based on what they think the people in the city want, and often meet with people and talk to them to make sure they know what that is. The speaker for tradition is supposed to keep things from changing too quickly, and ensure that the historical parts of the city are preserved. The speaker for children is supposed to look out for long-term problems and consequences that will affect the people living in the city in the future."

"When the sub-project in charge of goals makes a decision, they post a public letter about it so that people can comment or point out problems. But many people don't want to be bothered by dealing with all the details of keeping the city running, which is why the decision is delegated to a specific group of people in the first place."

"Every six years, there's a period where everyone living in the city gets to send a letter to the city organizers' building saying who they would like to be the organizer in charge of resolving conflicts, the organizer in charge of goals, and the two people who represent the general people living in the city. Anyone less than twenty four years old can also say who they want the speaker for children to be. The speaker for tradition doesn't change until the old speaker decides they no longer want to be part of the project, or dies. But when there isn't a current speaker for tradition, anyone more than twenty four years old can also say who they want the speaker for tradition to be. The willing person for each role who got the most letters supporting them becomes the new person in that role."

"So generally, you can pick people who you agree with to be in the sub-project in charge of goals. They do the work of sorting through proposals and figuring out what projects need to happen or what things about the city need to change, and then everyone has a chance to comment if they're interested. Then the projects go ahead, and if this causes problems you can go to the sub-project in charge of resolving conflicts to try and make things better. It's not a perfect system, but it works well enough — people are generally pretty happy to live here, and the city mostly reflects what the people living here want, without needing too much day-to-day coordination between neighbors. There are also smaller projects dedicated to specific areas of the city, but that's the overall structure of things."

Huh. That seems interesting but also kind of overwhelming. He might want to write a book about it, when he's more settled in here.

"We have several books comparing and contrasting the organizers of different cities ourselves, but I think everyone would be very interested to read about your perspective on it," he replies. "If you'd like, I can arrange time for you to talk to the organizers about their projects in more detail."

He was thinking he'd write it for other Crafters, but of course they can have a translation. He'll definitely be interested in talking to them when he's ready to get started on the book.

Vesherti nods.

They're coming up on the historical district now — the streets are laid out based on the curve of the river, instead of a more rigid grid, and the streets are also a bit narrower. The buildings are older, mostly made with stone and brick.

"See that building over there?" he says, indicating a short, square building set a ways back from the river. A round stained-glass window set into the top of the wall shows a stylized sigil that looks something like a book. "That's the city's first branch of our world library. It's not the original building — which burned down, was rebuilt, flooded, and then they rebuilt over here on a higher bit of land instead — but it has been in this same location for a bit more than eight hundred years. The sculpture work on the front of the building, in particular, is still based on the original design — although it had to be refurbished a bit more than fifty years ago because it was starting to deteriorate."

The front of the building, under the eaves, is covered in bas-relief sculpture showing a train of horses making a winding journey through the mountains to a desert.

"The design is a stylized map of the way to the central library. There are specific mountains highlighted to recommend a particular route. The idea is that even if the library falls, and the city is wiped out and forgotten, future people who find the pieces of the artwork should be able to piece it together and find the library."

Oh, that's neat. He wishes he could get a copy to share with people back home.

Vesherti taps his lip in thought.

"We have pictures of it, although that's not quite the same thing," he offers.

It's really not. It's fine, it'd be more of a decoration and a curiosity than anything else.

He nods.

"Down this way there's the old mill building. This area was originally a small farming community — more or less because everywhere was a small farming community at that point — and the old mill building was where they used the river to turn wheels to grind their grain."

He points out a few more historically interesting (or just pretty) buildings as they go.

They did what with the river for their grain? (Gosh, cool architecture.)

"We can't just make crankshafts that turn on their own," Vesherti explains. "So instead we would make wheels with large scoops on them and put them part-way into the river. As the river flows, the water pushes against the paddles and turns the wheel. Then that wheel would be hooked up with gears to the mill. Now, we mostly do things like that with lightning-based machinery, but when the mill was first built we hadn't figured out how to use tiny lightnings like that."

Huh, that's clever. And probably contributed to them having cities, not everyone can have territory on a strong river.

"Yes!" Vesherti agrees. "Most cities are still built around rivers, actually, even though that's no longer strictly necessary. Rivers are useful for powering machines, for trading by boat, for having a source of water to drink and for crops, and so on. Building by rivers has challenges from floods and the river moving over time, too, but we've learned ways to manage those."

Crafters like living near water too, it's always good to have a steady source of it. He thinks flooding is probably less of a big deal for them, since they don't cluster so close to it, but it's still a problem, they'll be interested in hearing what the locals do for it.

"The short answer is building large piles of earth to guide the flow away from vulnerable areas, and adding drains that move water without letting it soak into the ground in carefully-chosen locations, to get the water past the city faster during a flood," he explains. "But the full answer is a good deal more complex. If you'd like, we could go see the water control structures upstream of the city and talk to some of the people who maintain them. They have a big scale model of the area around the city so that they can test various conditions by adding water to it and seeing where the water wants to flow."

He'll add that to his list of book ideas.

Vesherti will happily point out more architecture, explaining both the uses of the buildings and how they came to be built. Not every building has a particularly interesting story or a particularly pretty appearance, but enough of them do that he can usually come up with a bit to say about them.

As they go, the people of the city move around them in a respectful bubble, but still stop to wave or watch them as they pass.

"I'm starting to be a bit hungry," Vesherti eventually remarks. "We don't need to stop for lunch at any particular time — and I can just ask for some lunch to be delivered to me as we walk, if you don't want to stop at all — but if you also start feeling like trying some more food I would be amenable."

He doesn't mind the stares, and waves back when waved to, but keeps most of his attention on Vesherti.

He's not hungry yet, but he wouldn't mind stopping somewhere to have a little something, especially if Vesherti has a suggestion.

"How do you feel about noodle soups? There is a shop down there on the corner that makes pretty good noodle soups with bone broth, chopped vegetables, and egg," he suggests.

He approves of this idea! It'll be interesting to see how they like their soups here.

How they like their soups is:

Clear broths (so you can see the components) made in large batches, simmered with bones and thin slices of meat for a delicate umami flavor, fleshed out with bits of onion, celery, carrot, and bean sprouts, served with your choice of wheat or rice noodles (rice seems marginally more popular), with an egg cracked into it when you order it and whisked to produce a fine cloud of bits of egg.

The egg is popular but optional; the shop also sells a version made with only vegetables, and distinguishes between "savory" and "spicy" broths.

The soup comes in a ceramic dish with a lid that clamps on by means of a little wire lever for spill-free transport, in two different sizes.

Vesherti orders a large bowl of spicy rice-noodle soup, which he explains is his favorite soup of this type.

After some consideration he gets a small bowl of savory rice-noodle soup with an egg, and gets out some jerky for the dog (who's been sleeping at his feet, tired out after her long run yesterday) while he waits for it. The lid mechanism is briefly confusing, but once he's figured it out he thinks it's delightful, and the soup is good too.

Crafters favor thicker soups, he explains while he's eating - they're usually made to use up leftovers, which mostly means meat and bread, and they toast the bread and crumble it in to thicken it.

"We do have some thicker soups too," Vesherti agrees. "There's a kind of thick soup made with potatoes and leeks that's pretty popular. I think people usually like to eat bread with non-noodle soups more, though, since the noodles already provide a certain amount of bread-like texture. I'm not sure I've ever tried crumbling bread into the soup directly, though. I'll have to try that."