This post is going to give you not one, but TWO answers to this contest question - a real answer and a contest answer.

To understand the real answer, sadly we must have some backstory.

Backstory - not quite as exciting as Wolverine's but 100% True!

I got started in Upland because of a PublishOx contest, so it feels like a circle of life moment. I started off with nothing to my name other than the PublishOx Upland referral sign up bonus and a dream. That's right, I had a dream! I dreamed of floating around helplessly in various blocky disguises with nothing at all to do for days at a time other than collect microscopic amounts of UPX. Yes, that was my dream, and Upland made that dream come true!

I was trapped, you see, in Fresno. The Lettuce Capital of Central California. As glorious as that sounds, at the time I started playing, there were only 3 cities: San Francisco, Manhattan, and inevitable Fresno. When you think of the great cities of the world, and then you decide that the definition of "great city" is Much Lettuce and So Nondescript and Wen Anyreasontoevergothere, then you can see why Fresno was selected. 

(One must assume that a lead developer was born there, or imprisoned there?)

When you start Upland, you don't have much money, so you have to be smart. The smart noob money goes to a protected category of property called FSA. They are cheap, plentiful, and can eventually be flipped for market rates. Except that when I started, there were almost no FSAs in Fresno and exactly 0 in all of San Fran and Manhattan. So, floating was all I could do. 

Then Brooklyn opened! A new city, filled with FSA properties for a little noob like me to float around buying. I was excited and decided I'd head over there. Well, that is complicated in the world of Upland because to buy FSA properties, you need your little Explorer dude to physically float over it. So...

I sold all my things and bought an expensive train ticket from Fresno to San Francisco, then bought an insanely expensive plane ticket from San Fran to JFK airport, then had to buy another stupid expensive train ticket to Brooklyn. But there I found a sea of FSA properties (like 12!) and was finally able to buy and sell, which is the point of real estate games like these, after all. 

My Net Worth was going up, from literally 0 UPX when I started to about 72,000 UPX. I bought properties in neighborhoods I had gotten drunk in at various times in the past, and could sell them for a profit and buy more. I had 25 properties and was able to complete some beginner-level collections and even build up to 3 properties in San Francisco. Things were looking up for this fella! I had pre-ordered my monocle and top hat, and began to work on tricking myself to like Scotch Whisky and Vermouth! 

Upland then went on a cocaine-and-4-Loko-fueled manic real estate boom!!

• Oakland! (OK, East Bay represent yall, Beast Mode!)
• Staten Island (ummm retired cops and Wu-Tang, yayass? anyone?)
• Bakersfield (light coughing can be heard in the back of the room after the announcement...this is a joke, right?)
• Chicago! (Hot dogs & pizza! Da Bears! Smashing Pumpkins! Shameless! It all makes sense!)
• Cleveland (OK, now we know that they are either high or just mocking us!)

Am I making you randy? Are you horny baby? LOL I mean seriously, which of these cities is exciting? Chicago maybe. But more exciting than LA or New Orleans or even slowly sinking and collapsing Miami. More unique or iconic than Washington DC? Seattle? Santa Fe? Aspen? Las Vegas (which is a stinking annoying bunghole but at least its an interesting bunghole)? And that is just the USA, which I am sorry does not have the most exciting cities in the world anyway.

But no. Bakersfield. I mean, seriously, why not Buttholesville, Alabama? Warty Knob, Tennessee? Itchy Rash, Idaho? ...have you ever been to Bakersfield? I have! It makes Fresno seem like Florence! No offence, right, Bakersfield? Surely you know this is true.

The growth at all costs cash grab mania did what it always does in small markets. Upland opened up thousands and thousands of new properties...claimed to have minted their 1 Millionth plot. They definitely do not have 1 million active users, so more than doubling the available stock without really growing the user base... hmmm

With a monstrous flood of supply comes massive drop in demand (as I warned in an old post here), and property sales dwindled massively in dear old Brooklyn, and prices dropped close to 40%. No monocle. No top hat. 

This land rush is a gift to the whales and a big turd-stuffed Twinkie to shrimps. You see, for noobs, you are cash poor and rely on selling your FSA properties at a mark up. Upland limits your sales to 2 of these FSAs a week. Heck, even if they don't sell, you can only even list 2 FSAs per week. In markets with crashing prices and few buyers, FSAs just sit there or go on such steep sales that noob shrimps get stuck. Zombie city. Properties tied up in accounts that the owner very rationally decides makes no sense to keep active. If noobs give up before they can sell, then their properties go back on the market, creating even more supply. Whales can buy and sell as many properties as they want as often as they want. So, who do you think loves it when new cities open up? Yes, it is true that any of us could become a whale. Iconic properties in great cities of the world go on auction for a mere $21,000. But still, it would be nice not to constantly squash the li'l shrimpies into paste, right? At least for humanitarian reasons? haha!

The REAL Answer

And that leads us to the REAL ANSWER to which city should be the next one for Upland to flush into a depreciating, quiet, boring, and oversupplied market:

None! 

Don't do it! Don't open any more cities for awhile! Come on, let markets adjust to the incredible flood of properties dumped in just the past few weeks, ok? 

(take a deep breath)

The CONTEST Answer

But I am sure that me yelling at them is not what they are hoping to hear. So I do have a suggestion. A contest answer, if you will. Besides the list of reasonably interesting or unique-ish USA cities I mentioned, there can really only be one next great city to open up in one of the flagship blockchain games of the 21st Century. Here are the qualifications of the city I am nominated for this contest:

• Huge population
• Iconic skyline
• Legendary real estate market
• Fascinating history
• Seen in countless movies and films
• Distinct neighborhoods and districts
• Iconic public transportation
• Amazing food
• Financial hub
• Not in the country known mostly for cookie cutter suburban clone homes and strip malls (USA! USA!)
• And...perhaps most critically, maybe the most important city in the world for crypto

That's right, it is obvious the only perfect choice for the next Upland city is HONG KONG!

Yes, the dismantling of democracy in Hong Kong is disturbing and decades ahead of the terms of reacquisition from England, but I don't believe that any other city on the planet offers the same perfect match to a blockchain real estate game. 

Case closed. Let's go get some Dim Sum and egg custards!

~~~~~~

Given that PublishOx is sponsoring this contest, if you want to play Upland (and buy my properties, they are #1 the Best!), you should use their referral link. But if you want to play any other goofy games, that don't charge you any money to get going, you could do worse than to check out Rising Star and RollerCoin:

Play an NFT game that doesn't destroy you in transaction fees! And, gain a foothold in the HIVE community while you do it, with Rising Star: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=pregosauce

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