Suki's Street and Property Rights

Before I began the outline for Suki I, I set down some rules for the environment the characters would be living in.  Being set in the USA just a few years in the future, I decided that the country would be no more legally homogeneous than it is now. That ties into something I have noticed across the country, when people get used to their local laws they seem to think that they are the same everyplace.  Certain laws anyway, which has run people into problems for decades, even centuries when it comes to Eastern vs. Western property rights rules.

In this case, a simple towing of a vehicle that happened a few days before this post:

Nothing particularly exciting there, on the face. The land owner has designated certain parking spots reserved for this-or-that. The land owner has made an arrangement with a wrecker company to monitor parking and remove vehicles that are parked without permission on the land.

Now imagine that adjoining jurisdictions, Washington, DC and most of Maryland, have different rules, where parking in areas like the one this vehicle was towed from being mostly controlled by the government and must be marked in a certain manner.  Just for fun, imagine that the tow trucks in these areas are government trucks, not contractors, so being towed is less of a risk. When the drivers from that environment arrive in Virginia and just grab a spot because they think they can get away with it with maybe a ticket, they get a rude awakening when they discover their vehicle has been privately towed and is going to require a substantial payment to retrieve.

The above example is too minor for the short novels that I write, so there is a mention of a demonstration in Suki's neighborhood over someone from DC or MD losing their home for destroying a Virginian's property with their under-insured vehicle and bad driving habits.

The video above was taken from across the street from Chipotle, 2231 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA 22202.

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Suki's Crystal City Apartment: Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA, 22202

Suki's apartment appears in most of the books.  Located near the intersection of 15th Street South and Crystal Drive, in Crystal City, Arlington, VA 22202.

View Suki's World in Suki I; Suki II: Sunshine Returns; Suki III; Suki IV; Suki V and Suki: Fan Fiction in a larger map

In the original series (Suki I, Suki II: Sunshine Returns, Suki III: Never Let Us End and Suki IV: Finally A Vacation) her apartment was decorated with furniture, mostly cherry, that she customized herself with ornate carvings.

In Suki With A Twist, everything is store bought of the finest quality available in the 2030s.

Suki and John's first night together is in Suki's apartment, in Suki I.  In Suki II: Sunshine Returns, almost everything happens in Suki's apartment from the point John rescues Suki from Sunshine.  Much of Suki III: Never Let Us End happens in her apartment too.

Suki's apartment is at this intersection in both series. A previous apartment of John's, from the first series, is near here too.
Suki's apartment faces the river and airport, to the right of the shot. In the Suki With A Twist series, Suki keeps her import sports car collection in the underground parking garage.
In both series, the buildings on the west side of Crystal Drive (left side of shot) are much taller. In Suki With A Twist a covered pedestrian overpass crosses Crystal Drive, connecting the apartment buildings to The Underground.

Mentioned in the first series, occasionally there are protests in Suki's neighborhood by people from Washington, DC and Maryland.  In the 2030s, Virginia requires people to be financially liable for damage they cause, especially while driving.  When a DC or MD motorist loses their home the usual activists arrive in force to protest the "plantation mentality" of Virginians.  These protests resemble this video (shot in DC, 2010, near one of John and Suki's favorite restaurants):

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