Canterlot... (head canon)

Canterlot...

Canterlot...

It's only a drawing...

Ok, I took the time to read about it on MLP Wikia, and learned why its flat ground. Kinda weird how its on a mountain, on a flat piece of ground on a mountain, but whatever.

Now, in my head canon, its built up the side of a mountain. In our last entry I posted that my donut shop is in the Shadows, a part of Lower Canterlot. Canterlot has the lower, middle and upper, then the castle, and the lower, the older and cheaper the neighborhood. The shadows are so called as they're in the shadow of both the mountain and the castle.

How did it start?
That's the easy part, it started as a unicorn village at the base of Mount Canterhorn in the rough center of Equestria. The highest peak in Equestria was perfect for unicorns to build their village, not just for the magic that was strong in the area, but because the mountain would allow them to tower over the mud ponies.

By the time the two sisters fought, the city had begun to climb the mountain, the rich were building upper Canterlot. The battle poisoned the Everfree Forest with wild magic and destroyed the castle, and the unicorns saw an opportunity. They offered to build a new castle, a monument to the greatness that was Celestia, the solar princess, high upon Mount Canterlot, and they would do it free of charge. Unicorns are not stupid, although the task would be difficult and require help from mud ponies, and expensive, it was worth it to move the government to their city where they'd have more influence.

The Shadows was once a neighborhood like most any other. Sure, it was a lesser neighborhood, after all it was caught in Canterhorn's shadow, hence the name. Once the castle was built though, it was also in its shadow, keeping the sunlight out through much of the day. As such, while Canterlot grew up the mount, upper Canterlot becoming middle Canterlot as the nobles built houses closer to the castle, the Shadows fell into disrepair. Those who could moved, those who couldn't stay left. Many houses were divided up and taken by Earth ponies after the castle was finished, low rent apartments for those that stayed to work in and around the castle.

Even they would move on, replaced by immigrants from other countries. An unwanted neighborhood, the houses often had their ground floors converted to stores or offices, sometimes the upper floors were converted to offices as well. The old carriage houses with servant quarters above? Those were sometimes used for storage, but mostly abandoned to fall in on themselves.

These days, while the area is heavily immigrant populated, with the re-activation of Night Guard division of the Royal Guard upon Luna's return, some homes and apartments are being rented or sold to nox ponies. What was already Canterlot's most diverse neighborhood has become even more so.

Even with that diversity my donut shop is a bit odd, occupying the ground floor of one of the old carriage houses while I live in what were the servants quarters. With the help of friends, I rebuilt the place, the landlord giving me token rent both because the carriage house had no value to him, and because I take care of the grounds so I can have outside seating and a clean clear path from the street out front of the main house to my store.