Springfield

Springfield
—  City  —
A panoramic view of Springfield (as seen in The Simpsons Movie)
Motto: "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." - "Springfield: Meanest Town In America!" - "Springfield: Good"[1]
Country	United States
State	Unknown
County	Springfield County[2]
Landmarks	List 742 Evergreen Terrace Kwik-E-Mart Moe's Tavern Springfield Nuclear Power Plant
Founded	1796
Founder	Jebediah Springfield
Government
- Mayor	Joe Quimby (Democrat)
Elevation [3]	1,582 ft (482 m)
Population [3]
- Total	30,720
ZIP code	49007
Area code(s)	636, 939
Town newspaper	The Springfield Shopper

Springfield is the fictional city in which the American animated television series The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized city in an unknown state, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society.^[4] The geography of the city and its surroundings are flexible, changing to address whatever an episode’s plot calls for.^[5] Springfield's location is impossible to determine; the show is deliberately evasive on the subject, providing contradictory and impossible information.

The city

Springfield was founded in 1796 by a band led by Jebediah Springfield (a.k.a. Hans Sprungfeld), that, after misinterpreting a passage in the Bible, left Maryland, trying to find "New Sodom."^[6] After Jebediah Springfield refused to found a town where men were free to marry their cousins, half of the band broke away to do just that. They named their town Shelbyville, after fellow pioneer Shelbyville Manhattan, and the rivalry between the two cities persists to this day.^[7] Springfield reached its pinnacle in the mid-20th century, when it became the home of the world's first Aquacar factory; one half of the U.S. was said to wear Springfield galoshes and Springfield's streets were literally paved with gold.^[8] The city's prosperity faded; a Time magazine cover story on Springfield was entitled "America's Worst City",^[9] and Newsweek called the city "America's Crud Bucket".^[10]

Springfield's geography changes with the special needs of each episode. It has included forests, meadows, mountain ranges, a desert, a gorge, beaches, badlands, canyons, swamps, waterholes and waterways. Springfield is sometimes shown located on the coast of a large body of water, although other episodes show skyline shots of the city with no signs of a coastline. Major named geographical features include Springfield Gorge, Springfield National Forest, the volcano Mt. Springfield, the West Springfield desert ("three times the size of Texas!"),^[11] the Springfield Badlands (also known as the Alkali Flats),^[12] the gigantic Murderhorn mountain, Springfield Glacier, Mt. Useful National Park, Springfield Mesa, and Springfield National Park. Springfield is evidently located in an area that receives plenty of rain, as well as heavy snow. Most of the time however, the skies are blue and mostly sunny. Springfield has also been prone to severe heat waves and large snowstorms. Springfield is close to a major body of water that is open to the ocean, and close to a major mountain range. It is also situated on a major river, which has cut a deep gorge. It has been subject to just about every sort of natural disaster over the years, including avalanches, earthquakes, acid rain, floods, hurricanes, lightning strikes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, and a meteor impact.

The city is divided into many neighborhoods, including Rats Nest, Bum Town, Chinatown, Crackton, East Springfield, Greek Town, Junkyville, Little Bangkok, Little Italy, Little Newark, Little Stockholm, Little Seattle, Ethnictown, Lower Eastside, Pressboard Estates, Recluse Ranch Estates, Skid Row, Springfield Harbor, Springfield Heights, Springshire, Tibet Town, the wealthy Waverly Hills, the Lincoln Park Village housing project, the flammable district, a gay district, a fast-food district, and a Russian district.

In "Trash of the Titans", Homer Simpson was elected Sanitation Commissioner. After Homer spent the entire yearly budget in his first month of office, he was forced to take in the garbage of other cities in order to make enough money to pay the city's trash collectors. Eventually the mines that were storing the collected trash erupted and littered the entire city, prompting the entire city, population and structures, to move five miles (8 km) down the road to establish a new Springfield away from the massive dump that the old town had become.^[13]

Springfield is home to the state's largest self-sustaining tire fire which has been burning continuously since either 1966 or 1989.^[14] Lake Springfield's pollution almost led to the city's destruction by a Environmental Protection Agency bomb.^[15]

In politics, the current mayor of Springfield is Joe Quimby (D), while the city's representative in congress is Krusty the Clown (R). Mary Bailey, a Democrat, is the Governor of Springfield's state and was first seen in "Two Cars In Every Garage, Three Eyes On Every Fish". Mayor Quimby is simultaneously incompetent and immoral as well as being a conspicuously corrupt and fraudulent politician. Quimby is a sleazy womanizer and has had multiple affairs on his wife. The citizens of Springfield are normally accepting of this conduct, except on certain issues, such as when the citizens blamed Quimby for a traffic jam caused by Bart Simpson, the largest in the history of the city.^[16]

Springfield boasts an opera house, an outdoor amphitheater, an arboretum, a vibrant jazz scene and was previously regarded as the entertainment capital of its state.^[17] Religious houses of worship include a local synagogue, the First Church of Springfield, First AME Church, and the Cathedral of the Downtown. There is also an unusually high number of museums, including Springfield Museum (which features the world's largest cubic zirconium), Springfield Knowledgeum, Springfield Museum of Natural History, The Museum of Swordfish, Springsonian Museum, and a stamp museum. Media includes KBBL Broadcasting Inc. which serves as the major media outlet, owning at least three radio stations and one television station. The Springfield Shopper is a city newspaper.

The city is home to the Springfield Isotopes, an AA minor league baseball team. Home games are played at Duff Stadium (The Springfield Isotopes were the inspiration for the new name of the Los Angeles Dodgers' AAA affiliate, the Albuquerque Isotopes, when they relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico from Calgary).^[18] The plot of the "Hungry, Hungry Homer" episode revolves around Homer Simpson's attempts to thwart a planned move by the team to Albuquerque. Springfield has a basketball and hockey arena, which is home to the Springfield Ice-O-Topes hockey team.

Creation

Springfield is meant to represent "anytown, USA" and not be a specific real city,^[19] although the producers acknowledge basing the city on various locations^[20] including The Simpsons creator Matt Groening's hometown of Portland, Oregon.^[21] Groening liked Second City Television's use of Melonville, a town with a large cast of recurring characters that serves as a mini-universe for the show, and partially based The Simpsons on it.^[22] He chose the name because Springfield is one of the most common place-names in the United States.^[23]

Location

Due to the many contradictory statements regarding Springfield, it is impossible for the city to exist in any specific U.S. state. For example, Ned Flanders says that Ohio, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky all border Springfield's state.^[24]

The city's unknown and unknowable geography is a recurring joke in the series; despite the "riddle wrapped in an enigma that is Springfield's location",^[25] viewers are told that "it's a bit of a mystery, yes. But if you look at the clues, you can figure it out."^[26] Episodes frequently make fun of the fact that Springfield's state is unidentifiable by adding further conflicting descriptions, obscuring onscreen map representations, and interrupting conversational references.

David Silverman has claimed that Springfield is in the fictional state of "North Takoma".^[27][28] This is substantiated by the state abbreviations NT and TA used within the show.^[28][29] However, this has never been officially confirmed in any canonical episode of The Simpsons or by other Simpsons producers. Homer's driver license displays the state as NT and the ZIP code as 49007,^[30] which is Kalamazoo, Michigan,^[31] although the area codes for Springfield have also been stated as 636 (East-Central Missouri) and 939 (Puerto Rico).

To promote The Simpsons Movie, various towns and cities across the United States called Springfield competed to hold the premiere of the movie in their city. Springfields from many different states entered the competition.^[32] The town of Springfield, Vermont, was elected to host the movie's premiere.^[33][34]

Notes

References

• Turner, Chris (2004). Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation. Canada: Random House. pp. 167. ISBN 0-306-81341-6. 

External links

• Where Is The Simpsons' Springfield? from the fan-maintained "The Simpsons Archive"