The City

The City is a large metropolis acting as the primary setting for the Mirror's Edge story.

The City shown in Mirror's Edge is a large clean metropolis, and the majority colours in the city are white, blue, orange (and a lack of red), while many building interiors are white, red and green. It seems that the City is a a very new development, and under constant construction, as construction materials and equipment appear in nearly every playing area. The entire City reflects a Modernist design sense, with no classic architectural styles at all, suggesting that the whole metropolis has been very recently built (or rebuilt).

The location of the City (and its true name, if it has one) has not yet been canonically defined. The City appears to span multiple peninsulas of a coastal region and has visual similarities to Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver. The appearance of Chinese, Japanese and Russian text around the City alongside English text infers a multi-cultural population, although the accents and names of the characters suggest the City is located in North America. Traffic is left-handed. They do however reference "West Arland", pronounced like "West Ireland", multiple times throughout the story.

History

It began with a law movement known as the Citizenship Program; a program designed to ensure easier living by offering governed city solutions to the city’s citizens. Due to the program various problems were stamped out, such as smoking and obesity, however those who wished to lead alternate lifestyles to what the city offered were faced with difficulty if not outright blocked.

The Libertas movement arose to challenge the program’s way of dictating how people should live however as the demonstrations became more heated they eventually degraded into the November Riots and illegalized.

As the city gradually became restructured to ensure better security and public safety; the architectural phenomena becoming known as New City, the remaining and slowly declining pockets of the original city became known as Old Town; turning into self-run ghettos and shabby streets without the benefits found in New City districts.

The non-conformers; those who did not wish to live under the program’s laws, were either criminalised, left the city or started forming underground groups to support their way of life. One such group was an underground specialized courier service known as Runners who ferry and deliver packages and various communications across the city beyond the city’s surveillance and censorship, however the city officials have been making progress in stamping out these ‘illegal alternatives’ as well.

Businesses

Media

City Ear: telecommunication company.
City Eye: primary news company.
Daily City: news company.

Miscellaneous

Digglers Donuts: a doughnut foodchain seen with the tagline Because Life is Sweet.
Dryson: a motor company.
Raposa
Nicpix
Vegade: marketed by the Raposa Food Company.
Wainwright's

Utility

Callaghan City Construction: a construction company responsible for most of the construction activities in the City due to its CEO being mayor.
City Protection Force: created to ensure peace in the city, the CPF is the primary policing unit for the city.
New Stream Energy: an electric utility provider that seems to be responsible for all power and power equipment in the city.
Pirandello Kruger Security: a private security company in the process of taking over the CPF in policing the city.
Robert Pope & Associates: a law firm run by mayor candidate Robert Pope.
Silvine Security Systems: electronic security company responsible for the current security systems in the city.
Z. Burnfield International Shipping: an international shipping company.

Locations

Districts

Hampton Town District
Looking Glass Gardens
New City (perhaps the name of the current City as it stands, according to the comic)
New Eden
Old Town
The Docks
The Financial District
The Harbour

Places of Interest

Centurian Plaza
New Eden Estates
New Eden Mall
RP&A Building
Ryding Park
The Shard

Trivia

In the Mirror’s Edge game the vegetation in the City is also white. It is assumed that this is simply the result of a gameplay mechanic to make it easier for the player to focus in the game by saturating out unnecessary colours, although in-game they could simply be artificial plants placed for aesthetic purposes.
The City also takes place in the North American Eastern timezone, due to clocks around the City showing ET after the time, but the coast matches exactly to Seattle's coastline.