General Bustleburg geography
Where in America is Bustleburg?
Bustleburg is in the Great State of Arkanois which might sort of be located in what other, possibly more informed, encyclopedias would call the Missouri Bootheel . However, geography of fictional locales is an imprecise science at best. Further obscuring geographic exactitude is the fact that one will seldom find a resident of the Bootheel who has even heard of Bustleburg.
Arkanois' state motto is "Where the South meets the Midwest and the North and No One is Happy About It."
Geographic Features of Bustleburg
Most of Bustleburg is located on a swampy, boggy, flood plain just west of the Yuckamud River. The East Bank District is located on a swampy, boggy flood plain on, as you might guess, the east bank of the Yuckamud.
The Köppen Climate Zone classification for Bustleburg is Temperamental Contrarian which is characterized by a combination of sudden, inexplicable storms combined with drought and westerly drifting smog despite prevailing easterly winds.
(The map at left dates from earlier drafts of the book. Dunleith and Lassiter Colleges had other names. The stadium is now known as Queen Zina's Unfinished Stadium. The Roman Catholic cathedral, St. Rita of the Lost Cause, had to be cut from The Grand Tour for the sake of economy. Bustleburg's attempt at a state college, Zugfeld Remedial A&M, was also cut.)
How Do You Get Out of Bustleburg?
Most people attempting to leave Bustleburg take the X-Axis east across the Bustleburg Bridge. Once past the maximum security prison, the Toxaco Chemical Plant, Battlestarr Total Fracking Co., and the myriad other pollution manufacturers, the East Bank's stretch of the X-Axis leads to Greenswift, the capital of Arkanois. Greenswift is much smaller and more modern, and loyal Bustleburgers "hates it forever."
Shortly before the X-Axis becomes the Greenswift Escapeway, there is an exit to the southeast for Bustleburg "International" Airport (which also leads to the Bustleburg Metro Zoo). Pigeon Essential Air Services, depending on how their planes are doing and wind direction, can usually help passengers flee to Memphis, Saint Louis, and sometimes Pittsburgh.
To the north, south, and west, Bustleburg is surrounded by swampier, boggier marshes (the Smog Barrens) and occasional soybean and unauthorized toxic jatropha farms on any land stable enough to build on and cultivate. There are small, winding roads that connect to the western end of the X-Axis, the Y-Axis, and the Bustleburg Pike. With luck and persistence, a motorist can probably make it to Arkansas or Missouri, though depending on the day of the week, motorists report emerging from the smog to find themselves in Oklahoma or, on two occasions, Indiana.