The city itself was a sprawling bazaar of claves. Consequently it was 
generously supplied with agoras, owned and managed by Protocol, where citizens 
and subjects of different phyles could convene on neutral ground and trade, 
negotiate, fornicate, or whatever. Some of the agoras were simply open plazas 
in the classical tradition, others looked more like convention centers or 
office buildings. Many of Old Vancouver's pricier and more view-endowed 
precincts had been acquired by the Hong Kong Mutual Benevolent Society or the 
Nipponese, and the Confucians owned the tallest office building in the downtown 
area. East of town in the fertile delta of the Fraser River, the Slavs and the 
Germans were both supposed to have large patches of Lebensraum staked 
out, surrounded by grids of somewhat nastier than usual security pods. 
Hindustan had a spray of tiny claves all over the metropolitan area.