| abstract | - Virginia City is 2,000 miles east of the Mississippi River.
- The Virginia City is the decayed and high-crime city featured as the main setting of Sudden Violence. It is depicted as having a dysfunctional and corrupt police force completely in the pocket of James Stalker and large swaths of neglected and abandoned neighbourhoods that have become overrun by violent gangs. The City is an extreme caricature of a Rust Belt city. It is implied that Virginia City was once a booming industrial center in its past before 1995 when a reactor exploded and it became crippled by crime and depression. Much of the sorry state of Virginia City can be attributed to Stalker, who lives in a massive guarded estate far from the slums of the city. At an unknown time in the city's past, Stalker effectively bought off its entire police department by bribing its commissioner, Bill Starkweather, into giving him unlimited access to the city's abandoned districts in order to direct his horror films there. Most, if not all of the gangs that plague the city's streets are on the Boss's payroll. Many parts of City seem to be in a state of near-anarchy, as large sections of the city appear to be in complete control by gangs and are neglected by its apathetic and ineffective police force.
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