History Main / Planetville

** Gallifrey originally only had one city, the Capitol. In ''The Day of the Doctor'', we learn there is a '''second city''', called Arcadia (the Doctor actually refers to it as "Gallifrey's second city"

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' is a constant offender here, where everybody on a planet is the same and nothing happens on a smaller scale, ever. When a low-tech planet isn't united, Starfleet considers it in civil war. Earth in 2000 BC was presumably in civil war, and (except for some arguable periods of peace) continued to be at least into the nineteenth century. Possibly the only exception is the depiction of Bajor in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' as its proximity to the show's main setting meant that the writers were able to focus on the planet in greater depth than any other planet depicted in Star Trek's history before or since.

** Subverted in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', where the rest of the planet was conquered first. It is in fact one of few series to address why the one city is so important (in RPM, Corinth is [[AfterTheEnd the only city]] ''left''; in ''Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue,'' reestablishing their palace on their old sacred ground is the only way the demons can return to full strength and Mariner Bay, built upon it while they were [[SealedEvilInACan in the can]], has to go; in ''Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive,'' we throw out "Earth = Angel Grove" ''entirely:" The artifact of the week can be anywhere on Earth and we don't even learn that the city the Rangers are based in is called San Angeles until the halfway mark.)

* ''Blake's 7'': Commander Travis says on one occasion, "There's Blake's ship! I knew he'd have to return to this galaxy!"

** In ''MightyMorphinPowerRangers,'' the villains once used the Rangers' trip to Australia as an opportunity to attack the city while they were away. Apparently, attacking a city that never had Rangers just isn't an option.
** Subverted in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', where the rest of the planet was conquered first. It is in fact one of few series to address why the one city is so important (In RPM, Corinth is [[AfterTheEnd the only city]] ''left''; in ''PowerRangersLightspeedRescue,'' reestablishing their palace on their old sacred ground is the only way the demons can return to full strength and Mariner Bay, built upon it while they were [[SealedEvilInACan in the can]], has to go; in ''PowerRangersOperationOverdrive,'' we throw out "Earth = Angel Grove" ''entirely:" The artifact of the week can be anywhere on Earth and we don't even learn that the city the Rangers are based in is called San Angeles until the halfway mark.)

{{Planetville}} instantly explains these SpeculativeFictionTropes:

Not to be confused with planets that are ''literally'' covered by a single city--that's CityPlanet (aka ''Ecumenopolis''), a subtype of the aforementioned SingleBiomePlanet (and one of the few that is remotely within the realm of possibility).

** The series (in all versions, actually) is, however, ''much'' better about averting "Earth = the hero's hometown" than many works (especially kids' media) where a villain wants to TakeOverTheWorld. The MacGuffin Megatron wants or the place he chooses to attack can be ''anywhere'' on Earth, and he usually has a stated reason for targeting this place this week. ''TransformersAnimated'' is the exception; it seldom leaves Detroit, but again, they've got a reason: if that's where the Allspark is, that's where the action is.

[[quoteright:349:[[SuperMarioGalaxy http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Gateway_Galaxy_Planet_2310.PNG]]]]

*** There have even been episodes where the Enterprise or Voyager's cargo bay has been used to evacuate a planet.

*** In the same movie, some rebels find Luke in the wilderness by just flying over the surface the morning after he went missing. Those sort of rescue missions last days or even weeks in real life. Granted, they did know where he went missing, since he was on a scouting patrol for them.

Unfortunately, because SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale, stories about {{Planetville}} make no sense. Nobody seems to realize how BIG a planet is -- everything in {{Planetville}} takes the same amount of time as stories set in towns or countries. In the updated WildWest story, the outlaws are "exiled from the planet" just like they'd be exiled from Dodge City, and have to quitely leave... instead of flat out challenging the authorities to find them when they have an entire ''planet'' in which to hide. When the space Nazis invade, they seem to need the same number of soldiers and time as the Earth Nazis needed to invade Europe. And when the crew of the CoolStarship finds the cure for the alien plague, the logistical issues of distributing it to an entire planet rarely get mentioned at all. These considerations are [[HandWave minimized]] [[EasyLogistics or left out entirely]] in many stories.

->''"When you live on a planet the size of a town''
->''You can't get your kicks by getting around"''
-->--'''Richard Hell and the Voidoids''', "The Kid With the Replaceable Head"

This might work if technology was really advanced -- if transport were so fast that crossing a planet took as much time as crossing a town or Earth country does today. But that almost never happens. Besides, even if Planetville were a global village in terms of travel time, a planet still has thousands of times as many people, thousands of times as many hiding-places, thousands of times as many strategic locations, thousands of times as many and as much of everything as a city on Earth today has.

** Subverted in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', where the rest of the planet was conquered first.

* Judging from the visibility of the buildings, Planet Cybertron in (original animated series) ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' looks no bigger than a major city.

** In ''AttackOfTheClones'', Obi-wan happens to land at the same part of Kamino where the Prime Minister is (considering that this Kaminoan structure is relatively small, whereas the clone army they have produced is hundreds of thousands if not millions strong, it seems ridiculously implausible that this is where the entire population of Kamino lives).

** The second and third ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'' games have buildings for specific purposes, compared to the generic "factories" of the first game that were never shown.[[hottip:*:The original game's planetary interface was just a generic planet type picture and a set of sliders to control what the planet put its resources towards.]]

* ''MassEffect'' plays this straight but also averts it. In the Codex, it is mentioned that planetary invasions are common. However, thanks to the way colonization works in most cases, there are rarely any planets with more than a dozen settlements, and most of the worlds visited by the player are in the process of being colonized, having only a few hundred inhabitants at most. The exceptions are mainly the species of the galaxy's homeworlds (Earth, Pavalen, Thessia, Sur'Kesh, etc.) However, most planets are home to only one mission or point of interest, with most of the gameplay taking place within a couple square kilometers traversed by an all terrain vehicle.

[[caption-width-right:349:To be fair, this ''is'' an inflatable replica, hence the screw.]]

** Veelox all takes place within one city.

** On Cloral, only three floating cities ("habitats) are seen, and two of them are colliding. High-speed watercraft do take the main characters far from habitats, however.

* ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'' features ten territories, essentially different dimensions or time periods of other dimensions (such as Earth in three time periods). Almost all of the action takes place in very small areas, generally very close to the flumes (inter-territory portals). [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] because the antagonist, Saint Dane, is using the flumes to target very specific turning points on each territory, singular events that can turn the territory towards chaos if influenced the "right" way.

** not just on earth. Earth colonies are all varying degrees of this, largely because the worlds humanities ramrobot scouts found for humans to colonize rarely have more than a few places humans can live safely. The world of Plateau is one giant mountain (mt. lookatthat) on a venus like planet, only the upper parts are habitable. on Jinx the planets shape and gravity mean that only the poles are habitable, and then only just. Wemadeit is earth like, but has a nasty storm season that means you can't build above ground. naturally the first colony dug out a city, and has just expanded that as needed. and so on. largely averted later on with Wunderland (alpha centauri), which initially came across as a monoculture planetville, but was greatly expanded on in the Man-Kzin wars collections.

* Various ''PowerRangers'' series portray Earth as Planetville. Apparently, conquering whatever town the Rangers happen to live in is the key to taking the whole thing.

*** It tends to varies, however a particularly egregious happens in PowerRangersInSpace where the attack on earth only seems to concern Angel Grove and no indication is given that any other part of earth is under attack.
** Subverted in RPM, where the rest of the planet was conquered first.

Sometimes a result of the LawOfConservationOfDetail in universes with dozens or hundreds of planets/star systems. The "planet with one small settlement" subtrope can be justified in near-future settings, because it strains plausibility to go from [[IWantMyJetpack no Moon or Mars colonies in 2012]] to millions or billions of people living there in 2050.