Disclaimer: Not mine.
Reeve: Given All
Midgar was built with all of Reeve's idealism.
His design, so innovative, so skilled, had won him the backing of ShinRa, and approval to make his sketches buildings.
Midgar was Reeve's dreams made steel and concrete.
ShinRa's influence built Midgar quickly, the supports rising one after the other, the plates constructed on top of them, Mako generators flaring into operation as each section was completed. It was efficient and simple, each sector named for the village that had once stood beneath it.
It was beautiful too, in its way, bold lines and gleaming metal, without the angles those terms implied.
Reeve loved it, and promised himself he always would.
That promise proved harder and harder to keep as he rose through ShinRa's ranks, the 'architectural genius' gaining rapid promotion. He lost time to walk through the streets of his city, but gained information about how his fellow citizens were living.
He quickly discovered that not enough money was being spent on maintenance for those areas under the plate. Lights were broken, construction material was not being cleared out, garbage collection was infrequent at best, housing was a disaster, the only up-to-date part of the transport system was the security, and the water mains were in a terrible state of repair.
Finally, nearly twenty years after Midgar had been built, he believed that he had well and truly fallen out of love with the city. It had been warped by ShinRa to gain greater profits. As Head of Housing and Development, effectively the Mayor of Midgar, Reeve did his best to relieve the desperate situation in the slums, but there was not much he could do with his budget. Even adding a fair part of his own large salary did very little.
Then President ShinRa decided to have the Turks drop the plate on Sector Seven. It cut Reeve deeper than he thought it would.
And when Meteor was hurtling down towards Midgar and Reeve was evacuating everyone, he was the last to leave. Meteor was too close now. No matter what AVALANCHE did, Midgar would be destroyed.
Reeve was in love with the city he designed, but he realised that its fate was tied to ShinRa. And as ShinRa died, so should Midgar. And the Head of Housing and Development should die there too.
There was, however, space in the world for the person he'd become with AVALANCHE. Reeve knew what would work now, and to a certain extent, how to combine that with what was right. He had killed his city.
Time to build a replacement, on the edge of the other's ruins. Just so everyone could see and remember.
Edge was built with the ruins of Midgar and all of Reeve's wisdom.