100 Things You Never Knew About Resident Evil
5. Where Is Raccoon City?
Raccoon City is often described as a "small, Midwestern town", which is in itself quite funny considering how much it seems to change shape and scope throughout the series. How many "small, Midwestern towns" have zoos and stadiums?
Regardless, "midwest" is about as far as Capcom have ever gone as to put it on a map. The S.D. Perry books decided to place it in Pennsylvania, which is particularly funny as that state isn't a part of the midwest at all. Still, things have been clearly deliberately left vague.
That said, whilst we can't identify where it is we do at least know some of it's inspirations. In his interview with Crimson-Head.com, RE3 director Kazuhiro Aoyama said that the version of Raccoon City he designed for that game drew inspiration from Boston and San Fransisco.
"Many American cities have wide, bright and open streets, but the back alleys are dim and oppressive, and even give a sense of life (for example San Francisco Chinatown)."
Of course neither Massachusetts nor California are midwest either, but these were purely inspiration.