Just a thought. Seems to me that Annesburg may have some sort of correlation to the city of Johannesburg in South Africa. Firstly, the spelling is near identical, if you just remove the first three letters from Johannesburg. Secondly, Joburg is known as the city of gold and was originally a gold mining settlement which expanded over time. Thirdly, the dude selling the newspaper in the town, there is an article in the paper which mentions the Southern African region and the English and the Dutch.
I just found this interesting and assume there may be some sort of link. What do you think?
Also, any other regions, areas, towns etc where you notice any similarities in terms of other real world places?