i think its the default start zone for all races now once you leave the tutorial.
when you create your character, you can choose your starting city and you can deselect the tutorial so you begin in your home town at level 1.
SOE probably figures its best to have all characters go to crescent reach after the tutorial so they can find groups and other players in the same 3 zone radius, rather than all going to abandoned home cities, not really knowing what to do next, and wandering around lost. crescent reach NPCs all have flags under their names like "task master" and "weapons" and "quests", which the hometown NPCs don't have.