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SimCity Trains Bad Urban Planners
An anonymous reader writes "The global eco tech blog Worldchanging has a post commenting on about how SimCity borks urban planner ideas of how cities really work in the real world." From the entry: "While some of Lobo & Schooler's complaints arise from the fact that SimCity is built as a game -- the "God Mode," for example -- most derive from inability to modify the underlying model, whether to include mixed-use development (the ground-floor commercial/upper-floor residential buildings which help to make dense urban environments livable), to vary the demand ratings for various services, to make pedestrian travel more acceptable, or to alter the efficiency and availability of renewable power generation."
(At least the original) Sim City was described by the developers as a toy, not a game, because you can't really win, but there are so many possibilities to play with it.
Yes, I'm nitpicking. But it's true.
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I'd hate to see the UI micromanagement needed to roll this functionality into SimCity. A separate game, SimTower (and it's unofficial sequel, Yoot Tower), was made that experimented with the concept, however.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
That doesn't stop city planners from using SimCity as a tool. Which you might have failed to notice: this blog entry was directed at city planners, not gamers.
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I am in a graduate planning program and I love playing SimCity. I don't think that the game has an effect on how I approach planning. I feel the exact opposite has occurred: I find myself hating aspects of the game that fail to reflect reality. The summary notes the lack of mixed use development. The game also fails in trip generation, physics, and connectivity. Despite its flaws, it's a fun diversion, so I play it.
I think that the "bad planners" that learn from SimCity might be those in muncipalities that do nothing but zoning; when a town relies on zoning without a comprehensive plan, design ordinance or any other form of "planning" you are left with the suburban sprawl and commercial strip development that plagues the American landscape. We need a revival of the City Beautiful movement, which some believe can be found in New Urbanism.
Use closely packed alternating residential and commercial zones to achive the same effect. Sims will effectively walk next door.
to vary the demand ratings for various services
Even a dictator can't change what people want, but there are some resolutions you can ennact to encourage or discourage tourism, or tech industry, for example.
To make pedestrian travel more acceptable Use closely packed R and C zones. Nothing you can do about industrial polution -- ever lived downwind from a fish processing plant? Even a small one, family owned one?
or to alter the efficiency and availability of renewable power generation
High altitudes have more wind, less cloudy days have more sunlight, otherwise that ability doesn't exist in the real world either.
It comes down to this: You can't change reality in the real world either. Sim Cities are already dictatorships (Although I think it would be more realisitc if they let you build a berlin-style wall). But, Sim City is designed to make you deal with the real world and yet you can still build eco-friendly cities if you grow them slowly, spending most of your funding on quality-of-life things like parks, mass transit, and police stations. The Maxis people understood this and wrote about it in the manual when they wrote the first version (which I also played).
The one irritating thing is that sims aren't willing to commute nearly as far as real people (they should be willing to drive farther). Also, it doesn't simulate how difficult it is to find parking in downtown areas with very high land values (high property values should encourge sims to use mass transit).
In conclusion, if man's natural instinct in Sim City is to mindlessly CONSUME EXPAND and DESTROY, maybe that is just man's instinct period.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
I like to run Sim-City in Libertarian mode, where you just turn it on and watch the city thrive all by itself.
I'm a planner, and at first glance the notion that Sim City affects the way we work seems silly. For one thing, nobody has that much control over the building of a community. It is a game, it is fun, but planners generally are more knowledgeable about reality (I hope).
The worry, if any, should be over non-planners taking the assumptions in the game to heart. Dealing with the public, there are a wide variety of assumptions out there about how planning works, and ideas on how it should work. Get enough people with an idea about something and that can spur a change in the way things work, whether for right or wrong.
But realistically I don't know how much Sim City affects planning as much as it reflects reality- mixed-use development is sadly vastly underbuilt in the US these days.