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How 'SimCity' Inspired a Generation of City Planners (latimes.com)
Jessica Roy, writing for LA Times: Thirty years ago, Maxis released "SimCity" for Mac and Amiga. It was succeeded by "SimCity 2000" in 1993, "SimCity 3000" in 1999, "SimCity 4" in 2003, a version for the Nintendo DS in 2007, "SimCity: BuildIt" in 2013 and an app launched in 2014. Along the way, the games have introduced millions of players to the joys and frustrations of zoning, street grids and infrastructure funding -- and influenced a generation of people who plan cities for a living.
For many urban and transit planners, architects, government officials and activists, "SimCity" was their first taste of running a city. It was the first time they realized that neighborhoods, towns and cities were things that were planned, and that it was someone's job to decide where streets, schools, bus stops and stores were supposed to go.
For many urban and transit planners, architects, government officials and activists, "SimCity" was their first taste of running a city. It was the first time they realized that neighborhoods, towns and cities were things that were planned, and that it was someone's job to decide where streets, schools, bus stops and stores were supposed to go.
Grew up on Sim City. Started on C64.
Thank you Maxis, and screw you EA.
No wonder cities suck ass.
Any sufficiently complex system is too unwieldy for a god-like would-be Intelligent Designer.
The only workable solutions (let alone the best solutions) must emerge through evolution by variation and selection, the most robust and humane form of which is voluntary interaction between individuals (i.e., a free market).
"For many urban and transit planners, it was the first time they realized that neighborhoods, towns and cities were things that were planned."
You must be one dumb ass urban planner to not know towns, cities, and neighborhoods needed to be "planned."
Unfortunately, the SimCity designers forgot to code the module for old rich people (and their counterpart, misguided pseudo-liberals) who accuse you of gentrification any time you try to make enough room for new people to move into their cozy neighborhoods.
Cool game came out over 25 years ago. News at 11.
I learnt a lot from Sim City, I know all cities on earth will inevitably get destroyed when the town planners get bored and call on all sorts of disasters to wipe the slate clean and start again.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How 'SimCity' Inspired a Generation of City Planners
(Player adds infinite cash) Mmmmmm...gonna get me some kickback action!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
and influenced a generation of people who plan cities for a living.
Then why don't they turn off disasters IRL?
Thats why modern cities are designed with long straight boulevards. Not to be architecturally pleasing, but to give the kaiju a clear run across the landscape without running into buildings.
Give the open-source Simutrans a try. As "public player" you can redesign cities and networks of farms, resources and factories; then let the game engine take things from there, while you (and perhaps your friends in network mode) serve the cities and factories with carriages, trucks, ships, trains, or aeroplanes in the timeline.
Where I live, city planners seem to be certifiably crazy. It is harsh winter 5 out of 12 month here, yet they keep eliminating lanes by adding bike lanes. This results in more traffic congestion and road sections that are unused for significant part of the year.
The OP didn't say they aren't functioning; the OP said they suck ass.
I wish there were also SimFood, SimEnergy, SimWater etc. Maybe it could all be covered under SimResources. Perhaps it would give millennial urbanites, who think that food, water and energy just magically show up at their local Starbucks, Trader Joes and so on, a clue as to where that stuff comes from and that the values and livelihoods of the people in other parts of the country who provide their food and energy actually matter.
Proverbs 21:19
The Community Land Use Game. We played it in my high school econ class.
http://www.cluginfo.org/
When I was young and playing SimCity 3000, I loved building up cities and solving all of the problems. So after a while I had built up a "Utopia" city, virtually no crime, close to zero pollution, parks everywhere, rails to take you anywhere, etc... And to top it all off I had taxes set at 1% across the board, I even had a surplus of cash being generated at 1%. So I checked the city for complaints (Shouldn't really be any), and I found that people were telling me taxes were too high. Since I couldn't go any lower but 0%, I decided to set it at that for a year to see what would happen. After one year in game passed I checked it again and guess what, the people still said that taxes were too high! They were paying no taxes and living in a damn perfect city and still wanted more.
That game taught me that no matter how good you do something or how perfect it is, people will still complain.
It was a great lesson to learn.
Nothing is higher than an architect!
One of the biggest learning experience from Sim City is the idea of balance, and consequences. This is a lesson that a lot of people really don't get anymore, they are so stuck on a theory that they want to Min/Max their lives to fit their social/political ideas.
Sim City really prevented the ability to Min/Max game play and forced a balanced approach.
Those Industrial zone which pollute and lower the nearby Residential value, however they are needed to support the Commercial districts, and if they are too far away from the Residential areas, then they will not be utilized thus lowering commercial value.
Your choices have a trade off, but not making a choice is often worse, then when you have your consequence in action, you will need to then see if there is a way to mediate it, and then have its own sets of trade offs.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In my city (London Ontario), the developers decide everything and the planners rubber stamp what they want. With a population of 400k we have no ring road or high speed traffic route through any part of the city. Its painful to drive across the city. Guaranteed 30-45 minutes in rush hour.
"Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails." - Steve Jobs
No Developed nation would be able to grow its own food without centrally planned subsidies. Farming is simply not that high value , the land and people can be used for something more economically viable . Food would all be imported from the third world if we didn't have central ministries of agriculture centrally planning we nned to have this much corn production capability in case of war hence we need this much subsidy.
**Life is too short to be serious**
In my city everybody who wants to spend a night out and all the tourists visit the old tiny cramped UNPLANNED historical centre. Not the wide rectangular centrally planned and fugly PLANNED boulevards which are pretty much deserted in the evening.
The real successor to Sim-City.
Secret police, wiretaps, and rigged elections! Art imitates life, eh Presidente?
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
A generation of City Planners inspired by SimCity. That explains all the strange "solutions" that break towns and cities wherever I go. These people need to get proper training, not SimCity.
...I wonder who got his inspiration from PacMan.
On a real i486 no less: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I remember an argument against video games causing violence being a joke
"If violent video games are causing kids to be violent then where are all the city planners who played SimCity?"
So this means that violent video games ARE making kids violent
Build lots of tiny parks in cities to make people believe that you are doing something about environmental issues, even though it does next to nothing.
That's what I learned.
And Godzilla mode rocked!
I hate the zoning commission. They don't let people in my neighbourhood do anything with their properties.
Tropic is a downright hilarious game. However it is more like a freeform simcity 1 rather than a sim city 2k or later game. You only have limited control over infrastructure. No control over citizens, roads start as dirt or gravel and only in the later games can they be concrete (unless they upgrade along the way, tropic 2 seemed to stay dirt roads your citizens walked along forever.)
Between the US/Russia/Military coups, the rebellion by other political classes you weren't keeping happy, the tropical storms, etc, it was a huge pain in the ass to manage and play. SimCity 2k is downright easy in comparison.
SimCity taught me that every single thing in a city is square and that roads are always straight.
Used to start it on my Herc monocheome while I ran windows 3.1 on my vga. I'd just set it up and let it go.