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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.
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
They got the eminent domain thing right - >>BOOM
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.
Old rich people don't worry about gentrification. They worry about being forced to pay for subsidized housing that only serves to import crime into their once safe and comfortable neighborhoods and schools.
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.
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
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.
This is much more complex problem. Poverty and crime are linked. While it is taboo to directly discuss this and you have to coax it in terms of broken windows or stop and frisk, this doesn't change the fact that one very effective and inexpensive (tax-wise) solution to crime is to just drive out the poor.
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.
this doesn't change the fact that one very effective and inexpensive (tax-wise) solution to crime is to just drive out the poor.
That's not a solution as it doesn't solve crime, it merely transports it (and most likely you will have increased net crime at the new location as compared to the original location due to lack of contacts/support/job prospects/housing/etc for the displaced).
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Another solution would be to stop subsidizing poverty through welfare and housing vouchers. Subsidize what you want to grow, not what you want to go away. If the poor were working instead of living off of taxpayer money, they would have less time and incentive to commit crime.
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
> You must be one dumb ass urban planner to not know towns, cities, and neighborhoods needed to be "planned."
True. And the cities they didn't know how to plan speak for themselves.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Will SimCity let you create a busy street suitable for playing a violent video game such as Frogger?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
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**
Streets of Sim City does...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
this doesn't change the fact that one very effective and inexpensive (tax-wise) solution to crime is to just drive out the poor.
That's not a solution as it doesn't solve crime, it merely transports it
It does solve crime locally and if you are honest this is exactly approach used everywhere. "Location, location, location" is rarely about vistas or you would have a lot more rural living, but about other people living in the area. Solving crime globally is an orthogonal problem to making sure you are not a victim of crime.
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.
"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."
When they were children oh dumb ass AC.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Gentrification is a concern of the poor, and for good reason: it fucks them out of their homes.
Correction: it fucks them out of the place their renting. The poor who own their house (more common than you may think) benefit from rising prices, and proportionally more so.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
...I wonder who got his inspiration from PacMan.
That's such a small percentage it isn't even worth talking about.
Let's displace 4000 people, but 100 of them will be home owners so they will benefit.
Depends where you live. I've been through plenty of very poor neighborhoods that were all houses. Tiny houses built long ago, but still. That includes parts of the SF Bay Area.
For what? A 25% increase in a house that you still have 25 years to pay off?
More like 5x in some places. And you pay it off the moment you sell and pocket the difference. Still sucks to have to move, but if your $80k house becomes a $400k knockdown and you keep the $320k, that does soften the blow.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
On a real i486 no less: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Lenin and Stalin disagree. It's not only possible, but the best system.
Bullshit. It's the "master planners" who decided to create zoning prohibiting mixed use building which led to the change into carefully segregated industrial, commercial and residential areas and the inevitable need to drive in and out of the first two from the third. As a bonus, they also decided they knew better than builders how many parking spots were needed, so we also have a vast landscape of unused asphalt with white markings on it.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
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.