An Urban Planner Plays Sim City
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Date: 2019-09-12
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Comments and reviews: 10
Johan Wittens
Um. First 10 mins of the game and i'm already annoyed. :DThe most pleasant areas in a real city tend to be right next to the water, yet you build your city nowhere near the water and leave that land next to water a wasteland. Then when you build next to the water, it is either industry, commercial or public buildings, and not any residential. You place industry right in the middle of your town right next to your public service buildings and residential areas. High density residential on the edge of the city and not in the center. A school almost on the edge of a residential area, not smack in the middle. A hospital right next to high density industrial and not the residential area or city center. Your entire ocean front is an industrial zone, when it could be a beautiful residential and commercial area. Do american cities really have industry smack in the middle of the city center? We haven't had that since the mid 1900'sAre you sure you're a city planner? ;)I don't plan my cities in these games either, but i do redesign and let it grow as a city would naturally. I would start the city next to the water and bulldoze some buildings later if you want to add a public building there. This tends to lead to much more realistic looking cities as that is how cities historically grow. Look at New york: it started at the tip of manhattan and was literally build around the old harbour. Then it expanded up the island. As the city grew the tip became much denser and denser, public buildings were added and built over older buildings, the harbour grew and expanded, and so on. It makes your city look much more realistic. And since i'm european, i tend not to use grids at all unless it's in the outer neighbourhoods. I like the historical wheel and spoke variants of the medieval cities for my city centers. But hey, everyone plays differently right? :DYou could just rezone the low density to high density without buldozing the neighbourhood and let it grow and develop naturally. I think this was possible to do even in sim cty 2000. And it leads to more realistic looking cities too. That's how we tend to do it here in my country and my city. Rezone and adjust the building codes and limitations, and then when an owner leaves or sells their property, the lot can be bought and developed into higher density. No disowning or eminent domain needed. Property developers will want to buy these properties since they can buy a property reasonably cheap and develop it into appartments, making much more of the sale or rent of the appartments. In the course of a few decades, the zone will have developed naturally to higher density. Fun to see sim city 2000 again though. It's part of my childhood and one of the reasons i studied architecture/city planning and then became a teacher.
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Um. First 10 mins of the game and i'm already annoyed. :DThe most pleasant areas in a real city tend to be right next to the water, yet you build your city nowhere near the water and leave that land next to water a wasteland. Then when you build next to the water, it is either industry, commercial or public buildings, and not any residential. You place industry right in the middle of your town right next to your public service buildings and residential areas. High density residential on the edge of the city and not in the center. A school almost on the edge of a residential area, not smack in the middle. A hospital right next to high density industrial and not the residential area or city center. Your entire ocean front is an industrial zone, when it could be a beautiful residential and commercial area. Do american cities really have industry smack in the middle of the city center? We haven't had that since the mid 1900'sAre you sure you're a city planner? ;)I don't plan my cities in these games either, but i do redesign and let it grow as a city would naturally. I would start the city next to the water and bulldoze some buildings later if you want to add a public building there. This tends to lead to much more realistic looking cities as that is how cities historically grow. Look at New york: it started at the tip of manhattan and was literally build around the old harbour. Then it expanded up the island. As the city grew the tip became much denser and denser, public buildings were added and built over older buildings, the harbour grew and expanded, and so on. It makes your city look much more realistic. And since i'm european, i tend not to use grids at all unless it's in the outer neighbourhoods. I like the historical wheel and spoke variants of the medieval cities for my city centers. But hey, everyone plays differently right? :DYou could just rezone the low density to high density without buldozing the neighbourhood and let it grow and develop naturally. I think this was possible to do even in sim cty 2000. And it leads to more realistic looking cities too. That's how we tend to do it here in my country and my city. Rezone and adjust the building codes and limitations, and then when an owner leaves or sells their property, the lot can be bought and developed into higher density. No disowning or eminent domain needed. Property developers will want to buy these properties since they can buy a property reasonably cheap and develop it into appartments, making much more of the sale or rent of the appartments. In the course of a few decades, the zone will have developed naturally to higher density. Fun to see sim city 2000 again though. It's part of my childhood and one of the reasons i studied architecture/city planning and then became a teacher.
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Opry99er
It is interesting to watch your mindset as you go through this process. Typically I play SimCity with brute force so to speak. I give my people no services, but plenty of recreation. The air is filled with smog, the crime is high, but by the year 2000, I have millions sitting in the bank, the map is completely full, and I'm ready to start bulldozing and replacing all my zones with arcologies. I usually do not build connections to other cities until 1950 or so, and my zoning strategy is always surround the residential zones with commercial and industrial because the closer they are and the more checker boarded, the faster and more densely the zones populate. I only check the Financial Ordinances and I raise and lower taxes individually by some based on the demand. If residential demand is high, I raise taxes on it. This optimizes my city's income at the end of the year (if I take the time to micromanage that hard.
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It is interesting to watch your mindset as you go through this process. Typically I play SimCity with brute force so to speak. I give my people no services, but plenty of recreation. The air is filled with smog, the crime is high, but by the year 2000, I have millions sitting in the bank, the map is completely full, and I'm ready to start bulldozing and replacing all my zones with arcologies. I usually do not build connections to other cities until 1950 or so, and my zoning strategy is always surround the residential zones with commercial and industrial because the closer they are and the more checker boarded, the faster and more densely the zones populate. I only check the Financial Ordinances and I raise and lower taxes individually by some based on the demand. If residential demand is high, I raise taxes on it. This optimizes my city's income at the end of the year (if I take the time to micromanage that hard.
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Robert Marten
Hey California, after you pollute the neighbors, how about that billions dollar bullet train you paid for and didn't get. Planner who doesn't get roads to all the houses. You (and your State planners, may need to get a new job. Oh, and Typhus in L. A, nice. This clown even thinks it's ok to have the Gov't take private land and give to another private party (not for common use, only for more taxes Because the Supreme Court said so? OK, there have been more than just Dred Scott that was wrong and overturned. WOW, a Marxist as well as a poor planner.
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Hey California, after you pollute the neighbors, how about that billions dollar bullet train you paid for and didn't get. Planner who doesn't get roads to all the houses. You (and your State planners, may need to get a new job. Oh, and Typhus in L. A, nice. This clown even thinks it's ok to have the Gov't take private land and give to another private party (not for common use, only for more taxes Because the Supreme Court said so? OK, there have been more than just Dred Scott that was wrong and overturned. WOW, a Marxist as well as a poor planner.
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Alowishus
As a town planner myself, my personal viewpoint on a lot of city simulation games is that they are very much based on an American style of planning. The urban design principles these games have and the whole idea of zoning ordinances is simply foreign to myself. In terms of actual entertainment, it would be near impossible to actually replicate any planning system and I think it's fair to say that these games take out the bureaucratic side of things which would be soul destroying. But I still would say that they are most definitely based on America.
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As a town planner myself, my personal viewpoint on a lot of city simulation games is that they are very much based on an American style of planning. The urban design principles these games have and the whole idea of zoning ordinances is simply foreign to myself. In terms of actual entertainment, it would be near impossible to actually replicate any planning system and I think it's fair to say that these games take out the bureaucratic side of things which would be soul destroying. But I still would say that they are most definitely based on America.
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Nathan Bush
I feel Des Moines is doing an excellent job revitalizing their downtown Everyone who lives in cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, etc, think of Des Moines as a little village, but we hold our own out here as a nice, modern vibrant city Sure, we don't have major NFL, NBA, or NHL teams, but that doesn't bother me, as Im not really into sports (we have minor leagues, though. Des Moines is the city the entire nation focuses on once every four years (for the caucuses. Hope everyone gets a chance to visit our fair city once in their lifetime
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I feel Des Moines is doing an excellent job revitalizing their downtown Everyone who lives in cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, etc, think of Des Moines as a little village, but we hold our own out here as a nice, modern vibrant city Sure, we don't have major NFL, NBA, or NHL teams, but that doesn't bother me, as Im not really into sports (we have minor leagues, though. Des Moines is the city the entire nation focuses on once every four years (for the caucuses. Hope everyone gets a chance to visit our fair city once in their lifetime
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VandalAudi
I took an Urban Planning class when I played SC2000. it was pretty accurate when you compare it to later SCs. I made a low density residential area on a hill because my population center has gotten too choked, I expected some low to mid suburban area, it turned into mansions r us. I tried both way of planning, the gridlocked highly planned city, and laidback biologically zoned ones. Later, the most restrictive highly planned turns into a communist ghost city, and the less micromanaging I did, it turned into a more vibrant city.
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I took an Urban Planning class when I played SC2000. it was pretty accurate when you compare it to later SCs. I made a low density residential area on a hill because my population center has gotten too choked, I expected some low to mid suburban area, it turned into mansions r us. I tried both way of planning, the gridlocked highly planned city, and laidback biologically zoned ones. Later, the most restrictive highly planned turns into a communist ghost city, and the less micromanaging I did, it turned into a more vibrant city.
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The_BoOzle
I'm currently in university studying to be a planner and a few years back, I actually had to play Sim City 4 for an assignment. We were using the game as modelling software for city models. I ended up being assigned Ebenezer's Garden City and it was painful trying to make a large functioning city. Ended up using cheats to keep the city from going under as there wasn't enough economic activity in the center only. I actually say to people who have no idea what is planning it's like Sim City for the real world.
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I'm currently in university studying to be a planner and a few years back, I actually had to play Sim City 4 for an assignment. We were using the game as modelling software for city models. I ended up being assigned Ebenezer's Garden City and it was painful trying to make a large functioning city. Ended up using cheats to keep the city from going under as there wasn't enough economic activity in the center only. I actually say to people who have no idea what is planning it's like Sim City for the real world.
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ct britva
Typical city bureaucrat putting their big, fancy house in the best neighborhood and distancing it from others with parks. Just shows how they like pretending to be gods. These people are the ones taking our taxes and wasting them on themselves. No one on city staff should earn more than 80, 000. Benefits shouldn't be more than 20, 000. That's generous enough. If you're greedy, get into business. Stop robbing people of their tax money and stuffing it in your own pockets I can't stand city employees.
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Typical city bureaucrat putting their big, fancy house in the best neighborhood and distancing it from others with parks. Just shows how they like pretending to be gods. These people are the ones taking our taxes and wasting them on themselves. No one on city staff should earn more than 80, 000. Benefits shouldn't be more than 20, 000. That's generous enough. If you're greedy, get into business. Stop robbing people of their tax money and stuffing it in your own pockets I can't stand city employees.
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csward53
The reason the game did not have custom zones has nothing to do with the games age. The reason Sim City doesn't have custom zones is it isn't fun If the game were to get too complex, many people wouldn't enjoy and the appeal would go down (as well as sales too. I get it, you're a city planner, not a game designer, so I wouldn't expect you to understand this at first.
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The reason the game did not have custom zones has nothing to do with the games age. The reason Sim City doesn't have custom zones is it isn't fun If the game were to get too complex, many people wouldn't enjoy and the appeal would go down (as well as sales too. I get it, you're a city planner, not a game designer, so I wouldn't expect you to understand this at first.
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A W
I don't see if anyone mentioned it, but 6x6 is also optimal because sims will only build up to 3 squares away from a roadof course that would apply for 3x tooYes there are lots of buildings bigger than 1 square so a corner building on the 3rd block can extend inward more than the 3 blocks, but sims are dumb and can leave square unoccupied beyond the 3rd square
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I don't see if anyone mentioned it, but 6x6 is also optimal because sims will only build up to 3 squares away from a roadof course that would apply for 3x tooYes there are lots of buildings bigger than 1 square so a corner building on the 3rd block can extend inward more than the 3 blocks, but sims are dumb and can leave square unoccupied beyond the 3rd square
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