To lower crime rates, build police stations. For those early urban planners, and in “SimCity,” there were binary solutions to problems. That issue speaks to a larger criticism of “SimCity”: Wright’s vision imposed an old-school approach to city-building, influenced by Robert Moses and the Chicago school. (Today, he’s a self-described “rabble rouser” working to halt a proposed freeway expansion.) But like in real life, mass transit is expensive to build and maintain in “SimCity,” and some of the residents still want to drive, no matter how convenient your rail system is.
He spent many hours trying to build a city with no space for driving at all - only buses and trains. “That is a damning indictment, less of the game and more of urban planning,” said Aaron Brown, a community organizer and transportation activist based in Portland, Ore., who credits his early enthusiasm for transit to “SimCity.” The lead designer of the 2013 version, Stone Librande, lent some insight in an article in the Atlantic: Parking lots are ugly and boring. No iteration of “SimCity” has ever accurately depicted the staggering amount of a city’s square footage that’s spent on parking lots. (In other words, the ubiquitous mid-rise apartment building with ground-floor commercial space currently taking America’s cities by storm does not exist.) There are no bike lanes. The game has never allowed mixed-use space. Like most video games based on real-world jobs, “SimCity” oversimplifies some of the more mundane elements of urban planning. In 2000, the Redwood City studio released “The Sims,” which became one of the bestselling video games of all time. The company was valued at $125 million by the time it was acquired by EA in 1997. Maxis capitalized on the game’s success, publishing “SimAnt,” “SimFarm,” “SimEarth,” “SimTower,” “SimLife,” “SimIsle” and “SimHealth” in its first decade, along with a handful of less popular non-simulation titles. It popularized the simulation game genre and turned Maxis - a start-up launched in Orinda, Calif., by Wright and Jeff Braun - into an industry titan. But the first version wound up selling more than 1 million copies and changing the nature of gaming. Will Wright, the creator of “SimCity,” imagined when he designed the game that it would be interesting only to architects and city planners. I wouldn’t be where I am today without ‘SimCity.’
They got satisfaction from building pristine cities so efficient they could run themselves. Like Baker, many of the players who went on to become planners generally said they didn’t like to activate the game’s built-in “disaster” mode, which unleashes earthquakes, hurricanes or Godzilla on cities.
The fact that no one likes to live near a landfill. The ability to see how transit, livability and the economy are all connected.
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In more than a dozen interviews for this article, people who went from “SimCity” enthusiasts to professional planners talked about what they liked about the game: The way you can visualize how a single change affects a whole city. “That’s what really got me thinking about urban planning and ‘SimCity,’ where you put in trains, where you help people move,” said Trinh, now acting senior transportation planner for Caltrans in downtown L.A. Years later, after getting his undergraduate degree, he wanted to travel but because he was under 25, he had to rule out cities where he would need to rent a car to get around. When she was 10, a librarian saw her drawings and told her there was a video game she should try.Ĭuong Trinh played “SimCity” in a summer school class in junior high. of City Transportation Officials in New York City. I had no idea it was an actual career,” said Nicole Payne, now a program official for the National Assn. 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 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.Īlong 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.
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Thirty years ago, Maxis released “SimCity” for Mac and Amiga. He served as a council member in Campbell, Calif., from 2008 to 2016, a tenure that included two stints as mayor. Today, Baker is the vice president of transportation and housing at the nonprofit Silicon Valley Leadership Group.