5 ms·
I plaid a lot to SimCity when I was a kid but, having been raised in a European city, I always thought that my cities in the game could never look like a "real"
by 6t6t6 11y ago
I plaid a lot to SimCity when I was a kid but, having been raised in a European city, I always thought that my cities in the game could never look like a "real" city.
About 15 years after, I found myself in a plane about to land in LA for the first time, with my face pressed to the window and thinking to myself: "LA is like the f* SimCity!!"
- lordnacho 11y agoThis is so true. Where I grew up the roads are rarely exactly parallel, and the coastline is hard to replicate. There's highways and flyovers that weren't like the ones in the games. When I came to the US, particularly the towns that aren't by the coast, I thought SimCity! Apart from things being on a grid, there's also quite a lot of repetitive architecture. Schools look similar, utilities look similar, neighbourhoods are filled with the same houses. And all the big box stores are exact copies.
- mikeash 11y agoThat is one of the first things my now-wife said to me when we picked her up from the airport the first time she came to the US. "It's just like SimCity!"
- bitJericho 11y agoThat was my exact thought when flying into Phoenix for the first time. I really want to try out this radial city though!!
- dangrover 11y agoHaving grown up in Vermont and lived only in big coastal cities thereafter, I always felt the cities didn't look right. Then I moved to China and realized the same!
- 1_player 11y agoWhich part of Europe? A lot of cities in Italy (and most of Europe) were Roman encampments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castra) and they have a very square, ordinary layout I have always found boring. I have always been fascinated by other cities when a road starts to curve or a square pops out of nowhere. Walking through London is much more interesting than it was in Milan.
- darkmighty 11y agoI've never been there, but I heard there's a lot of planning in medieval italian city layout. In particular Siena, which has detailed squares for trade, politics, full of simbolic features (e.g. the City Hall tower was built much higher than the church's to assure the government is perceived as superior). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena#/media/File:PiazzadelCampoSiena.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena#/media/File:PiazzadelCam... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena
- 6t6t6 11y agoAFAIK, Romans built their cities with streets following the N-S and E-W axes (Cardus and Decumanus) but, after, no medieval city continued with this style. Specially, in walled cities, the streets were appearing in a chaotic way. My home city is Barcelona where, actually, a big part is designed as an orthogonal grid.... but it's still not the same. I think I would have enjoyed the game more if I knew how my cities were supposed to look like.
- riffraff 11y agowhich cities in Italy/Europe you consider to have a very square, ordinary layout? Off the top of my head I cannot think of a single city with a square structure, or where castrum and decuman still exist[0]. [0] i.e. Manchester https://www.google.hu/maps/place/Manchester,+UK/@53.479099,-2.2449683,15.01z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x487a4d4c5226f5db:0xd9be143804fe6baa?hl=en https://www.google.hu/maps/place/Manchester,+UK/@53.479099,-... does not look square at all, even though the "-chester" part derives from "castrum" and there is something resembling a cross in part of it.
- yread 11y agoI'm not sure if it has anything to do with Romans, but look at La Valetta, Malta: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Valletta,+Malta/@35.8990602,14.5119388,16z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x130e45281d8647c5:0x745ad38ee242c917 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Valletta,+Malta/@35.899060...
- 11y ago
- rmc 11y agoThe maximum tax rate is much below what many real world European places charge.
- Arnt 11y agoReally? What is it? I live in one of the high-tax places, earn well above average and do no tax planning. Yet, what the taxman actually charges me is only half the nominal maximum.
- mattmanser 11y agoOur council tax in the UK, which would be the equivalent to SimCity town tax, is somewhere about 3-5%. It is actually a regressive tax, fixed based on almost made-up property prices, but you seem to be confusing national taxes with local taxes. Although some of the national tax goes back to the councils and some of the national taxes pay for the infrastructure, so it's a bit more complicated than that.
- DaveWalk 11y agoTangentially related at best, but when I first visited Miami I kept thinking I had been there before. I had, sort of, in GTA: Vice City.