I recall that one of the "optimal" designs for one version of SimCity (2000?) was to place street intersections--without connecting streets--at regular interval

I recall that one of the "optimal" designs for one version of SimCity (2000?) was to place street intersections--without connecting streets--at regular intervals, and build a connected subway station next to each. Certain features were hard-coded specifically for surface street intersections. So you couldn't simulate a Kowloon Walled City level of density, unless you count the arcologies. The car assumption is as built in to the game as it is to real cities. Power was supplied exclusively by perpetual-motion hydropower dams, enabled by the terraforming tools: flatten, raise land, add water, build dams on the falling-water squares. Anyway, the point is that if city planners these days are simplifying their task anywhere near SimCity levels of abstraction, the ensuing disaster won't be one that can be selected from a pull-down menu.