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The sleight-of-hand trick in this comment is describing Magnasanti, an exercise in building a city with the literal highest population density possible, as "a s

The sleight-of-hand trick in this comment is describing Magnasanti, an exercise in building a city with the literal highest population density possible, as "a stable large city". You could probably create a nice big city that had low crime without dystopian policing, but you might need to build a public park in space that could otherwise be used to pack in a few more apartments.

sudosysgen 6y ago
The idea that a fairly high but reasonable population city - SimCity limits population artifically through zoning restrictions - must be a dystopian nightmare is... ideological. In SimCity, citizens are free to leave, and they do if, for example, crime is too high. Why is it then that the best way not to have them leave is to reduce crime and not improve health or reduce pollution? This is a choice the designers made that was probably unwittingly informed by ideology. The idea that what people are willing to suffer and keep the city in a state of self-sufficiency has nothing to do with health, income equality, and so on, but only about crime and the amount of commerces and parks, is also ideological. The assumption that the highest density city that people are willing to live in means that reducing crime is more important than having healthy and happy people is ideological. The idea that this is an expected result is also ideological.
- csande17 6y ago
  > The idea that a fairly high but reasonable population city - SimCity limits population artifically through zoning restrictions I'd say the population limit stems from the game's map size limit. The largest SimCity 3000 map is 32 square kilometers, and Magnasanti packs 6 million residents in there. That's 187,000 people per square kilometer. For comparison, Manhattan is one of the densest areas in the US, and it has 28,000 residents per square kilometer. Manila, the densest city in the world, has 41,000 per square km. I am unsure I would describe a city seven times denser than Manhattan as "reasonable", at least in a game designed to replicate cities as they currently exist in the real world, and I am also unsure I would describe the decision to limit the map size in a video game as "ideological".
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    That's really not the point. The idea that what sims care about more is small increases in crime and not health, pollution, work, income inequality, and that's the best way not to get them to leave is absolutely ideological. To note, 187k people per sq. km is not actually unrealistic - there are neighborhoods in the world with this level of density such as Ayal Nasir in Dubai, and even some with this level of density and the same order of magnitude in population such as the Imbaba neighborhood of Cairo in Egypt. But this is a detail and mostly besides the point.
    - csande17 6y ago
      It's not necessarily the best way, it's just the way that consumes the lowest amount of space in the city. If there's an ideological point to be made here, it's that hospitals are larger than police stations.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        ...which means that sims care more about crime than they do about pollution, health, etc... Put it that way - in SimCity as long as crime is down and some other factors are adequate, they won't leave even if they are miserable. But if crime increases, then they leave, even if they are in good health and make a nice income nonetheless.
        kofejnik 6y ago
        > But if crime increases, then they leave, even if they are in good health and make a nice income nonetheless. Doesn't seem that unreasonable, actually. High-income people leave crime-ridden areas, happens approximately everywhere
        morelisp 6y ago
        If everyone is in good health and making decent money, what is the motive for the kind of crime people move away from? The choice to model "crime" as some kind of naturally-occuring resource is already telling.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  Is there any way to describe how a city works and relates to its citizens that isn't political? I think Simcity makes a political comment, and there was literally no way for the game to avoid that.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Indeed : code is law, or in this case, ideology.

sudosysgen 6y ago

The idea that a fairly high but reasonable population city - SimCity limits population artifically through zoning restrictions - must be a dystopian nightmare is... ideological. In SimCity, citizens are free to leave, and they do if, for example, crime is too high. Why is it then that the best way not to have them leave is to reduce crime and not improve health or reduce pollution? This is a choice the designers made that was probably unwittingly informed by ideology. The idea that what people are willing to suffer and keep the city in a state of self-sufficiency has nothing to do with health, income equality, and so on, but only about crime and the amount of commerces and parks, is also ideological. The assumption that the highest density city that people are willing to live in means that reducing crime is more important than having healthy and happy people is ideological. The idea that this is an expected result is also ideological.

csande17 6y ago
> The idea that a fairly high but reasonable population city - SimCity limits population artifically through zoning restrictions I'd say the population limit stems from the game's map size limit. The largest SimCity 3000 map is 32 square kilometers, and Magnasanti packs 6 million residents in there. That's 187,000 people per square kilometer. For comparison, Manhattan is one of the densest areas in the US, and it has 28,000 residents per square kilometer. Manila, the densest city in the world, has 41,000 per square km. I am unsure I would describe a city seven times denser than Manhattan as "reasonable", at least in a game designed to replicate cities as they currently exist in the real world, and I am also unsure I would describe the decision to limit the map size in a video game as "ideological".
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  That's really not the point. The idea that what sims care about more is small increases in crime and not health, pollution, work, income inequality, and that's the best way not to get them to leave is absolutely ideological. To note, 187k people per sq. km is not actually unrealistic - there are neighborhoods in the world with this level of density such as Ayal Nasir in Dubai, and even some with this level of density and the same order of magnitude in population such as the Imbaba neighborhood of Cairo in Egypt. But this is a detail and mostly besides the point.
  - csande17 6y ago
    It's not necessarily the best way, it's just the way that consumes the lowest amount of space in the city. If there's an ideological point to be made here, it's that hospitals are larger than police stations.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      ...which means that sims care more about crime than they do about pollution, health, etc... Put it that way - in SimCity as long as crime is down and some other factors are adequate, they won't leave even if they are miserable. But if crime increases, then they leave, even if they are in good health and make a nice income nonetheless.
      - kofejnik 6y ago
        > But if crime increases, then they leave, even if they are in good health and make a nice income nonetheless. Doesn't seem that unreasonable, actually. High-income people leave crime-ridden areas, happens approximately everywhere
        morelisp 6y ago
        If everyone is in good health and making decent money, what is the motive for the kind of crime people move away from? The choice to model "crime" as some kind of naturally-occuring resource is already telling.
Qwertious 6y ago
Is there any way to describe how a city works and relates to its citizens that isn't political? I think Simcity makes a political comment, and there was literally no way for the game to avoid that.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Indeed : code is law, or in this case, ideology.