5 ms·

Sim NIMBY, the Game Where You Can’t Build Anything

97 points by imartin2k 4y ago

defrost 4y ago
How unrealistic ... Of course you can build, but only across the { freeway | railway } that was driven through the lower income areas... the appropriate place to store those burning tyres and park that trainload of septic waste has always somehow worked out to be that redlined minority community "over there". Town planning 101... apparently.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  And of course you can't turn an abandoned parking lot into actual places for people to live because that somehow changes "the character of the area"
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Don't forget increasing housing stock by building apartments in place of that abandoned gas station is gentrification
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    I mean, yes, it does change the character of the area. That's the point. The character of the area is currently an overpriced shithole full of racist pricks hiding behind NIMBYism, and just about anything proposed to be built in that abandoned parking lot would change the character of the area for the better.
nosianu 4y ago
About that example in the text, new housing to solve the homeless problem (anti-)NIMBYism. Would it? I'm not so sure. Wouldn't most if not almost all of the homeless just remain what they are and the new housing would be used by new people moving into the city? Unless there is a program actively moving homeless into the new housing, paying for them, and also a services to take care of mental health issues. For how many homeless would it work to just provide them housing, and from there they get back on their feet, into a job to pay for the rent by themselves, on their own? Compared to how many need a lot more active guidance, and how many will never stand on their own feet, for example because of health issues? I'm pretty sure I saw this and actual real world experience and projects discussed here on HN, but I don't remember any details. I think there is a lot more to it than just building housing, and that the topic deserves a closer look, for example here: https://www.feantsa.org/download/final_housing_toolkit_en-34218477480056062890.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/download/final_housing_toolkit_en-34... (PDF, Europe) EDIT: Okay guys, please tell me why these thoughts are wrong.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  More supply = lower prices = more people able to afford housing = less people forced into homelessness.
- h0l0cube 4y ago
  > Wouldn't most if not almost all of the homeless just remain what they are and the new housing would be used by new people moving into the city? There's truth to that as the new stock would only go to those that could afford them, and the vast majority would be swept up by investors, unless they were actual public housing - the kind of housing that NIMBYs are most upset about. Either way having more stock ought to have a deflationary effect on housing costs. Though maybe perverse incentives/legislation could cause the opposite.
- atomflunder 4y ago
  I think you are kinda right in that it might be very hard to get people out of homelessness, but what more housing could do is prevent homelessness in the first place. Presumably most people start their lives as not homeless, and at some point that changes, because housing prices exceed their income. More housing would lead to lower housing prices and less homelessness.
- fudgefactorfive 4y ago
  The vast majority of homeless/unhoused people are completely normal healthy adults that had one bad turn in life and could not get back. In a 2016 Census, only about 12% of the homeless population aged 15 and up were actually unable to work due to various maladies[0]. According to the same census report a whopping 62% of homeless males were currently employed. The issue is not to just remember the 3 or 4 homeless people you've seen clearly dazed and likely unable to work, it's the thousands of people living in their car because rent is unaffordable for their income. That's the first point, abundance of housing lowers rents to the point of being affordable to Minimum-Wage workers. Secondly, one of the first issues homeless shelters noticed is that employers require and address to even apply. So if one of those people living in their cars or under a bridge and still heading to work god forbid loses their job, they literally cannot apply to another one without a fixed address, another way affordable/abundant housing explicitly affects homeless employment. The 12% that cannot work should probably not be on the street and should be cared for in shelters, but many shelters are filled with people who's employers underpay or pay an unlivable income and so also require shelters. Abundant housing thus allows people in the work-force to not be priced out of a roof, opening up shelters for those that cannot care for themselves. More housing is a win-win-win. Except maybe it means aunt Karen notices more busses, which she doesn't like the sound of, hence no more developments to appease those with the ability to make their points to local government, at the cost of those that many people even avoid eye contact with. [0] https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp5hpi/cp5hpi/es/ https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp5hpi/cp...
firstplacelast 4y ago
Reminds me of this old blog post about being homeless in the sims (https://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/alice-and-kev/ https://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/alice-and-kev/). A funny and slightly sad read.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
t-writescode 4y ago
The comment section below the game is a work of art full of NIMBYism and they don't even get it xD
zbrozek 4y ago
You should be allowed to build parking in Sim NIMBY. I've never heard a NIMBY oppose more parking. Heaven forbid you allow people too. The federal government needs to strengthen property rights if they want to see more housing at lower prices. I don't think they realize the degree of the housing disaster or its long term impacts on the economy yet. A lot of millennials are aging out of childbearing without having had children because of housing.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > You should be allowed to build parking in Sim NIMBY. Really? If you're playing as the YIMBY against NIMBYs, isn't one of your main goals to build housing without parking?
  - Steltek 4y ago
    The game satirizes NIMBYs, who always agree to build more parking or don't complain when parking expansion is the proposal under discussion.
  - zbrozek 4y ago
    Right. It's Sim NIMBY, not Sim YIMBY.
- kiba 4y ago
  I think we need to reconceptualize property rights. Instead of something you 'own', it's valuable resources that you rented from the community. Rich people gets to use the most valuable land, but they will also likely pay more, and also likely to use it more efficiently, unlike today where you have landowners who sat on lands worth million of dollars and oppose development. This is land hoarding and it's not good.
  - least 4y ago
    This is basically what Georgism [1] aims to solve. I don't think it's only a matter of imposing a land value tax, though. I think government regulations like zoning and poorly thought out housing code impede development the most. A developer would rather profit off their land. A land value tax incentivizes development from the back but you have to remove the barriers from the front as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
Waterluvian 4y ago
Actually I love a nearby idea: you can build normally but the more you build, the more restrictive it becomes to build anything more until you grind to a halt.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  That actually sounds like a great idea. So you're saying a game about building neighborhoods where the feelings of the people who already live in the neighborhoods are more important than the feelings of wealthy programmers who want to live in the neighborhoods because the segregated suburbs they grew up in were boring and lame?
elzbardico 4y ago
The American problem is not one of a lack of houses. This is just a symptom. The American Problem is the combination of Income and Wealth Concentration. And those problems were created by asset inflation from Central Banks' manipulation of currency, the ideologies of too-big-to-fail and trickle-down-economics, predatory de-regulation, hostility to labor organization, warmongerism and widespread paranoia that only serves to justify the gigantic spending on the industrial military complex, which in turns backfeed into the vast coffers of Wall Street. America has been engaged for a long time in the biggest wealth and income transfer program in history, too bad it is from the poor and the middle class to the millionaires. It is not a surprise that a lot of people end up living in tents.
- Steltek 4y ago
  This is a generic, dismissive reply. You could say the unchecked rise of nationalism/jingoism, mental health, crime, etc are also all just symptoms of income inequality. It certainly contributes but it's more complex than that.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > it's more complex than that. Talk about a generic dismissive reply. Could you be more specific about your objections?
    - Steltek 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        It's easy not to suffer from Brandolini's law if your entire comment is a generic dismissal. It's a lot harder if you have something to say.
        4y ago
pessimizer 4y ago
> He lived in San Francisco before moving to Brooklyn This makes these guys seem like roving wealthy YIMBY gentrifiers from central casting. Going from trendy attractive spot to trendy attractive spot, complaining about the rent and the locals.
- dionidium 4y ago
  In the United States you're allowed to move wherever you want to move and you don't have to check in with "the locals" first to see if that's OK. It's always OK. And thank god for that. In every case where locals are able to direct policy they make absurd decisions that make everything worse for everybody. If lots of people want to live in Brooklyn, then they should obviously be allowed to do that. And developers should obviously be allowed to respond to that demand by building housing.
  - jquery 4y ago
    Seems like the well-connected “game developers” had no problem doing just that.
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    I don't think that's exactly true with HOAs.
- jquery 4y ago
  NIMBY has been stretched so far beyond its original idea it just means “anyone who doesn’t want to live in a skyscraper mega city”. The idea that a 6x6km piece of land is in any way responsible for homelessness in America, is absurd. Brooklyn has plenty of housing. San Francisco has plenty of housing. What they lack is cheap housing. Housing is a human right. Cheap housing that displaces and disenfranchises the locals because you see them all like the Old Man in Up? Not a human right.
DonHopkins 4y ago
Game Helpin' Squad: Pretend Gas Station: Josh takes us through the most uneventful game ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMeWas4kXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMeWas4kXM I had the pleasure of showing that video to Will Wright a week ago -- he'd never seen it before! He appreciated the humor. All the Game Helpin' Squad videos are brilliant spot-on parodies of actual games, worth pausing and reading the hilarious jokes in the user interface feedback and chat logs. "A Pissed Off Tutoral For Google Wave" is an extremely accurate review of Google Wave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z4RKRLaSug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z4RKRLaSug “Time Travel Understander” is a parody of Braid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fABGyVzVwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fABGyVzVwI “Severe Running” parodies those Flash running games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrUWFo2D1Xs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrUWFo2D1Xs And “World Quester 2” is the ultimate D&D RPG parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gy9hJauXns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gy9hJauXns “Solitare Party” parodies all those card games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbMb3X2R8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbMb3X2R8A "Burgers And Guns" parodies GTA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2VaHd29DEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2VaHd29DEc "Dusking Midnight" parodies text adventures (vampire centric tween romances, aka bentric twomances): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFNQBmw4C1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFNQBmw4C1g "Commanders Of Siege Force" parodies RPG menu & dialog games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIf38KAiEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIf38KAiEo "Chonochores" parodies domestic housework simulation games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vu5MrYzVbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vu5MrYzVbY

97 points by imartin2k 4y ago

How unrealistic ... Of course you can build, but only across the { freeway | railway } that was driven through the lower income areas... the appropriate place to store those burning tyres and park that trainload of septic waste has always somehow worked out to be that redlined minority community "over there". Town planning 101... apparently.

raverbashing 4y ago
And of course you can't turn an abandoned parking lot into actual places for people to live because that somehow changes "the character of the area"
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Don't forget increasing housing stock by building apartments in place of that abandoned gas station is gentrification
- yellowapple 4y ago
  I mean, yes, it does change the character of the area. That's the point. The character of the area is currently an overpriced shithole full of racist pricks hiding behind NIMBYism, and just about anything proposed to be built in that abandoned parking lot would change the character of the area for the better.

nosianu 4y ago

About that example in the text, new housing to solve the homeless problem (anti-)NIMBYism. Would it? I'm not so sure. Wouldn't most if not almost all of the homeless just remain what they are and the new housing would be used by new people moving into the city? Unless there is a program actively moving homeless into the new housing, paying for them, and also a services to take care of mental health issues. For how many homeless would it work to just provide them housing, and from there they get back on their feet, into a job to pay for the rent by themselves, on their own? Compared to how many need a lot more active guidance, and how many will never stand on their own feet, for example because of health issues? I'm pretty sure I saw this and actual real world experience and projects discussed here on HN, but I don't remember any details. I think there is a lot more to it than just building housing, and that the topic deserves a closer look, for example here: https://www.feantsa.org/download/final_housing_toolkit_en-34218477480056062890.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/download/final_housing_toolkit_en-34... (PDF, Europe) EDIT: Okay guys, please tell me why these thoughts are wrong.

yellowapple 4y ago
More supply = lower prices = more people able to afford housing = less people forced into homelessness.
h0l0cube 4y ago
> Wouldn't most if not almost all of the homeless just remain what they are and the new housing would be used by new people moving into the city? There's truth to that as the new stock would only go to those that could afford them, and the vast majority would be swept up by investors, unless they were actual public housing - the kind of housing that NIMBYs are most upset about. Either way having more stock ought to have a deflationary effect on housing costs. Though maybe perverse incentives/legislation could cause the opposite.
atomflunder 4y ago
I think you are kinda right in that it might be very hard to get people out of homelessness, but what more housing could do is prevent homelessness in the first place. Presumably most people start their lives as not homeless, and at some point that changes, because housing prices exceed their income. More housing would lead to lower housing prices and less homelessness.
fudgefactorfive 4y ago
The vast majority of homeless/unhoused people are completely normal healthy adults that had one bad turn in life and could not get back. In a 2016 Census, only about 12% of the homeless population aged 15 and up were actually unable to work due to various maladies[0]. According to the same census report a whopping 62% of homeless males were currently employed. The issue is not to just remember the 3 or 4 homeless people you've seen clearly dazed and likely unable to work, it's the thousands of people living in their car because rent is unaffordable for their income. That's the first point, abundance of housing lowers rents to the point of being affordable to Minimum-Wage workers. Secondly, one of the first issues homeless shelters noticed is that employers require and address to even apply. So if one of those people living in their cars or under a bridge and still heading to work god forbid loses their job, they literally cannot apply to another one without a fixed address, another way affordable/abundant housing explicitly affects homeless employment. The 12% that cannot work should probably not be on the street and should be cared for in shelters, but many shelters are filled with people who's employers underpay or pay an unlivable income and so also require shelters. Abundant housing thus allows people in the work-force to not be priced out of a roof, opening up shelters for those that cannot care for themselves. More housing is a win-win-win. Except maybe it means aunt Karen notices more busses, which she doesn't like the sound of, hence no more developments to appease those with the ability to make their points to local government, at the cost of those that many people even avoid eye contact with. [0] https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp5hpi/cp5hpi/es/ https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp5hpi/cp...

firstplacelast 4y ago

Reminds me of this old blog post about being homeless in the sims (https://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/alice-and-kev/ https://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/alice-and-kev/). A funny and slightly sad read.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

t-writescode 4y ago

The comment section below the game is a work of art full of NIMBYism and they don't even get it xD

zbrozek 4y ago

You should be allowed to build parking in Sim NIMBY. I've never heard a NIMBY oppose more parking. Heaven forbid you allow people too. The federal government needs to strengthen property rights if they want to see more housing at lower prices. I don't think they realize the degree of the housing disaster or its long term impacts on the economy yet. A lot of millennials are aging out of childbearing without having had children because of housing.

pessimizer 4y ago
> You should be allowed to build parking in Sim NIMBY. Really? If you're playing as the YIMBY against NIMBYs, isn't one of your main goals to build housing without parking?
- Steltek 4y ago
  The game satirizes NIMBYs, who always agree to build more parking or don't complain when parking expansion is the proposal under discussion.
- zbrozek 4y ago
  Right. It's Sim NIMBY, not Sim YIMBY.
kiba 4y ago
I think we need to reconceptualize property rights. Instead of something you 'own', it's valuable resources that you rented from the community. Rich people gets to use the most valuable land, but they will also likely pay more, and also likely to use it more efficiently, unlike today where you have landowners who sat on lands worth million of dollars and oppose development. This is land hoarding and it's not good.
- least 4y ago
  This is basically what Georgism [1] aims to solve. I don't think it's only a matter of imposing a land value tax, though. I think government regulations like zoning and poorly thought out housing code impede development the most. A developer would rather profit off their land. A land value tax incentivizes development from the back but you have to remove the barriers from the front as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Waterluvian 4y ago

Actually I love a nearby idea: you can build normally but the more you build, the more restrictive it becomes to build anything more until you grind to a halt.

pessimizer 4y ago
That actually sounds like a great idea. So you're saying a game about building neighborhoods where the feelings of the people who already live in the neighborhoods are more important than the feelings of wealthy programmers who want to live in the neighborhoods because the segregated suburbs they grew up in were boring and lame?

elzbardico 4y ago

The American problem is not one of a lack of houses. This is just a symptom. The American Problem is the combination of Income and Wealth Concentration. And those problems were created by asset inflation from Central Banks' manipulation of currency, the ideologies of too-big-to-fail and trickle-down-economics, predatory de-regulation, hostility to labor organization, warmongerism and widespread paranoia that only serves to justify the gigantic spending on the industrial military complex, which in turns backfeed into the vast coffers of Wall Street. America has been engaged for a long time in the biggest wealth and income transfer program in history, too bad it is from the poor and the middle class to the millionaires. It is not a surprise that a lot of people end up living in tents.

Steltek 4y ago
This is a generic, dismissive reply. You could say the unchecked rise of nationalism/jingoism, mental health, crime, etc are also all just symptoms of income inequality. It certainly contributes but it's more complex than that.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > it's more complex than that. Talk about a generic dismissive reply. Could you be more specific about your objections?
  - Steltek 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      It's easy not to suffer from Brandolini's law if your entire comment is a generic dismissal. It's a lot harder if you have something to say.
      - 4y ago

pessimizer 4y ago

> He lived in San Francisco before moving to Brooklyn This makes these guys seem like roving wealthy YIMBY gentrifiers from central casting. Going from trendy attractive spot to trendy attractive spot, complaining about the rent and the locals.

dionidium 4y ago
In the United States you're allowed to move wherever you want to move and you don't have to check in with "the locals" first to see if that's OK. It's always OK. And thank god for that. In every case where locals are able to direct policy they make absurd decisions that make everything worse for everybody. If lots of people want to live in Brooklyn, then they should obviously be allowed to do that. And developers should obviously be allowed to respond to that demand by building housing.
- jquery 4y ago
  Seems like the well-connected “game developers” had no problem doing just that.
- lostmsu 4y ago
  I don't think that's exactly true with HOAs.
jquery 4y ago
NIMBY has been stretched so far beyond its original idea it just means “anyone who doesn’t want to live in a skyscraper mega city”. The idea that a 6x6km piece of land is in any way responsible for homelessness in America, is absurd. Brooklyn has plenty of housing. San Francisco has plenty of housing. What they lack is cheap housing. Housing is a human right. Cheap housing that displaces and disenfranchises the locals because you see them all like the Old Man in Up? Not a human right.

DonHopkins 4y ago

Game Helpin' Squad: Pretend Gas Station: Josh takes us through the most uneventful game ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMeWas4kXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMeWas4kXM I had the pleasure of showing that video to Will Wright a week ago -- he'd never seen it before! He appreciated the humor. All the Game Helpin' Squad videos are brilliant spot-on parodies of actual games, worth pausing and reading the hilarious jokes in the user interface feedback and chat logs. "A Pissed Off Tutoral For Google Wave" is an extremely accurate review of Google Wave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z4RKRLaSug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z4RKRLaSug “Time Travel Understander” is a parody of Braid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fABGyVzVwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fABGyVzVwI “Severe Running” parodies those Flash running games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrUWFo2D1Xs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrUWFo2D1Xs And “World Quester 2” is the ultimate D&D RPG parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gy9hJauXns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gy9hJauXns “Solitare Party” parodies all those card games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbMb3X2R8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbMb3X2R8A "Burgers And Guns" parodies GTA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2VaHd29DEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2VaHd29DEc "Dusking Midnight" parodies text adventures (vampire centric tween romances, aka bentric twomances): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFNQBmw4C1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFNQBmw4C1g "Commanders Of Siege Force" parodies RPG menu & dialog games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIf38KAiEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIf38KAiEo "Chonochores" parodies domestic housework simulation games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vu5MrYzVbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vu5MrYzVbY