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People might be interested in this - ever notice there's no parking in sim city? https://humantransit.org/2013/05/how-sim-city-greenwashes-parking.html https://

People might be interested in this - ever notice there's no parking in sim city? https://humantransit.org/2013/05/how-sim-city-greenwashes-parking.html https://humantransit.org/2013/05/how-sim-city-greenwashes-pa...

rendaw 4y ago
> In other words: SimCity deliberately misleads players about parking because if they showed parking in its true dimensions, it might make dysfunctional land use patterns look (and act) dysfunctional. > And we can't have that. That seems like a fairly bad faith reading of the interview comments. In SC2K you only have so many pixels per building. Even the newer sim cities are not proportional, it's not like looking at a satellite map.
- Sakos 4y ago
  Simcity (originally) was based on problematic books like Urban Dynamics (https://www.polygon.com/videos/2021/4/1/22352583/simcity-hidden-politics-ideology-urban-dynamics https://www.polygon.com/videos/2021/4/1/22352583/simcity-hid...), which has heavily influenced every other city builder ever since. I don't think things like the lack of parking are an accident. I wouldn't be surprised if real harm caused by social policy/planning could be traced to some degree to Simcity. Further reading: https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/ https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/
- CalRobert 4y ago
  And if it were a simulation most of the pixels would be parking lots instead of buildings.
walrus01 4y ago
For a good example, the red shading here is what portion of downtown Edmonton, AB is dedicated to parking: https://i.redd.it/p7fofu76ols91.jpg https://i.redd.it/p7fofu76ols91.jpg
- thrdbndndn 4y ago
  Everytime parking (or how cities transit should be) is mentioned, the US is (rightfully) shown as a bad example, and usually compared with Europe. So I feel like I could give an example about other parts of the world, just for perspective. In summary -- man, I wish my city is half this good so I can actually park in peace. I live in China, a relatively large size city (pop around 8M to 10M, not too special within China) and we have what I would say "good" public transit system (hundreds of bus lines, 8 metro lines and increasing), not to mention millions of people just commute in e-bikes. But the thing is, people still need to drive from time to time. (So traffic is as bad). How do we solve the parking issue without building enough parking places? Well, we kinda of don't. For most of public places, you just park everywhere that you can squeeze in. On Roads, on sidewalks, you name it. You better be instantly good at parallel parking and reversing, otherwise you won't survive. Residential locations are much better nowadays since most new communities now build with parking in mind, but public locations are still a nightmare (an exception is large malls, which usually have underground parking). Everytime I want to go somewhere the first thing I need to do is to plan how to park once I were there. It's awful. Anyway, my point isn't that "the US is fine as soon as other places are worse", just that "it's complicated" I guess. I lived in the US for years including some large cities. While I really wish there is better public transit (especially when I were traveling), at least parking is bearable thanks to enforced parking lot requirement.
  - thomasthetrain 4y ago
    > Everytime I want to go somewhere the first thing I need to do is to plan how to park once I were there. It's awful. I’d say it’s a fair requirement: if you want to carry a big machine around, you are responsible for leaving it somewhere adequate. Enforced parking lot requirement is just obliging other people to reserve mostly unproductive land in their properties, and that has very negative effects, such as creating big distances between destinations and, as a consequence, making public transportation less efficient and walking more difficult. It usually (always?) makes cities worse.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    The point is that there should be less parking, not more, and there should never be subsidized parking. You do not deserve to store your giant metal box on public property for free, and I want to be able to patronize businesses that aren't surrounded by parking lots and forced to raise prices to cover the cost of building/renting parking.
bombcar 4y ago
If you’re interested there are “realistic” parking mods for Cities Skylines. They do change things but not as much as some urbanists would hope ;) Should You Use TM:PE Enhanced "Parking AI" in Cities Skylines? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=20pyEA3GpAQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=20pyEA3GpAQ
Lammy 4y ago
SimCity 2000 also misleads people about the safety of atomic energy due to the way power plants work: - Destruction of the nuclear power plant spreads radiation tiles that persist for 10+ thousand in-game-years. - All power plants are automatically destroyed at the end of their design life, so if you forget to manually replace your nuclear power plant every 50 years you get radiation. - All power plants will catch on fire and eventually be destroyed when overloaded, and there is no option to choose load-shedding / brownouts, so if you overbuild you get radiation. - The "Nuclear-Free Zone" is the only in-game ordinance that costs no money, earns no money, and basically only exists to make a statement.
- CalRobert 4y ago
  Incidentally, the hydroelectric plants lasted forever. It was the only kind I ever built after realizing that.

rendaw 4y ago

> In other words: SimCity deliberately misleads players about parking because if they showed parking in its true dimensions, it might make dysfunctional land use patterns look (and act) dysfunctional. > And we can't have that. That seems like a fairly bad faith reading of the interview comments. In SC2K you only have so many pixels per building. Even the newer sim cities are not proportional, it's not like looking at a satellite map.

Sakos 4y ago
Simcity (originally) was based on problematic books like Urban Dynamics (https://www.polygon.com/videos/2021/4/1/22352583/simcity-hidden-politics-ideology-urban-dynamics https://www.polygon.com/videos/2021/4/1/22352583/simcity-hid...), which has heavily influenced every other city builder ever since. I don't think things like the lack of parking are an accident. I wouldn't be surprised if real harm caused by social policy/planning could be traced to some degree to Simcity. Further reading: https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/ https://logicmag.io/play/model-metropolis/
CalRobert 4y ago
And if it were a simulation most of the pixels would be parking lots instead of buildings.

walrus01 4y ago

For a good example, the red shading here is what portion of downtown Edmonton, AB is dedicated to parking: https://i.redd.it/p7fofu76ols91.jpg https://i.redd.it/p7fofu76ols91.jpg

thrdbndndn 4y ago
Everytime parking (or how cities transit should be) is mentioned, the US is (rightfully) shown as a bad example, and usually compared with Europe. So I feel like I could give an example about other parts of the world, just for perspective. In summary -- man, I wish my city is half this good so I can actually park in peace. I live in China, a relatively large size city (pop around 8M to 10M, not too special within China) and we have what I would say "good" public transit system (hundreds of bus lines, 8 metro lines and increasing), not to mention millions of people just commute in e-bikes. But the thing is, people still need to drive from time to time. (So traffic is as bad). How do we solve the parking issue without building enough parking places? Well, we kinda of don't. For most of public places, you just park everywhere that you can squeeze in. On Roads, on sidewalks, you name it. You better be instantly good at parallel parking and reversing, otherwise you won't survive. Residential locations are much better nowadays since most new communities now build with parking in mind, but public locations are still a nightmare (an exception is large malls, which usually have underground parking). Everytime I want to go somewhere the first thing I need to do is to plan how to park once I were there. It's awful. Anyway, my point isn't that "the US is fine as soon as other places are worse", just that "it's complicated" I guess. I lived in the US for years including some large cities. While I really wish there is better public transit (especially when I were traveling), at least parking is bearable thanks to enforced parking lot requirement.
- thomasthetrain 4y ago
  > Everytime I want to go somewhere the first thing I need to do is to plan how to park once I were there. It's awful. I’d say it’s a fair requirement: if you want to carry a big machine around, you are responsible for leaving it somewhere adequate. Enforced parking lot requirement is just obliging other people to reserve mostly unproductive land in their properties, and that has very negative effects, such as creating big distances between destinations and, as a consequence, making public transportation less efficient and walking more difficult. It usually (always?) makes cities worse.
- CalRobert 4y ago
  The point is that there should be less parking, not more, and there should never be subsidized parking. You do not deserve to store your giant metal box on public property for free, and I want to be able to patronize businesses that aren't surrounded by parking lots and forced to raise prices to cover the cost of building/renting parking.

bombcar 4y ago

If you’re interested there are “realistic” parking mods for Cities Skylines. They do change things but not as much as some urbanists would hope ;) Should You Use TM:PE Enhanced "Parking AI" in Cities Skylines? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=20pyEA3GpAQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=20pyEA3GpAQ

Lammy 4y ago

SimCity 2000 also misleads people about the safety of atomic energy due to the way power plants work: - Destruction of the nuclear power plant spreads radiation tiles that persist for 10+ thousand in-game-years. - All power plants are automatically destroyed at the end of their design life, so if you forget to manually replace your nuclear power plant every 50 years you get radiation. - All power plants will catch on fire and eventually be destroyed when overloaded, and there is no option to choose load-shedding / brownouts, so if you overbuild you get radiation. - The "Nuclear-Free Zone" is the only in-game ordinance that costs no money, earns no money, and basically only exists to make a statement.

CalRobert 4y ago
Incidentally, the hydroelectric plants lasted forever. It was the only kind I ever built after realizing that.