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That's totally true that you're playing a City Planner so you might end up exposed to concepts usually only a City Planner really cares about. However my impres

by smcl 4y ago

That's totally true that you're playing a City Planner so you might end up exposed to concepts usually only a City Planner really cares about. However my impression (and I might be wrong!) was that Americans were more aware of these things than those of us in UK. Like I literally thought that the light/medium/heavy residential, commercial and industrial "zones" were just a thing Will Wright came up with to make SimCity work (though I know in reality it's more complex than painting a little square block blue, green or yellow) I read the rest of your comment and nodded along approvingly, but I don't have anything else to add other than that I also liked fiddling with existing towns and cities in these games. In SC2k I really loved the scenarios, free-form citybuilding is definitely good but to have a specific constraint and a goal was a really fun challenge.

Sharlin 4y ago
I'm not sure if Americans in general are more aware of zoning and planning [speaking as a non-American], but maybe an intuitive conception of a city as a set of functionally separated areas is more prevalent there, because many/most of their cities are shaped by modernist ideals to a much greater degree than many European cities (to an extent that there are essentially _no services_ in many suburbs besides a primary school and a gas station, and city centers, on the other hand, are largely devoted to office buildings).
zdragnar 4y ago
Your average American is likely to only be familiar with zoning as a thing that exists. You can travel about and notice that some areas have homes, some areas have businesses, and that's about it. Those who live in rural areas will be a little bit more familiar- it is not impossible to buy some farm land while working with the local municipality governments to re-zone from agrigultural use to residential use, so that you can build a home there. The notion that commercial can be split into "light" or "heavy" or that industrial can be split from commercial at all probably isn't something the average person has much awareness of, even intuitively.
- smcl 4y ago
  Interesting, so some awareness of the concept of "zoning" but not particularly fine grained. Thanks for clarifying!

by smcl 4y ago

Sharlin 4y ago

I'm not sure if Americans in general are more aware of zoning and planning [speaking as a non-American], but maybe an intuitive conception of a city as a set of functionally separated areas is more prevalent there, because many/most of their cities are shaped by modernist ideals to a much greater degree than many European cities (to an extent that there are essentially _no services_ in many suburbs besides a primary school and a gas station, and city centers, on the other hand, are largely devoted to office buildings).

zdragnar 4y ago

Your average American is likely to only be familiar with zoning as a thing that exists. You can travel about and notice that some areas have homes, some areas have businesses, and that's about it. Those who live in rural areas will be a little bit more familiar- it is not impossible to buy some farm land while working with the local municipality governments to re-zone from agrigultural use to residential use, so that you can build a home there. The notion that commercial can be split into "light" or "heavy" or that industrial can be split from commercial at all probably isn't something the average person has much awareness of, even intuitively.

smcl 4y ago
Interesting, so some awareness of the concept of "zoning" but not particularly fine grained. Thanks for clarifying!