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Along the way, the games have introduced millions of players to the joys and frustrations of zoning, street grids and infrastructure funding — and influenced a generation of people who plan cities for a living. For many urban and transit planners, architects, government officials and activists, “SimCity” was their first taste of running a city. — Los Angeles Times
"It was the first time they realized that neighborhoods, towns and cities were things that were planned, and that it was someone's job to decide where streets, schools, bus stops and stores were supposed to go," writes Jessica Roy for the Los Angeles Times. Happen to look for a real life urban... View full entry
A new video game is giving players the chance to be their own curator and gallery designer. Called 'Occupy White Walls,' the upcoming massively multiplayer online game—which is currently in free public alpha—allows you to build your own art space using modular architectural blocks. Developed... View full entry
In this extended short, City Beautiful takes on the old school classic SimCity from the perspective of a professional planner 20 years later. Along the way, City Beautiful provides pertinent observations of game play versus reality. — theurbanist.org
Urban Design Ph.D student Dave Amos circles back around to the game that sparked his passion as a kid playing computer games. An advocate for sustainable living and diverse cities, Amos plays through the old school SimCity game providing relevant insights learned over the years in his career. View full entry
If you've been around the 'architecture-can-be-fun-too'-focused internet for a while, you may remember Sergej Hein's semi-viral gem of a video, Berlin Block Tetris, which was exactly that: an animated version of the video game classic using building blocks that resembled socialist-era residential... View full entry
With the rise of online shopping, we have all been watching the dead mall epidemic for many years now. Addressing those left hanging on in today's world, Bloomberg now brings us the The American Mall Game: A 2018 Retail Challenge. Try your odds at managing a failing mall in this retro 90's... View full entry
"Spark a blackout, fix a pipe, or clog the toilets. Test your building’s engineering when dinosaurs invade, lightning strikes, or the earth quakes. Find out what keeps skyscrapers standing tall and people happy in them all." So says the description of the newly launched Skyscrapers by Tinybop, a... View full entry
Although the game was simulating an environment from 1989, urban planners these days still run into problems trying to get officials to think about their city in the long run. Climate change and sea level rise is a very crystalline example of the way city officials get in their own way and set themselves up for larger obstacles later on [...]
Playing SimCity 2000 nowadays is a strange but wonderful way to realize what defines a city is not what it currently is, but what it could be.
— inverse.com
More on simulations and gameplay for city planning:SimCity and beyond: the history of city-building gamesThree guiding principles for a fine fake metropolis"Cards Against Urbanity," the hilarious and surreal urban planning gameCalifornia Water Crisis? Now there's a board game for that!As It Lays... View full entry
