SimCity... the end is near

[Colon™]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
It's a matter of political will, availability of materials to build such structures.

I'm missing desirability and economics in there.

[Ninot]

So wait.. is there a new Sim City coming out?

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Spiffor

Indeed I'm also thinking of shops located within residential buildings. For example, in my hometown, such shops (located at the ground-level of several-stories residences) the main providers of local business tax.

That was routine in the New York of my childhood. A big class difference though between a high rise with retail on the main floor, and the tiny flats over a shop on the retail street of a low-medium density residential area (proverbially "living over the store") It went out of fashion, and has since been rediscovered as "neo-traditional town planning" or "the new urbanism"

This kind of mix between business and housing in the same building is very pervasive in Europe, and I imagine it's pervasive in pretty much every dense city centre in the world.


Fully agreed. My contention was more of a general one against the idea that SimCity is realistic. SimCity has some semblance to reality, but is such a simplification that you're as likely to become a good city planner thanks to SimCity as to become a good godlike ruler by playing Civ

Ah then youve missed the point. Youre not really supposed to a city planner, youre supposed to be a mayor. So the zoning has to be abstracted somewhat. (And no, thats NOT a good view of the division of labor between mayor and city planner here, but its more in tune with Wrights vision. And of course its inconsistent with placing water pipes, a concession to the obsessive need of gamers to micromanage) Note, Rudy Giuliani said positive things about the game some years ago. Da actual Mayor of New York played SC with his kid.

You'd be surprised In the 1950's over here, it looked a really peachy idea to build the worker's flats right next to their factory (and that's the time when many hamlets became suburban cities, in a process akin to SimCity's, only that instead of a fully blank map, you get a small village-y blurb in the middle, farms, and roads). I'm sure those grand ideas have been had elsewhere as well.

Oh dear, all that work by the US Army Air Corps and the RAF gone to waste.

But to be more serious, no, here in the US the seperation of manufacturing from residence has been pretty much the rule since the 1920s. Even to the point where it was carried to far, making it difficult for small workshops to exist in proximity to residences, and forcing all kinds of odd things in Manhattan in the 1970s - the city made it legal to live in the Soho manufacturing district (an area of 19th century cast iron buildings with high ceilings, and lots of small garment manufacturers) but ONLY for working artists. Lots of doctors and lawyers (including the stepdad of a friend of mine) discovered their "artistic" skills.

Workers flats in close proximity to HEAVY industry means either someplace quite old (like the chemical making areas downriver from Philadelphia, or the Sparrows Point Steel plant in Baltimore) or someplace like Houston, that didnt believe in zoning at all.

In post-war America, workers got to heavy industry jobs by car.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs


I'm not sure how I missed this post.

Sorry to kick the soap box out from under you, Wiggly Puff, but I guess this means the WTC complex in New York and it's daily population of 50,000 workers and 200,000 visitors was a figment of everyone's imagination.

It's a matter of political will, availability of materials to build such structures. The technology has been there since at least the 70's when the Twin Towers and adjoining buildings on the site were built, moreover the technology has progressed a lot since then. It's not a mater of "Can we?" but rather "Will we and when?" Someone just needs to step up and do it.

An arcology is something rather different from the WTC. Its a self sufficient thingie, fundamentally cut off from the surrounding city, IIUC. In many ways a profoundly anti-urbanist concept.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
An arcology is something rather different from the WTC. Its a self sufficient thingie, fundamentally cut off from the surrounding city, IIUC.

I disagree. The arcologies envisioned by both Le Corbusier and Paulo Soleri still required some outside support; not everything was self-contained. Le Corbusier's "city in a building" (which I understand to be the earliest example of this concept) is more closely matched to the WTC in NYC as the buildings of that complex were connected underground, serviced by the city's subway system and contained not just office space, but support facilities and shopping as well. His vision was of a densely packed cluster of large buildings, rather than a single mega-building, and is more likely the type of "arcology" we would see in the future. Paulo Soleri's (who coined the term architecture + ecology = arcology) visions are what inspired SC2000's arcologies. Both versions (I'm talking real life, not in-game) would require outside support of utilities such as food and water, and the placement of heavier industry, though Soleri would probably protest even the existence of heavy polluting industry, let alone its inclusion into any planning, whereas Le Corbusier lived before we as a society really understood the environmental damage wrought by industry.

In many ways a profoundly anti-urbanist concept.

This is true in some respects, but isn't the opposite true? That containing everything in one building is the ultimate expression of urban versus rural? Everything in one place, densely packed, versus everything spread out, sparsely built?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs


I disagree. The arcologies envisioned by both Le Corbusier and Paulo Soleri still required some outside support; not everything was self-contained. Le Corbusier's "city in a building" (which I understand to be the earliest example of this concept) is more closely matched to the WTC in NYC as the buildings of that complex were connected underground, serviced by the city's subway system and contained not just office space, but support facilities and shopping as well. His vision was of a densely packed cluster of large buildings, rather than a single mega-building, and is more likely the type of "arcology" we would see in the future. Paulo Soleri's (who coined the term architecture + ecology = arcology) visions are what inspired SC2000's arcologies. Both versions (I'm talking real life, not in-game) would require outside support of utilities such as food and water, and the placement of heavier industry, though Soleri would probably protest even the existence of heavy polluting industry, let alone its inclusion into any planning, whereas Le Corbusier lived before we as a society really understood the environmental damage wrought by industry.



This is true in some respects, but isn't the opposite true? That containing everything in one building is the ultimate expression of urban versus rural? Everything in one place, densely packed, versus everything spread out, sparsely built?

Im thinking of urbanism as more than just density. Rather the free flowing "messiness" of city life, the organic nature of it, the "aura" from its historic accretions, random interactions, etc, etc. In fact I find Le Corbusier kind of anti-urbanist as well. Wasn't Soleri, or some other arcology guy, looking to escape the "squalor" of the city, in some Randist kind of vision? That's what Im talking about.

[Krill]

Please move the discusion out of OG...

...When does Cities unlimited come out again?

[Krill]

Bah, '09? I'm going to need a game to play over the summer at this rate.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Krill
Please move the discusion out of OG...

...When does Cities unlimited come out again?

Please discuss it over here (otherwise we are to be reminded of Societies): http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=176770