Category: Urban Planning and Design

Looking at Urban Planning and Design

Sim City Fail?

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EA Balls Up – Rather Big Time

 

It has been 10 long years since the last Sim City game was released in the version called Sim City 4. I still play SC4 today and have two large regions going with different populations and urban development strategies.

March 5, Electronic Arts released their new version of Sim City – called Sim City and well IT GOT PANNED big time for server failures and limited city sizes (amongst other things). This piece from the Herald says enough about the new Sim City without delving into specific game review sites.

From the NZH

Pat Pilcher: SimCity debacle grows

It’s likely to go down in the annals of gaming history as one of the biggest blunders by a gaming company ever. Amidst a significant amount of hype and growing gamer expectations, EA launched the latest version of its SimCity genre. Since then, nearly everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and the gaming communities’ condemnation has been both swift and brutal.

Sadly this gaming equivalent of a multi-car pile-up was probably avoidable. The problems have stemmed largely from SimCity’s online only requirements – access to the Electronic Arts servers is mandatory before the game will function. This was always had potential for problems, and in a pre-launch closed beta, access to EA’s servers quickly became problematic. Bizarrely, even though this was clearly going to be a deal breaker, EA pushed on, continuing with the mandatory internet access requirement and launching the city building/management title.

Unsurprisingly once the title began to sell, things quickly turned to custard. The servers EA had installed simply didn’t have the capacity to handle the sheer demands being put on them, and this effectively rendered the Sim City unplayable, making gamers who’d forked out $100 for the title hopping mad.

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You can read then rest of the article over the Herald.

 

Being a Sim City fan, running two regions, and a veteran over at the fan site Simtropolis; I have been watching the new Sim City unfold through chat and even a live feed and I feel under-whelmed by the latest creation. Server issues aside, the issues which are making me hesitant in shelling out a hundred bucks for this new ultra urban development is the limit of the city size (see map below – or for those playing SC4 the new SC size is the same as the old small tile from SC4)  and transport options tied to zoning.

However knowing the history with SC4 before expansion packs and “modding” occurred, this new SC version has the potential to be great – but just not now. And so EA, I will be waiting around 6 months for you to get your crap sorted before purchasing the game.

Oh and when I do, I already have the urban development methodology in mind. I am in a good mood to give the two fingers up to the New Urban Congress and their “smart compact city” development and go right ahead in replicating my first SC4 city – Solaria. Solaria being home to four million sims across a mega sprawling city with commute times that most cities in the world would envy. Just to put the extra boot in (as the city is still growing some 10 years later) Solaria is basically Auckland on steroids with a high density central core, supported by multiple satellite cities/cores, and plenty of sprawl going out in all directions until you start hitting rural land on the flanks. Just for good measure Solaria has an actual world class transit system while the highway system is errr yeah well a work in progress :P.

But hey if the central tile – Imperial Command District which is that high density core of 1.2 million sims packed into an area of 16.8km2 and still has a mesa and lake in it, but is an actual walkable city then I think I have outdone most real cities in the world. And by walkable city I mean 75% of all commutes in IPC are done by walking as the primary mode (it means that also the sims can be walking to a transit stop as part of the journey OR walking solely to their destination). Also the commute time in IPC is an average of 30 minutes to cross the tile with is 4,096m by 4,096m with a lake and mesa in the middle of it (meaning you have to “loop around”). It takes using the graphs and normalising it to cross the region East to West as it is connected at both ends one hour by motorway and 35 minutes by high speed rail when on express mode.

 

Just of note I had been participating in a Twitter chat with Maxis on the SC13 issues. Sadly not getting a lot out of them so it will be definitely a six month wait until I get the game…

 

In the mean time some (older) photos:

 

 

Betterment Taxes And Inclusionary Zoning?

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Some Homework for Auckland Citizens

 

As we await the release of the Draft Unitary Plan on March 15  I would like to bring to your attention two items being sort for discussion in the Unitary Plan by Council. They are called “Sharing Land Value Uplift from Rezoning” and “Inclusionary Zoning;” of which both come under “Additional Tools for Enabling Affordable Neighbourhoods” under the Draft Unitary Plan.

 

Now these two options can be found from Page 67 in the embedded document below (so you might need to scroll if Scribd does not automatically go to that page):

 

For you homework I would like you to read these two “Additional Tools for Enabling Affordable Neighbourhoods” then post for your feedback here at BR:AKL on them.

Wikipedia also has a nice piece on Inclusionary Zoning which you can see by clicking the respective hyperlinks in red. I noticed Inclusionary Zoning is a tool from the USA while Sharing Land Value Uplift is from the UK.

 

However, I am currently reading it and from what I interpret so far both tools are additional taxes to middle and upper class citizens in a wealth distributing exercise for the lower and working classes here in Auckland. In effect Auckland Council is going to be coercing either directly or indirectly (through developers having to comply and as a result pass extra costs on) citizens and developers through regulations and plans to at least set aside for “affordable housing” (which is often becomes social housing) rather than do the actual opposite and liberalise our regulations and plans allowing at least developers to act more freely in providing a range of housing without costing the citizenry in Auckland.

 

So either you get a tax slugged on top of your rates and maybe targeted rates for whatever the Council decides to do with that money, or coerced into providing social housing at the cost of a large bulk of Auckland citizenry who end up carrying the can for this provision (rather than the State undertaking the social housing exercises via Housing NZ).

Time to delved deeper into these two new coercive and taxation regimes lurking in the Unitary Plan draft.

 

Remembering I stand for a more liberalised planning and provision approach to building neighbourhoods in Auckland.

 

Southern Auckland’s Future

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Coming Soon on BR:AKL

 

South and Counties Auckland – Development to and for the Future

 

 

I am going to be writing up a series of posts looking at one way South and Counties Auckland (so Southern Auckland) could evolve urban and transport fabric wise through the life of the Auckland Plan

It’s Sim City meets Auckland Planner

Here at BR:AKL

 

 

Southern Auckland and the lower Eastern Suburbs – my home and all under the watchful gaze of BR:AKL.

 

The entire area I will try to “simulate” out a planning exercise showing that evolution of the urban and transport fabric wise through the life of the Auckland Plan here in Southern Auckland – my and for some YOUR home (and/or business).

 

Let’s see what I can come up with while the Auckland Council Unitary Plan is further refined – AND STILL THICKER THAN A BIBLE!