Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Pennsylvania > Pittsburgh
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 11-10-2007, 09:08 AM
 
Location: Erie, PA
713 posts, read 1,865,978 times
Reputation: 180

Advertisements

Anyone here ever play the computer game/simulation called "SimCity?" There have been several versions: SimCity Classic (which came out way back in the early 90's I think), SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, and SimCity 4.

One could build and manage a simulated city. The game simulated taxes, revenue, residential, commercial, and industrial areas, crime, pollution, roads, transit...the works. With every new edition, there were new things to manage. If taxes were too high or services were too poor, people would leave and your city would wither. If there was too little industry, unemployment would soar and the residential and commercial areas would suffer. Starting with the 2000 version, one could issue bond debt. If you took out too much debt, you would have to raise taxes, which created a vicious cycle of people and industries leaving, decreasing the tax base, resulting in higher taxes, and so on until you were left with a dying city!

Even though it was just a game, it simulated some important aspects of how real cities work. If seems like Pittsburgh has a few of the problems I described above! Should we give Luke Ravenstahl and the members of city council a copy of the game? Perhaps we could do the same for all of Allegheny County as well? Maybe they could learn a few things
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 11-10-2007, 09:10 AM
 
Location: Portland, Maine
4,180 posts, read 14,598,386 times
Reputation: 1673
New version coming out in mid-november of sim city called Sim City Societies. I pre-ordered my copy this week.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-10-2007, 09:17 AM
 
Location: Erie, PA
713 posts, read 1,865,978 times
Reputation: 180
Sweet! I wondered when a new version might come out. It's been several years since SimCity 4 was released.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-10-2007, 09:19 AM
 
2,902 posts, read 10,070,295 times
Reputation: 421
Quote:
Even though it was just a game, it simulated some important aspects of how real cities work. If seems like Pittsburgh has a few of the problems I described above! Should we give Luke Ravenstahl and the members of city council a copy of the game? Perhaps we could do the same for all of Allegheny County as well? Maybe they could learn a few things
LOL! Yes! I love those games!
Quote:
New version coming out in mid-november of sim city called Sim City Societies. I pre-ordered my copy this week.
Yep it looks AWESOME. Except it is less about managing a city and more about managing the social aspects of a city. It also isn't made by Will Wright or Maxis. They spun it off to EA.

Bleh.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-10-2007, 09:47 AM
 
Location: Erie, PA
713 posts, read 1,865,978 times
Reputation: 180
Yeah I just checked out the site for SimCity Societies. It seems like a completely different game that is much less realistic. It looks like SimCity may have "jumped the shark" sad to say.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-10-2007, 05:13 PM
 
254 posts, read 591,480 times
Reputation: 82
I've been a fan since SimCity 2000. I have 3000 now. I love SimCity. I think you may have a good idea there with making elected officials playing it for guidance. The game is well thought out regarding taxes, employment, roads, etc, as you said. You really have to work to get the right balance to make a city prosper and grow. I'm constantly amazed that Pennsylvania is apparently run on outdated economic models. Actually, it's as if they don't really use economics at all. Just a calculator. They tally the ever shrinking population, divide the budget by it, get a bigger number and then raise taxes. It of course drives out more people, causing the denominator to shrink again, and again,...
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-10-2007, 05:33 PM
 
Location: Erie, PA
713 posts, read 1,865,978 times
Reputation: 180
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnland View Post
I've been a fan since SimCity 2000. I have 3000 now. I love SimCity. I think you may have a good idea there with making elected officials playing it for guidance. The game is well thought out regarding taxes, employment, roads, etc, as you said. You really have to work to get the right balance to make a city prosper and grow. I'm constantly amazed that Pennsylvania is apparently run on outdated economic models. Actually, it's as if they don't really use economics at all. Just a calculator. They tally the ever shrinking population, divide the budget by it, get a bigger number and then raise taxes. It of course drives out more people, causing the denominator to shrink again, and again,...

Yep. And SimCity simulates that "death spiral" very well. It's just incredible that, even with a TWO BILLION dollar debt, the city leaders don't try to find efficiencies. The Act 47 State Oversight group made a list of recommendations to save money. During a mayoral debate, DeSantis asked Ravenstahl if he had enacted any of those recommendations. Ravenstahl didn't even seem to know what DeSantis was talking about. It's like the whole city government is a bunch of credit-card junkies. Sometimes I wonder if a failing grade in BASIC economics is a prerequisite for becoming a politician in PA.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-11-2007, 11:58 AM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,616 posts, read 77,614,858 times
Reputation: 19102
SimCity Societies looks to be very disappointing to me, as I love to recreate realism in my simulated metropolises. I've recently been attempting to recreate Greater Scranton to see if I could create my own model city, but, alas Google Earth still doesn't have satellite imagery available for Northeastern Pennsylvania, so it's damn near impossible to complete this task.

For anyone interested in recreating real cities using SimCity 4, you should join the Simtropolis community online, where I've been following the progress of a recreation of Lincoln, NE using the building architect tool and Google Earth. I've become VERY impressed by just how closely the regional view and satellite imagery coincide. Stupid Google Earth and its anti-Scranton-ness! RAWR!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-11-2007, 12:05 PM
 
Location: Erie, PA
713 posts, read 1,865,978 times
Reputation: 180
It will happen soon. Actually, just a few weeks ago they updated Erie with high-resultion photos. I imagine they are working on cities of Scranton's size as we speak.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-12-2007, 03:47 PM
 
Location: the midwest
492 posts, read 2,372,151 times
Reputation: 282
Has anyone tried to recreate Pittsburgh on SimCity? Since graduating college, I've been underemployed and have spent lots of time playing SimCity. I created a map with geography very similar to Pittsburgh's. But I eventually got frustrated and quit the game because I couldn't get any commercial development in the "downtown" area. It just didn't look right with one-story shops and car dealerships where the skyscrapers should be...
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Pennsylvania > Pittsburgh

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:04 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top