Logic Mag: Model Metropolis

Logic Mag: Model Metropolis

Kevin T. Baker writes:

"In 1984, the developer Will Wright had just finished work on his first video game, a shoot-em-up called Raid on Bungeling Bay. In it, the player controls a helicopter dropping bombs on enemy targets on a series of islands. Wright was happy with the game, which was a commercial and critical success, but even after it was released, he continued tinkering with the terrain editor he had used to design Raid's levels. 'I found out,' Wright later told the Onion AV Club, 'that I was having a lot more fun doing that part than just playing the game and going around bombing stuff.' Enthralled by the islands he was making, Wright kept adding features to his level editor, adding complex elements like cars, people, and houses. He became fascinated with the idea of making these islands behave more like cities, and kept tinkering with ways to make the world 'come alive and be more dynamic.'

"Looking to understand how real cities worked, Wright came across a 1969 book by Jay Forrester called Urban Dynamics. Forrester was an electrical engineer who had launched a second career as an expert on computer simulation; Urban Dynamics deployed his simulation methodology to offer a controversial theory of how cities grew and declined. Wright used Forrester's theories to transform the cities he was designing in his level editor from static maps of buildings and roads into vibrant models of a growing metropolis. Eventually, Wright became convinced that his 'guinea-pig city' was an entertaining, open-ended video game. Released in 1989, the game became wildly popular, selling millions of copies, winning dozens of awards, and spawning an entire franchise of successors and dozens of imitators. It was called SimCity."

The latter half of the article is criticism of Forrester's model of urban development, which, writer Kevin Baker complains, encourages a more hands-off, non-interventionist approach to nurturing cities. The writer is offended by the idea that well-intentioned interventions can have the opposite of the desired effect, but anyone who compares the neighborhood-killing results of Great Society-era urban planning to the dynamism generated by neighborhoods created in a more laissez faire time will see that Forrester was closer to the truth. Mr. Baker prefers intuition leading to massive government subsidies and interventions.