Libertarian vs Socialistic gameplay

[aking88 7]

One thing that has bugged me about Simcity is that the only option as far as having a more libertarian city goes, has been low taxes. Other than that, you are pretty much forced to play a very socialistic approach, where you as a city, develope and decide pretty much everything.

Ive had an idea which ive touched upon in earlier posts, about how to add social variety to the simulation, and I have now concretized the idea. Altough I believe that most prioritize the technological aspects about the simulation, I think that this particular concept could be implemented rather easily and with benefit to gameplay and add strategical depth and variation. Offering the ability to take new approaches in ones city development.

Its a concept based on the idea of privately built civic buildings; power plants, ports, airports... a host of different things, which truly the municipality doesnt need to finance and tax the citizens in doing so, often in the real world, its developed by interests which use them. Or enterprises which run them. Now, this could be simulated in a rather easy way which I will demonstrate below, first the general concept and then with examples for seaports, powerplants etc.

The concerned civic services, which could be expanded to all apt projects, would have three alternative prices and ways of building it. Which could be either chosen when you build it, or it could be divided into three separate object, one for each approach (this is merely a technical realization concern).

Public - Subsidized - Private.

The public means that its publicly financed, by the city, the building/service is built the regular old simulator way... with full capacity, maintenance costs etc.

Subsidized means that you subsidize a private development, its privately ran... it has different pros and cons to do this depending on the service. They are outlined by a simulated, or maybe as il go into in the in depth part, very real contract, agreement for subsidizing it. The cost is 50% or less of the cost to publicly build it. And a one time cost.

Private is an option which simulates you as a city approving a private project. Meaning that, yes, you dont pay anything! However, this to has its pros and cons, and you would need to reach certain market/profitability demands to be able to do this.

A whole new approach to building cities would emerge. I will below demonstrate how these three price alternatives can be applied to not only civic buildings but even public transport that is privatized. Lastly, I will add some "in depth" ideas which are not needed but could be added, to show how much this concept can be further developed to enrichen both the social simulation but also the strategical possibilities in the game as far as finances goes.

Example one; A Seaport.

A public seaport is built by paying the full price and making available its full lease capacity to industries from day one.

A subsidized seaport can cost the city maybe 50% or so of its price. It would be owned by private enterprises. This leads to only a part of its capacity can be leased out publicly, as a large chunk of it is permanently occupied by the enterprise which built it.  It can be 50% or whatever. There are no maintenance costs for the city. And the finances saved can be used for lower taxes to attract businesses. But as with all privately built projects, you cannot bulldoze it without first buying it... rules for that will be outlined in the general rules title after the specific examples and apply to all privately owned services, which then, you cannot bulldoze but have to buy first, the conditions for buying it are outlined in the general rules.

A private seaport, given that you meet a certain demand, a trigger, have a certain industrial capacity/production in your city for example. You can approve a private seaport to be built at no cost of you. The capacity would be substantially lower, randomized between 5-30 percent of its full capcacity available for public lease... meaning that its in a way a gamble. The seaport gives the ususal boosts to the industry in your city like a public would. In the in depth part, il show how this could be improved further... the private seaport cannot be bulldozed since its private owned as well, and you need to buy it first. The conditions on which to acquire it publicly are outlined in the general rules further down...

Example two, A Powerplant

A public powerplant is built and managed by public funds, you control the production and thus electricity/energy prices. On a sidenote want to add that electricity and water prices I think should be measured in a data center in the game just like taxes, because it effects how attractive your city is.

A subsidized powerplant is again cheaper, you only pay for a certain percentage of its full construction cost. The only negative part is that you cannot bulldoze it. And i will show, again, in general rules, that its not all that easy to buy them back...

A private powerplant is privately financed and once built, again you cannot demolish it without acquiring it which can be quite expensive... or not so if you are lucky, as outlined in the general rules where the rules for acquiring private services are outlined. Other than that I can think of no cons... other than pollution of course, youd have to acquire it to get rid of it...

Example three, Public Transport

Private public transport, isnt that an oxymoron? No, why not, there are plenty of them. Here is how it could work in CXL..

Public - The usual, you build it and have full control of it.

Subsidized - You subsidize it and the maintenance cost get lower

Private - Its privately financed, you dont pay for it, but you can not demolish it without acuiring it. Maybe there could be a rerouting option, where you could demolish it and built a new route in an area within a certain radius of the original structure, without having to buy it. It would stay private but youd finance the restructuring.

GENERAL RULES

The price for acquiring privately run services to free public capacity or demolish the structures, depends on its profitability. For example with a powerplant, the higher the used electricity in the city, or the higher the population, the more expensive it will get to acquire it from the private hands.

Further enhancements

The concept could be improved further by connecting certain private enterprises in your city with the services. For example with the seaport, a certain industry in your city would be the owner and tracked as it. It would get an attribute boost of a certain percentage and attract complementary/like wise industries. Simply, the owner could be specified.

This would all allow for two different financial/social approaches, being able to as a city trust the private sector to handle these things, or deal with it by municipal costs and means. The technical implementation simply consists of three price option. With the private being available if you have a certain thing demanded in your city.

[monomaniaman 0]

I love this idea personally.

many folks probly just want their simple and fun computer game but I would love to see city-building games take a turn toward realism like this.  I'm an urban planning major and i only wish that this type of thing could one day be respectable instead of just a game for the average joe.

[aking88 7]

monomaniaman

I agree with you.

Why should the city municipality finance these things, thats not the way it works in reality, and certainly not in a free society the way I see it, so its a matter of realism.

I know that I wrote a quite a bit in the post, but its really relatively simple to implement as an idea. The technicalities can always be tweaked.

[Hahayoudied 3]

I love this type of idea, but it would be a bit hard to program, and hard on the people new to the game...

[aking88 7]

^

Thanks for the input.

They need to make three price options and have them affect the outcoming lots capacity, costs etc. I doubt its much harder than any of the other things they do for the simulator.

As far as using it its not very hard, just select one or the other way to do the project...

[stratusmonkey 0]

First. I can think of two modes of subsidization: Capital subsidization - city pays to build the facility but not operate it. New sports stadiums and convention centers are built on this model, as are some utility contracts. Operational subsidy - city can establish the facility at no cost to them, but wholly or partly pays to operte it. Some parks, schools and museums are built on land grants. Some utility services are contracted out to private sector providers.

Second, what's the point of setting it up so some services are provided by the private sector, some are provided by the public sector, and some are publicly subsidized if the player can't decide which is which? You're still creating a game where the publisher decides which services are privatized and which are nationalized, and their choices may not reflect the way things are done in your country / community.

Third, it's been borne out in interviews that SimCity developers aren't out to push an agenda -- that certain services should be privately run and certain others should be publicly run. The goal was to put features driving and limiting city growth in players' control. No two American cities have the exact same utility setup. Water may be contracted out, electricity may be city-provided and garbage may be wholly privatized, or vice versa. A city that operates a free clinic may have no public hospital, or vice versa. But if the developer is going to decree that the availability of certain services drive or constrain how your city grows, leaving the provision of those services up to chance (i.e. the simulator engine) would be unsatisfying.

Imagine if your farm town becomes overrun with R$$$ because a plastic surgery clinic grew to satisfy pent up CO$$$ demand, or your skyscraper metropolis imploded because the doctor's office suffers from a long commute time. Sure, less extreme forms of this behavior happen all the time in America. But there comes a point when adding economic realism suffers from diminishing returns.

[aking88 7]

They as developers wouldnt decide which should be and shouldnt be private, but rather you would in game. So the player would decide that.

As for your technical concerns, these private services would depend on your city growth and conditions in the first place, to be able to be developed. Which means that the different services cant develope out of nowhere and create unrealistic conditions. Ultimately, you would have to approve the development of services as a city, so you would indeed control it. It would just be a different approach than to finance it and control the service completely.

So, basically, just because you have offers to have a hospital, seaport or anything else developed by private interests, which would trigger the option, doesnt mean you need to make use of that if you dont want it in the city.

I did not imply that the developers would have an agenda, im just suggesting how these options could be expanded.

[blobbdobb 0]

Why is everyone here so right wing?

I live in a country where all the services are paid for through taxation and I think it makes us More free than what most of us view as "evil capitalists". Seriously though, in America there are people who die with cancer because they can't afford the treatment. There are people who are on the streets because of unemployment and they aren't even guaranteed emergency accomodation! In America some kinds get better educations than others, simply because they are wealthier.

Freedoms and Rights come hand in hand. The UN and EU both make it clear that people have the right to health and education, in a society were some people cannot afford that, they don't get those rights.

Also, for all that I live in  Socialist state that is supposedly "not liberal" gay marriage is legal. But in the "wonderful freedom of america" it is illegal?

Anyway, asides from politics I do think that there should be options between building private schools (which don't cost you money, but only provide education to a few people in society) and state schools (which cost you money, but provide education to everyone)

[Urban23 0]

Originally posted by: aking88 They as developers wouldnt decide which should be and shouldnt be private, but rather you would in game. So the player would decide that.

As for your technical concerns, these private services would depend on your city growth and conditions in the first place, to be able to be developed. Which means that the different services cant develope out of nowhere and create unrealistic conditions. Ultimately, you would have to approve the development of services as a city, so you would indeed control it. It would just be a different approach than to finance it and control the service completely.

So, basically, just because you have offers to have a hospital, seaport or anything else developed by private interests, which would trigger the option, doesnt mean you need to make use of that if you dont want it in the city.

I did not imply that the developers would have an agenda, im just suggesting how these options could be expanded.quote>

I think the major problem would be the user actively selecting which of the three routes they would like to take in financing their buildings, rather than this system's actual implementation, which appears to be fairly simple. It would be time consuming and as this is a large scale simulation game players would frustrate over all the little details. Look, in the ideal, your idea is excellent. Just remember that this is still a game designed "more than less" for the generally perceived face of entertainment. If it were marketed to you and me, well, we would naturally be intrigued by every minute detail, because that's the way we are.  If your system were entirely simulated, however, that would be another story...

If you, the user, were simply the Urban Planning Adviser to the Mayor, then you could deal with these issues, while the politics of financing are dealt with either a random generator (the Mayor), or based on a whole range of economic issues and variables, such as industrial capacity, markets for a private sector, i.e. citizens with a leaning towards private education, being either wealthy or politically motived (an attribute of a number of factors, including wealth and a sense of community), for example.

It would be interesting though to see hugely subsidized government industries compete against local, private interests. It would be funny to see a large private agricultural industry get utterly crushed by the government that supposedly values the livelihood of their working citizenry in one big sweep. Or, alternatively, see how the subsidized industry even holds up against a well connected private sector, depending on the economics of the city.

[hamsterTK 93]

I dunno, dealing with all that would take the fun out of the game to me.

Part of the appeal of simcity/cities xl is that you can just build whatever you feel like and your citizens must obey. Real world urban planning is so frustrating at times.

But thats my opinion. Those are good ideas actually, a few of them would work.

[Deep Thought 0]

I think you should be able to put the taxes on 100%, so that the citizens get free food, clothing, shelter, medecine and luxury stuff. This is just my opinion, call me a commie or something. I know you're going to post this picture as response:

quote>

[billyjeanboyke 0]

Private basic services are not the way to go, so for me this should stay out of the game.

I live in Belgium(verry high taxes and social security fees).Healtcare is fully subsidised in our country, everybody has acces to it. Basic healt insurance is forced by law in our country and provided by 4 state services libiral, socialist, christian and independant (these are linked to the unions) wich you have to inlist in once you start working and pay a yearly fee for. Additional insurances can be chosen freely upon this cuts down costs even more, so healtcare becomes very cheap as to cheap. The maximum cost's of treatments are regulated by state as are the honoraria (fee) for the docter's services this aplies for twin bed rooms. Iff you opt for a Single bed room that honoraria can be chosen frealy by the doctor to a sertain max amount. This is basicly where the second insurance comes in, single room for the price of a double or a double for an even lower price. there are no wards( 3-4-6-8-... beds) in our country, exept for when you don't have to spend the night. There are no waitinglist's for treatments, exept organ transplants but that's to do with lack of organs like in any country exept possebly China. We even take on English and Dutch patients as to releave some of the presure on waitinglist's in ther countries (half subsidised). When I go to the docter/gp for a check up or so it cost's working people(me) and high pension's like 4 euro's Handicap and low pensions 1.5 euro's Same aplies for the farmasist when you need medicine you pay a small fee as to discourage unnessesary use. Fee depends on the category your in and iff you have a prescription or not. Healtcare has many more variables then just full, half or no subsidies. In Game for me Private would mean poor income gets excluded from care from these facilities or les money could be spend elswhere so comercial demand should fall or less money could go to leisure resulting in depressed unhappy citizens. Either way as a city you lose, creating social getto's. You talk about lowering taxes getting more high payed jobs in, but will you be able to lower them iff you have to spend more one Police as for crime will rise, fire departments as for arcenies. Lets ad Vandalisme to the game as wel, repairing or replacing property destroyed out of being bored or frustration because low incomes have less acces to leisure and in game this would mean a surplus cost to the city rich people won't move in unless it's safe, clean and well maintained infrasturcture. Ad an other option where you can chose to repair vandalisme in medium and high class zones and leave the poor as it is as to save some of them taxes for accelerating growth. Lower acces to healtcare means lower life expectancy again for lower classes, save some money on pensions. Maybe you'll win there.

As for schools we have a choice out of catholic or state schools both fully funded by state the differince lies in in the choise of religious lessons or not in state or mandatory religious in Catholic. Schools are gouvernt by the cultural/language groups in our country (Dutch-,French-,Germanspeaking) They deside on the courses and so. Schools with high groups of low incomes or religious minoroties (mostly state) get surplus funding based on the amount of students in that catogory, to prevent "Gettoschools" from forming and to insure the same level of quality in al schools. As we are free of choice of school not bound to city or district borders or Cultural groups, so schools not performing wel, lose students, lose income, shut down. This sistem works verry fine and private schools are virtually non existant in our country exept for muslim and expat schools. So why should I want that option in the game? Realisme? We only have a few and the system works. In Game iff you would chose for private shools this works with the radius thingy in the game as you could reserve them for richer neigbourhouds and save some taxes, But With the getto's in place due to exclusion from healtcare, more money schould be derived to these shools as to prevent dropouts adding and adding to the poor class. So again would you make a profit there, or will you need to start raising instead.

Public Transport Is also subsidized to a verry high amount in our country to insure a basic service for less dense regions where buslines outside main routes linking cities and vilages are not profitible, this impliments that because all is subsidized no one should walk more than 200 meters to the nearest bus stop. So we have callbusses they pick people up at stops outside routes and can drop them off to the nearest bus/trainstation stop on a main line when they want to travel outside the callbus it's district or any stop by choice in the district. No one is left out, as to private operated public transport would mean only the proffitable lines and citylines would remain or if basic services are requiered by the state people outside these profitzones would pay high fares or the whole network would have high fares resulting in the low incomes being derived of this I see basic right. Again less money to spend for lower incomes, same problems,

For Electricity in our country this was untill a few years provided by a state compagny, for reasenable prices. Some stupid comissionairies influenced by lobbyists and countries with a private market as to electricity opted for opening of the markets in the euro union. Resulting in a open private market for electricity and for our country a warning and a possible huge fine from Europe for the strong state monopoly as to not letting foreign players enter the market. Our gouvernment sold 51% of its shares to a French group making the state electricity private. An open market with competition resulted in our country for a huge rise in the cost of electricity for the people as to before, falsly rising prices because of high oil prices even tough many comes from nucliar plants. This private service does us no good and eats away at our budget.

And I can go one like this for garbadge, water, postal services, Iff you want these choices in your game Full Half None, be prepared to take on the many problems an frustrations that come with these especialy with the private no funding. This will lead in los of fun playing the game and make you go back to simc4 because it was o so easy to play.

These choices come with way to many variables, the manual that comes with the game might as well be the size of a phonebook and would you then still be intrested in playing.

[EnigmaticUK 1]

Originally posted by: aking88 They as developers wouldnt decide which should be and shouldnt be private, but rather you would in game. So the player would decide that.

As for your technical concerns, these private services would depend on your city growth and conditions in the first place, to be able to be developed. Which means that the different services cant develope out of nowhere and create unrealistic conditions. Ultimately, you would have to approve the development of services as a city, so you would indeed control it. It would just be a different approach than to finance it and control the service completely.

So, basically, just because you have offers to have a hospital, seaport or anything else developed by private interests, which would trigger the option, doesnt mean you need to make use of that if you dont want it in the city.

I did not imply that the developers would have an agenda, im just suggesting how these options could be expanded.quote>

The basic idea is good, but you're missing the most important downside to private sector development - the inaccessibility of services provided to those who can't or won't pay. In game this would be represented by 10%+ of the population performing very poorly on whatever health/education/satisfaction indicators the developers choose to put in, and possibly a few placard wavers outside the buildings.

In pratice, the parameters the developers choose to set for public/private services will have a pretty big impact on usual player choices, even if the choice is left entirely down to the player. Make it easy to build big cities by using the private sector's deep pockets and few gamers will take the public sector route. On the other hand if pockets of poverty lead to unmanageable social breakdown then gamers will prefer public provision.

Even if the developers don't have an agenda they might end up implicitly pushing one.

For example in Simcity there was always an implicit assumption that $$$ > $$ > $ and therefore mayors should strive to maximise the number of sims from the former social group an minimise the number in the latter, at least for the showpiece cities.

The normal way to this would be to set tax rates much lower for $$$ sims than $. Therefore the game design essentially favoured a regressive tax system (aka the worst idea ever). Only in a US designed game...

City Life, of course, infamously favours social segregation as the only means to social cohesion

[TimeMaster 4]

This is a cool idea....hmmm....I think you should be able to choose a goverment type.

-Time

[Camlon 50]

No, you shouldn't choose a type og government beforhand. No, how you play should affect what type og government you get.

I think it would be very cool, because I want a simulation game that is realistic. Well, let's say a family is earning 25000 and they has to pay for services. They are getting 12000 in income and property tax because you want more money, they have to pay 3000 for their car + insurance, and they have to pay 3000 for their house and 4000 for their food. They have 4 children, and they have send the two youngest out to woek and the rest is attending private school, which costs 6000. The kids are earning 2500 each. In the end they will have 2000 left and they will probably use 1000 for medical/dental care and save 1000. They will only attract busniss for 13000. While a rich person who is earning 150K and getting 70K in taxes will attract 150K-70K -savings of busniss. If you increase the taxes then they will attract less busniss without using the taxes and if you decrease the taxes then you would attract more busniss.

Well, the kids will not get a very good education and not very good health care. If the taxes were lower, then they would have more money and could get a much better health care and school system. What would be even more effective would be to make some public schools, and they could attend that and have much better health care and education. Their children would also earn more money than their parants, and you will see that the city is getting richer in the long run. However, public school system costs money and you have to get money from somewhere. If you take from the poor, then you could tax them out of city and this would in turn hurt business because business need both poor and rich workers, which then would hurt the rest of the residents because the business moves out. If you take from the middle and upper class, then you would hurt busniess because they can't use that much and the rich people can also easialy move out.

I think it's much better system than SC4 where they just move out if the taxes are too high. If the system becomes a close approximation to reality, then it's not supporting a system anymore. However, some people might think it is because when they are having all private, then their city ends up beeing crap and the same would happend if everything is public, because you have to have very high taxes to be able to do that. This in turns make the rich people move out and clearly hurt business and you will end up not beeing able to afford neccecary needs.

This system would work very well with the tag system. You would say that in this area, then they can build houses, schools, libaries, mueums and health care facilities. Then the schools will pop up where there is demand for it. Or you can say it's not possible and you put up the schools yourself. For instance if you have a tiny city with only small houses, them the schools will be small and spread apart. If you have a huge city where most of your buildings is 30-40 floors high, then you will get huge schools severall places for different income classes.

I would also love to see more than 3 economacy classes. For instance they could have 10 classes, where the poorest people live in shanties and the richest live in palaces.

billyjeanboyke: Well, if you think the socialict is the way to go, then have a lot of public services. However, some may think that mostly private is the way to go, and he will build a city with private services. There are in reality disadvantages on both systems. However, I don't think we should keep the private option out because you don't like it.

[aking88 7]

This thread was not started for a discussion or debate about society in general, but about an idea to have a choice. I think that when all is said and done giving the national state power will make things more expensive and waste resources, not to mention its dangerous by nature. Local social systems is a different issue. But thats all neither here nor there .

[Camlon 50]

aking88. From what I have seen, no one has really debated society in general. Everyone has been on-topic even billyjeanboyke who said that there would be a problem that public system would always work best. I told him why it wasn't like that. However, I do sdisagree with you. i don't think the difference is that Government will waste resources. What kind of assumption is that when in real world there has been severall examples of that not happeniing. I and EnigmaticUK have said the downside allready. If you believe that's not the major downside, then tell why.

[duack 14]

Monte Cristo said that the game is going to have a global feel to it, like industry in one city will affect the economy in another city. For this reason i guess it would have sort of a free trade society

[Motina 77]

The opposite of libertarianism is not socialism, it is statism. I would really like the U.S. Libertarian Party to die for it misrepresentation of individualism.

Socialism can be bottom up - this would be more libertarian. That would mean smaller government of communities, or if it viable, cities. These are individuals working together.

Socialism can be top down - this would be statism. That would mean growing global government. there would be tax rates rates. The cities would receive the money from big brother.. I mean government. This would be a conformist system, people are forced.

[WillR116 60]

This is something I never realised, I've been a commy, no I have nothing against Communist believing people. Especially since I'm a libertarian, I declare myself to the U.S. Liberarian party and also I think this would be the best thing for the game, as in having libertarian qualities.

[rollenkingston 0]

Interesting ideas. I'd like some developer input in this thread. I doubt this game will play this intellectually but I ideally I would like to have both options. It would vary gameplay and increase the replay value of the game.

[Wyn 0]

As I see it, there are the three main types of service that the city offers in any SimCity game.

There's the police force, the firefighting force, and the health services.

Suggesting that because a private firm is more efficient than the government, said private firm should perform firefighting or policing is ludicrous. After all, if you didn't pay your crime insurance, would they let you be robbed - even if you were in plain sight of these private cops? What about fire insurance? If you didn't pay your fire insurance, would they let your house burn, but put out any flames that jump to your neighbours' house (that is, assuming they paid their insurance)?

This whole 'libertarian' thing is perhaps not the best thought-out idea.

[Flumes 3]

Would love to see more options as far as this goes....

SC4 wasn't good for us free-market believers......... (Ron Paul 2012!)

[Flumes 3]

Originally posted by: bodbolb Why is everyone here so right wing?

I live in a country where all the services are paid for through taxation and I think it makes us More free than what most of us view as "evil capitalists". Seriously though, in America there are people who die with cancer because they can't afford the treatment. There are people who are on the streets because of unemployment and they aren't even guaranteed emergency accomodation! In America some kinds get better educations than others, simply because they are wealthier.quote>

 

Those are some seriously off views of America.

I'm not going to debate you on the advantages of a free market economy, but you should at least get the facts straight before you claim people are dying on the streets from poverty here in America.

I will leave you with a "well known" phrase...  "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." 

[JanYpe 17]

Simtropolis rules say:

11.  Religion and Politics.  Discussion concerning religion or politics is only permitted in designated threads in the General Off Topic and Current Events forums.   Discussion must be about the issues, not each other.

quote>

This section of the forum is for discussing things related to Cities XL, not the respective merits of political views.

[Lukfi 3]

Seaports, airports and such could be private/subsidized. Power plants and mass transit should remain public (city-owned and funded). You can't have two companies producing electricity and competing with each other, it's always a monopoly. If it's a private company, it wants to keep the prices as high as possible. Mass transit needs at least central planning, otherwise the network would be pretty much useless. If you want to build, say, an elevated railway, the city has to fund it, because several private companies will never have enough money.

[tepodon 29]

The basis of sc4 is socialist, i mean theres so much plopping everywhere. If there were a strictly lasiezfaire city building game than you'd end up having a game with basic government functions in a city like the police, then you'd just have to kinda encourage businesses to come to ur city... thats not such a bad game, probably really easy to make too. i wouldnt demand much out of it, it would an equivalent of solitare for me though.

[toxicpiano 125]

Originally posted by: Hahayoudied I love this type of idea, but it would be a bit hard to program, and hard on the people new to the game...quote>

Good job monte cristo pay professional programmers then isn't it?

[Lampala 1]

Just because someone likes the possibility of this new way of playing doesn't mean they are right-wing. But I like this idea, sort of. It would make you more unique as a mayor, but it might get too in-depth for someone who just came by and picked the game up because it looked cool (and I'm sure there will be many of these people because the game already looks cool). Monte Cristo's target audience can't be limited to experienced city-builders. Another downside is that if this idea wasn't implemented properly, the private option could be used as a moneymaking cheat. Plus, they have to make it so that if you use private funding, it is advantageous to lower taxes and if you use public, you must raise the taxes. (private + higher taxes = unrealistic and vice versa) Of course you could, with good planning, use public with lower taxes. By the way, there's no US Libertarian Party.

[Camlon 50]

Just because someone likes the possibility of this new way of playing doesn't mean they are right-wing. But I like this idea, sort of. It would make you more unique as a mayor, but it might get too in-depth for someone who just came by and picked the game up because it looked cool (and I'm sure there will be many of these people because the game already looks cool). Monte Cristo's target audience can't be limited to experienced city-builders. Another downside is that if this idea wasn't implemented properly, the private option could be used as a moneymaking cheat. Plus, they have to make it so that if you use private funding, it is advantageous to lower taxes and if you use public, you must raise the taxes. (private + higher taxes = unrealistic and vice versa) Of course you could, with good planning, use public with lower taxes. By the way, there's no US Libertarian Party. 

Absolutly, I agree. However, I think the way to make it is to make the standard poor, middle and rich resident. For instance a poor family will earn 25000 dollar per year and have 3 children. Then you can set 10000 to taxes, and they will have 10000 for food, clothes, etc. They will now have 5000 left, which won't be enough to send all of the kids to school if everything is private. hence, they will make 2 kids work and get 5000 per year, and let the remaining kid go to school with a cost of 8000 per year. The rest, they will use to medical care. Now, we absolutly see the limitations of private enteprise. Yes, it doesn't cost that much, but it means that many people won't be able to get basic services. 

Now for a rich familiy who may earn 200,000 dollar per year and have 2 kids. They will have 50,000 in taxes, then they have school for 50,000 dollar. Health care for 20,000 dollar. The remaining 80,000 they will use for business and of course they will attract a huge amount of business. 

I don't know if it's possible to program this, but it is possible to organize it in a system so they don't need to deal with each individual family. What I feel is frustrating about sim city games is that they don't make sense. You are just doing stuff that you hope will improve the situation. I would love to get a sytem that actually made sense.