Apie

In reply to Mcwesty2000 Thanks for all the information. I dont believe there is a typical European city plan(it was just a remark to provoke some replies), but i do think that there are some typical European structures. But I dont thank you for telling the story i wanted to tell . My idea for this topic was to try and relate the historical urban movements to simcity. I wanted to try to show how all these movements are a logical reaction to trends in society. And I believe that simcity simulates these historical trends somehow. As an example: My first layouts in simcity are kinda based on the Modern urban movement: seperated functions fed by an infrastructural framework. But as the game progresses I notice that there are problems which cant be solved with these principles. So I usually decide to mix functions and go for a more integrated solutions. (or postmodern, whatever that means) I have not yet expiremented with the closed building block vs the open block, but i will as soon the holiday starts. For anyone who's interested: I'll try to start working on a city journal so i can get some nice pics to go with the storyline. Cya

Date: 3/16/2005 5:32:00 PM Author: mirabella1934 So to make a point Do not compare European Cities with Americanquote> I didnt

Date: 3/16/2005 4:09:44 PM Author: thebestguy Ummmm that first map looks quite similar to what i did in Ring city you can see it in the link below in blue and tell me what you think about it........ I checked out <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Ringcity and really liked it! Over 7.000.000 inhabitants But I'd like to mention some differences between the garden city-concept and Ringcity. I made a scheme that, I hope, will illustrate what I mean. On the regional scale the urban areas all connect to eachother (an agglomeration). It looks like one big city in the regional scale. The garden cities were designed as satelite cities, meaning there was open space inbetween the cities. Another important difference is that the city centres were left open to create some kinda communal garden. This actually works quite nice in Simcity too. A well designed parkarea can boost surrounding landvalues. A nice example of an open central area is Central Park, Manhattan, which seems to work quite well . But with all the open spaces in the garden city-concept it will be pretty hard to get the same amount of inhabitants as you have in Ringcity. Good luck! Apie

In reply to uncrazypooper (nice name) I agree that (old) European cities were designed for slow traffic. This layout gave problems when these citycenters were crowded with cars. Building mayor roadways through the historical city centre would destroy ithe city's identity and was not an option. So public transport is vital to the historical centers of many European cities. This could this be like the first typical European city characteristic : 1. A city centre (mostly) undisturbed by car traffic. Maybe we can try to make a list of characteristics typical for a European city, so it will be easier to create a European city in simcity. So feel free to write down your thoughts on European cities here ! C ya

That's looking good! You're right it kinda looks like the gardencity-concept. Except for that this region has so many inhabitants and the garden city-idea was meant for small towns. This is beyond the garden city. Good Job!

I have a comment on Spenik's post. It seems like a (Yet another) good way to test how simcity deals with education. In order to get an old population I think you need to invest in health policies first. Coz if clinics are good, people wil get old. Old people breed a lot less than young people. So, I guess, this strategy will lead to an old (on average) population. Ever heard of the effects on the population when a short powercut happens? It is said it will create some kinda of babyboom(since there's no electricity, couples have just but one thing to do. ) A (big) babyboom can eventually result an aging population. For example: after WWII was over a lot of European couples decided to celebrate the victory by going to bed early . This resulted in a true babyboom. Nowadays this generation is getting old and makes the average age in a lot of western European countries growing higher. Also thanks to the good medical facilities off course. It is getting a real problem because there are not enough people to replace this generation. So what about the effects of a power failure (If this post is a bit off topic, i apologize) Anyways, good Luck, Apie

Thanks for the advice ... but I think its very hard to built just an European City. Especially because I think there is no such thing as an universal European city. If I look at the the cities you've mentioned I find that there are not many structural similiarities. Except for the fact that they are built on riverbanks, but you can hardly call rivers a typical European thing. Paris, for instance, is organized by monumental axes and I'm not sure about London but it seems to me that its growth has been somewhat unorganized. (I guess partly because of some German Bombers in WWII ) On the other hand, most American cities seem to me like they all use the same organizing principle: the grid. So for me its easier to understand how an American is layed out, but when u speak of European cities I'm not sure what u mean by that. So can you please explain what u find so typical about European cities. Thanks

Hello all, I'm kinda new here so I'm not sure if someone has already posted stuff like this. I've seen a lot of city building concepts on Simtropolis but I have not yet encountered any examples from the European urban planning practice from lets say 1900-now. I thought it could be interesting to show some examples of concepts which were actually used in the field of urban planning. I'll start at the beginning of the 20th century and maybe I'll add more stuff if you peeps like it. A bit of history: At the end of the 19th century the consequenses of the Industrial Revolution were noticable in the European cities: in a relatively short period small cities had doubled in number of inhabitants but the actual size (plan) of most cities had been unchanged for a long time. The rapid growth of inhabitants was caused by new (dirty) industries that created many jobs and a lot of farmers gave up their (poor) farming-life and moved to the cities. These cities were organized according to the monumental Renaissance principles (if ur interested in those principles, I suggest u read some stuff from an Italian guy named Vitruvius) and were not suited to cope with the problems that the Industrial Revolution (IR) had presented them. The new workforce overcrowded the cities and this caused enormous hygienic problems. The workforce located itself in the vincinity of the industries and as a result, the living areas were located around a central industrial zone. This city-layout wasn't planned at all, it was a result of uncontrolled growth. Eventually, the poor living conditions of the workingclass caused revolts in many European countries. The elite feared that the workingclass would become uncontrollable and wanted to ensure their own luxurious life by keeping the masses satisfied. They figured they needed a new way to house the working class to keep them satisfied and on the other hand keep them controlled. This meant no more overcrowded situations, because this made it hard to control the masses, and more green into the city to prevent unhygienic situations. Also sewerage systems and more clinics were part of the new ideals. This back-to-nature principle was first put into a concept by a guy named Ebenezer Howard. He stated that life in the industrialized cities was impossible and a new way of urban planning had to be used. Therefore he invented he system of satellite cities grouped around one central (main) city. It was called the Gardencity Ideal (I hope you will see a picture of it here below ) As you can see its a concept on a regional scale. And here's another one: https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//garden%20city2.gif align=baseline> I 'll put in another picture of the Garden City concept for the scale of a city. (again I hope it shows up somewhere in this story ) https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//garden%20city.gif align=baseline> Note that these pictures represent models and not real cities. It' s funny that although this concept has been very important in the future development of urban planning, it has been rarely used for new towns. There are a few towns in Great Britain which were built according to this concept, but I cant seem to remeber their names. If you wanna know more about those towns, I suggest u try google or maybe I'll remember them and post them later. EDIT: I found a garden city: Letchworth It's interesting to see that the central spaces arent used for buildings but are layed out as public gardens (doh) I'll continue soon with this topic and show the Cit

Hello all, I wanted to comment on your experiment on educational systems. Date: 3/7/2005 1:55:38 PM Author: simmax The experiment is over... Primary schools : ACT ON PEOPLE AGED 1 TO 40, mostly those 11 to 30. CONFIRMED BY A TEST : I added a hospital, the life expectancy went from 50 to 65, and there were more people older than 50 and less people 21 to 30. The primary school was less efficient : it lost 15% of its efficiency. High schools : ACT ON PEOPLE AGED 20 TO 60. Mostly those 30 to 40 - paradoxically. Universities : ACT ON PEOPLE ... OLDER THAN 40 !!!!! ANd the oldest, the more efficient! Libraries/museums cannot be tested because they do not provide enough knowledge... QUOTE] I find simcity a great piece simulation software and I think the game does a great job in simulating a lot of the complex processes involved in city building. Therefore I believe the game is trying to simulate all processes as correctly as possible. I think the game is simulating the educational process from our real society ( the real world) and that is pretty complex stuff. So please forgive me for saying that i have a serious doubt about your statements. I'll try to explain my point of view: When looking at a persons educational development it is important to notice that education is a slow process. Or in other words: the older one gets the smarter on gets (on the condition that this person gets the opportunity to stimulate his brain, off course) Another important thing about knowledge is that it tends to get lost when not being not used (its a continuous process). In other words: Theres a good chance that when u sit around the house all day, doing nothing but drinking gin, you wont be able to remember who won last years Super Bowl. Another thingy about knowledge is that it can be multiplied: 3 persons (with the same intelligence)know more than 1 individual. How on earth does this affect the game? I'm not sure but I have an idea. I'll try to show what i mean by taking a look at John Brown's life. First there is John Brown; a 4 year old boy in New City. New City was a city with a mayor who didnt care much about the educational opportunities of his citizens. As a result, John Brown (JB) couldn't go to a primary school ! This had an enormous effect on the life of JB since he could spell his name but couldn't read it afterwards. When JB was sixteen the first primary and High school were founded in New City. Finally! John had always wanted to go to high school. Problem was he had no education whatsoever(no continuity!). So after two harsh years on High school JB and all his illiterate friends were kicked out of High school and sent to primary school. A lot of his friends decided (no multiplication of knowledge!)it was no use going to primary school and tried to find a job in some dirty industrial plant. After a 12-year long struggle on the primary school he could finally go to High School... And when he finally got his Masters degree in Urban Planning he was 65 (pretty slow process, huh). He died age 66 because of a toe infection caused by a rats bite. (the mayor didn't care about the health of his citizins at all: no garbage disposal, water and clinics!) I hope this story illustrates the fact that it is not so easy to state that high schools mostly get used by 40 year-olds. If you go for a well educated city i suggest you start early with building a primary school and just as you get the first graduates of primary school build a high school. Take a look at the graphs education by age and population by age to see what facility serves the most citizins. If you see that your population consists out of illiterate seniors dont waste any money on them, just invest in the next generation. Libraries are cheap to maintain so built some as your population ages. And take care of health facilities you dont want your high educated sims to go dying on you now? (at least make sure you have garbage disposal, rats in the streets are not a pretty sight !) As for libraries and especially musea: they are mostly used by the higher educated. This means that it will only affect the overall educational level if you have some high educated citizens. Great topic Simmax!