obliq

If it wasn't ground zero for the end of the world, I would live in New York City. If it wasn't returned to totalitarian China, I would live in Hong Kong. If it wasn't a crime-infested pit of gang warfare, I would live in Rio de Janeiro. I would probably live in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Cardiff (Wales), York (England), Zurich (Switzerland), Tokyo (Japan), Venice (Italy), Cadiz (Spain), Toronto (Canada), or Sydney (Australia). It is interesting that no one thinks of Africa when it comes to world-class cities (or at all). Or even the Middle East. Certainly parts of South Africa are jewels in the mud (and many parts are not). For the poster child of why Africa is often forgotten, I recommend looking at satellite imagry on Google Maps of Monrovia, Liberia. Very enlightening.

Hmm... I'm not sure I buy their little study, but it is an interesting excerise all the same and one with merit. I tried something similar because I was curious about the usage of space. I was looking at satellite imagry of Spokane, Washington and read a bit about the area. The eastern suburbs were incorporated into their own municipality called Spokane Valley. Judging by the streets Spokane Valley appears to be nearly the same size as Spokane (by area) yet has a lower density of streets indicating a much smaller population. This prompted me to see the difference between how a European city compared in area to an American city with nearly equal population. I chose Torino, Italy and Phoenix, Arizona (proper without the surrounding communities). Unfortunately, I couldn't get a match in the scale between the two photographs.

Originally posted by: sloppet Well.. we have something that is an imitation of a highway.. It's the best pic I could find... But ask anyone if there is a highway in Poland, he will answe your question with "NO" quote> That's...umm... Reminds of Oklahoma in the United States only the lines on your highway actually have a fresh coat of paint. That's the one thing I notice about highways in most of the pictures from Europe: the lines always look freshly painted. That would be a luxury in most of the United States (if you can even see what's left of the lines at all).

I have a problem with the ramp concept. As dirt is piled on the weight of successive layers would hold the lower layers in place, but the angle of the pyramids is too steep for a dirt ramp spiraled around the pyramid to hold. It would slough at the edges of the ramps and down to the ground (watch a dump truck dump its load sometime). They could have applied water to the faces of the ramps and let it bake in the sun, but I doubt that would've held. Twenty-ton blocks of limestone or seventy-ton blocks of red granite would sink into the dirt ramp as they are dragged along. Also one block would have to be dragged to the top of the ramp by the end of the day or left on a level landing. Otherwise it would settle overnight into the dirt or slide off the ramp. Who wants to come out the next day and find a twenty-ton block at the bottom of the pyramid only to have to drag it back up two-hundred feet of ramp? The site at Giza was prepared for the pyramids. All the top soil down to the bedrock was removed and the site was leveled. This prevents settling in the structure by placing it on something solid and immobile. My hypothesis is that ramps were not used in the construction of the pyramids. I would say the concept of levers or leverage was used. Not actual levers, but the concept. A placed block might have been used as a fulcrum to a moving block as a lever. The moving block might have been pulled up each successive level of placed blocks and then nudged into place, all using nothing more than ropes possibly. Another possiblity I came up with was something I saw a couple of movers do when they were moving my four-hundred pound washer and dryer. Straps were threaded under the machine. The straps had loops at the end which the movers put their arms through. Using their legs with the weight of the machine distributed between four shoulders, they lifted the machine with little effort. It would be possible to drag a block into a staging area positiioned over ruts in the ground so that rope could be threaded underneath it. Two equal teams of men on either side of the block would take the rope over their shoulders and stand up possibly lifting the block. Drivers would be needed to coordinate and direct the teams. It's all really difficult to say because there is no written record of how the Great Pyramids were built. We can only guess.

What happened to just using some creativity and making names totally up? Like... Vent, Milini, Ulisber, Valisintia, Hostiop, Bogen, etc. Just make up words. I could go on forever making words up. Most of the words I just pulled out of nowhere would make excellent city names. Hmmm... Valisintia sounds like a beautiful name for a sprawling farm region. I think I'll use that.quote> I certainly concur with Fanaza. I provided real world examples previously simply as a starting point. I wouldn't recommend anyone call their city Amsterdam. But, if you were to create a region with a river through it named...oh, pull something out my hat...Wibble, put a bridge across it and the town at that point could be called Wibblebridge, Wibbleford, or Wibblemouth. Go a little further and say that the name used by foreigners who find Wibblebridge a bit of a tongue twister (like Amsteldam [not a mispelling, the original name of the city]) becomes Wibbleridge or Wybridge when they say it. Put a little effort into naming your cities and regions. Be creative. Don't be afraid to be a bit funny now and then. Also, try not to use anything from other video games. It tends to sound derivative, unoriginal, and depending on the city, silly (Racoon City, anyone?)

Orlando, Florida... I don't live there so I am probably writing out of turn, but this is what I observe. Orlando Proper is only about 115,000 people. A small city. The metropolitan area is topping about 850,000. Most of the people live in the county. Being a major tourist destination, Orlando was in dire need of limited-access highways around and through town. I guess they couldn't get the money from the federal government because every single one of them (except I-4) is a toll highway. There are now plans in the works for two more toll highways to the coast and an "upgrade" of a state highway to collect tolls. Despite the fact that I-4 receives federal funding, Orlando wants to implement a toll on the only FREEway in the area. Orlando Proper does not have the tax base to support several limited-access highways and it looks like the county and other communities around the city aren't pulling their weight either.

Y City, Arkansas I've been there. Just as small as its name is short. Its called Y City because there is a "Y" branch where the highway diverges. About the only thing I remember there is a diner and some homes. Some other strange names of towns in Arkansas. Some don't appear on maps. The town is either too small or has unincorporated. I know them because I grew up there. Figure Five Natural Dam Pencil Bluff Fifty-Six Ben Hur Deer Oark Ozone Little Rock Flippin Moko Three Brothers Cross Roads Social Hill Board Camp Umpire Overcup Pea Ridge Romance Possum Grape A town decided to honor a football player on his retirement and changed its name to Joe, Montana. A town in New Mexico changed its name to Truth or Consequences (it was a game show in the 1950's). Some real world examples for inspiration: Amsterdam (a dam on the Amstel River) Innsbruck (bridge over the Inn River) Salzburg (means "salt fortress"; there is a major salt deposit nearby) Lyon (means "lion") Little Rock (it is said there was a small rock protrusion along the Arkansas River) Fischbach (means "fountain of fish" ???*****???) Bath (the city was named for the mineral springs abundant in the area; it was originally a Roman colony town with an extensive Roman bathhouse) Nottingham (comes from a Saxon phrase, Snotenagham meaning "place of dens") Cambridge (bridge across the Cam River) Dublin (from dubh "black" and llyn "pool" or "marsh"; founded on a marsh with dark or nearly black water) Hot Springs (located near hot water springs) Vienna (named after those little sausages [okay, that was a joke]) Sucre (means "sugar") Buenos Aires (means "fair winds") Monrovia (named for James Monroe) Delhi (one source claims it comes from the persian word dahleez meaning "threshold" or "frontier") As for my city Apve (awp-vay): I created some rudamentary ruleset for an alien language (my city was originally going to be a science fiction journal). Apve (the city) is situated on the Apve River. The apvim (awp-veem) were mythical animals that ate their way out of Pealaku's (peh-yaw-law-khoo) belly. She played a foul trick on Beinin (beh-yee-neen), the pagan god of gullability. She grabbed his nose and pulled claiming that she had taken it. Once he discovered the ruse, he tricked Pealaku into eating an apvim egg making her believe it was a magic pearl that would turn her into a supermodel. She ate the egg and within days the little creatures ate their way out of her stomach. Beinin laughed 'till he cried creating the Beinin lagoon which created the Pealaku and Apve rivers. He cried so much the rivers eventually broke through the barrier island and flowed out to sea.

I have to agree with several people. Using real place names like New York, Tokyo, or Paris can in a small way influence you. There are fourty-eight Springfields in the United States and they're all as pedestrian as their name. But there is only one Rio de Janiero [sp?]. There is something special about the names that cities have. I doubt a town called Oil Trough (yes, folks, its a real town in Arkansas) could ever reach a population of one million or be a national transportation hub. Then again, The city of (take a deep breath) Krungthep Maha Nakorn Amarn Rattanakosindra Mahindrayudhya Mahadilokpop Noparantana Rajdhani Mahasathan Amorn Piman Avatarn Satit Sakkatultiya Vishnukarn Prasit somehow became a major economic powerhouse of the world, a popular tourist destination, and a millionaire city. For the rest of the world, we can just call it Bangkok. It's important to not just name your city but to also name the features of your terrain. Cities (outside the United States) often receive there names from the site such as Plymouth (the city at the mouth of the Ply river). Paris is dereived from the latin name for the celtic tribe in the region, the Parisii. Kyoto means eastern capital while Tokyo means western capital. Nice (in France) was named after a the greek goddess Nike. Athens also was named after a goddess, Athena. Berlin is german for little bear. Bern (in Switzerland) just means bear. Frankfurt is german for French fort. Koln (in Germany) is a bastardization of the Roman word for colony. In the United States, many names were bastardized from the place names given by indigenous people. But most names are derived either from a town founder, or the guy that just owned the farm where the town was built. A small town in Missouri was set to incorporate but it couldn't use the name it had for the community because that name was already taken by another town in the state. So when asked by the state what they wanted the town founders, unable to think of anything, said, "We don't care as long as it's something peculiar." And thus was born Peculiar, Missouri.

The City of Apve Mods: NAM, Hole-digger lots, Peg Trail Parks, Peg CDK Industrial, PEG CDK Canals and Stream Kit, Marrast Embankments Cheats: weaknesspays I tug on my jacket nervously during the bus ride to work. Today is my first day on the job as city manager for the City of Apve. Today is my first day on the job--as a city manager. For years I worked in other municipalities as a city planner, mostly for small cities, many of which still had their fortifications intact. Apve though is the big time. The chance for me to either prove myself, or to crash and burn. Apve is a beautiful old city that has been flush with cash for most of its nearly 800-year history. It sits near the ocean along the small Apve River. Early in its history a relief channel was dug for flood control and defense against invading armies. Also a large channel was dug for an inland harbor. Trade was the primary business of the city, but much of that activity has dropped off as shipping routes have moved to more lucrative markets. Despite its beauty, active nightlife, and low crime, the city is not without its problems. Mismanagement has yeilded an out-of-control budget and the harbor is horribly polluted. The city can no longer support many of the services it has provided in the past. First, an overview of the city. Apve like many other cities in the country had a dense city center with a confusing arrangement of streets suited more for walking rather than driving. The previous city manager implemented an ambitious project that gutted all the streets from the city center in favor of pedestrian plazas and streets. This allowed more land to be used for commercial development. The harbor, however, is horribly polluted. The water is foul and rank. In my briefing I have been informed that on some days the odor is so bad that the city enforces work cessation in the bordering industrial sectors. There are two large piers, both of which are underutilized. There is also a massive train yard along the south bank that sits mostly unused. There is very negligable freight traffic and a modicum of passenger traffic. I have a lot of work ahead of me. It is ambitious of me to make any proposals at this stage, but I walk into work with a presentation package under my arm. I plan to decommission and demolish Pier No. 1 on the north bank of the harbor in addition all the industrial development in the sector. I want to turn the entire island into an upscale residential development with an office park. Also I have plans to clean up the industrial sector on the south bank. I want to demolish the trainyard retaining the mainline and discontinuing passenger rail service. My plan also involves developing wide boulevard along the south edge of the industrial sector. Dense residential along the south side of the boulevard, dense commercial along the north side to act as a buffer to the industrial sector in the north. It is probably career suicide to present two ambitious civil reengineering projects to the city elders, but I hope by giving them a choice they will definitely give me the green light on one. I stand at the door to the conference room, straightening my clothes before entering. It's make or break time. Update: I came on and saw the pictures missing. I think I fixed the problem. - obliq

There is some hysterical stuff here. I got tears in my eyes. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Apve-May.%2017,%20071138649880.jpg align=baseline>

Date: 1/14/2006 12:21:33 PM Author: delboysim oblig I thought that might be the case - but even if you could read it, there could easily be over 100 of them in a large region - to reconstruct a greyscale region from individual pieces, city by city, would take forever lolquote> It would take some time. It looks as though SimCity stitches the region together on the fly. Only city files are saved. Something in the .sc4 file stores its position in the region.

The best approach for a carfree or even vehicle-free city is not to start out that way. Develop a master plan that will eventually lead to a large carfree city but allow people to drive until the time that their cars can be taken away from them. Otherwise, begin with small self-contained pods which provide all the industrial and commercial needs of the pod residents. Each pod would have to be small enough to encourage walking (jobs and services not more than 8 to 12 tiles away). I doubt much would develop beyond the $ or $$ wealth levels. I have found that $$$ residents almost refuse to take mass transit or even to walk. This is not always the case. One city I had the CEO of the hospital lived across the street and walked to work. Pods can't be connected to each other by street, road, or avenue since sims would drive between pods to get to jobs (no buses). Mass transit stops have to be equidistant to all residences and must have street access (otherwise residential won't develop). But rail, el, monorail, and subway are expensive to build and maintain. Since roads can't be built between pods, freight has to be moved out of industrial areas by rail with neighbor connections.

The terrain is stored as a greyscale bitmap in the saved city file (.sc4) I can extract it using Datagen; however, the bitmap is stored in the DBPF without the bitmap file header and Datagen doesn't supply one for the extracted file. This means the file can't be read by a paint program. Datagen v0.6.0.41650

Date: 1/6/2006 2:34:21 PM Author: soldyne nice pic and good post now the question is what are commute times like?  I am certain that if your city starts to grow more and you have medium or high density zoning you will see your mass transit system start to make a profit.  In my 250k carless city my transit system was making 4k profit every month. quote> I tried another experiment with a different pod configuration. Learned some interesting things. Residential won't grow very well if the lots don't have street access to the MT station. The landfill had to be connected to at least one zone by street. Used car dealers still set up shop even if they have no street access CEOs don't like to walk and they don't like to take mass transit. I set up a Sim in one of the weathly housing that appeared. She switched jobs eight times and every single time she whined and moaned about not being able to get to work.

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Iteun.jpg align=baseline> Excellent topic. I tried my own experiments based on the proposals put forth by carfree.com. I platted pods with centralized monorail access. The project pictured is only a day old. Other than a few lazy residents, no one uses a car. I caught a couple of sims driving across the street for groceries (or used cars!) After a while they finally seem to get it and start walking. The drawback so far is the monorail sends the city over budget. Especially if loops are built to make it possible to play the U-Drive It mission.