SimCity GAMES AND CITY PLANNING

By: Dwi R. Mulyaningrum

(Alumnus of IHS of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

In SimCity games, I learn that to develop existing city is not easy since we directly faced with
many problems from providing infrastructures, services, environmental issues, budget, etc.
But it’s more similar with the existing condition of the real world. I summarized that there
are at least three most important lessons from this games that related with my work
situation. First, there are close relation between spatial decisions with development. How
city can cycle in good circulation is so spatial choice. It’s related with zoning mechanism.
Since I’m in the provincial level, the zoning means in the wide perspective. As a planning
office, we must arrange development plan for wide spatial area with different local
authorities, different topography, different geographical condition and other differences. In
this game, I zoned flat area as a place for residential and put commercial zone in strategic
place. In the real work my province also concentrated some regencies/municipalities with
majority flat areas as area for settlement and agricultural activities (producer of rice, corn,
vegetables and also livestock) and for regencies with geographically hilly or mountain areas
we focused them as plantation area like coffee, cloves, cinnamons and pepper.

To connect these zones and trigger spatial development, using transportation tools is one
aspect to reach the objective of a clear cycle. In this games, road is a basic infrastructure
that should be provided by player/planner to build or to develop an area of the city. In our
real case it is also important factor that influence the development acceleration among the
regencies and municipalities. In the poverty reduction programme, I found that many poor
villages in the rural areas have bad connection with other villages or sometime in the
remote area. It is can be a reason why development wave is quite hard to reach them.

Second lesson; keep an eye on everything that was happening within the city. As urban
planners, we must give attentions on many aspects, the building requirements, public
services, environmental condition, budget, opinion pool, news and many things. In the
reality of our office, it was also happen. We must give pay attention for many aspect of
arranging best planning, implementation and evaluation. All the latest information from all
aspects within the city and also external aspect should be consideration on the best way.
For example: How we can deal with minimum budget to meet the demands of development
program in different regions. How we can select and rank it based on the priority scale is
other challenge.

Third lesson are how using budget tool to accelerate the development of the city. Some
examples are with playing tax rates to attract investment in many sectors or increasing taxes
to rise income in order to the loan payment and choose the best time to apply loan for
invest big project (ex: power plant project). In the real context, my province was already
using this budget tools. For example to attract investors put their money in our regions with
gave some incentives and offered interesting taxes rate. In the fact, it’s not easy as the
theory. Many considerations for someone will invest in the some city/area. The basic
infrastructure, the connection with other region, the business environment, political
condition and good will of local authorities are some of them. Taxes and ordinances are
some kit to make an attractive business condition.

In correlation with the idea of SimCity simulation for planner, I read an article of an urban
designer from Belgium (Devisch, 2008). I suggest reading this article. In this article, Devisch
stated that:
“SimCity can be simulation models that assist users during a planning process allow, for
instance, the evaluation of differing scenarios by the visualization of the impact of
planning decisions. Linking input to output might then give insight into the
(selforganizing) processes that are taking place in the systemunder investigation.”
Let’s play and figure out what we get…!!

Bibliography:

Devisch, O., 2008, Should Planners Start Playing Computer Games? Arguments from SimCity
and Second Life. Planning Theory & Practice, Vol. 9, No. 2, 209–226, June 2008.
Based on the thinking of Juval Portugali in his book (Self-Organization and the City)
that now concept of the city focus on the open, self-organizing and complex systems.
How the role of the urban planner has turned on the system is not easy way. Devisch
try to give a number of suggestions by using SimCity games to upgrade planning
simulation models. It can be a new tool for the planner to be more process
orientated, more geared towards communication, and encouraging of the
involvement of multiple stakeholders, etc. SimCity can play roles for spatial
(simulation) models: firstly, to inform the user about a given process; secondly, to
assist the user throughout a process; and thirdly, to help the user understand a
process (Batty et al., 2004).