In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes of urban planners in Boston who saw the North End as a slum because it had high housing density and “too many” streets, even though it was a thriving neighborhood and “urban renewal” projects were failing. SimCity perpetuates many of the myths from the bad old days, representing long straight roads and segregated uses as an ideal. What does it matter if it oversimplifies city planning? Actually, it does matter. The World Trade Center is a classic example of a superblock, as are many Robert Moses era housing projects. They also believed in “superblocks”, larger blocks the size of several smaller blocks ideally separated by large high-speed roads rather than the small winding streets of older cities. The planners of that era believed in segregating different uses, putting jobs in one area, shopping in another area, and keeping residential areas purely residential. In other words, this simulation encourages 60s style “urban renewal” designs. It’s also most advantageous to create distinct areas of industrial, commercial, and residential property separate from each other. SimCity players quickly learn, or read in a strategy guide, that the optimal layout for the city is the “donut block”, a square ring of eight zones with a park or other civic structure in the center. (There have since been two sequels, SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000, which are more sophisticated.) All the zones are square and exactly the same size. The player lays out transportation infrastructure, parks, and residential, commercial, or industrial zones into which the Sims build their own buildings. Like many people my age, I grew up playing SimCity, the 80s classic video game of city planning.