INTRODUCTION: What is the name of your city and why is it special?
The name of my city is Dos Rios. I thought this name was cool because the map we are making our cities on consists of two rivers and because my mom’s side of the family has a Mexican background, so I thought it was cool to incorporate Spanish into the name.
- BACKGROUND: How has your city evolved since you first started building it?
My city has grown a lot. I binge-played the game in the second to third weeks of school and I have played consistently since. My Population on 10/24/2020 is 63,503, so it will be more when this entire blog post is posted.
- POPULATION: What are the demographic characteristics of your city, and how has it changed over time? What direction is it heading?
My city is largely made up of adults and seniors, and it has been that way the whole time. The amount of children and teens has increased over time, but not a lot. I think it will continue to trend this way, as I am starting to work on building more suburbs now that my downtown area is so big.
- BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Goal: Make the banks on the rivers less steep so the buildings can be closer to the water and make for a cooler look to the city.
Strength : Having city buildings closer to the water makes the downtown districts look a lot cooler and it integrates the rivers into the city.
Weakness: Buildings that already exist on the steeper banks of the river will look out of place.
Opportunity: More water-specific buildings and areas can be constructed on the rivers. For example, a fishing pier.
Threat: There will be an increased chance of flooding because the banks aren’t as high.
Actions: To prevent flooding, I will use the landscaping tools to deepen the rivers to ensure water doesn’t spill into the streets. To make the city look uniform, I will have to demolish existing buildings on the steep banks and build new ones after I flatten the river banks.
- HOUSING
Goal: Implement high-tech housing throughout the whole city.
Strength: High-tech housing looks really clean and it brings up the surrounding land value.
Weakness: Transitioning to high-tech housing will get rid of some historical values to the city.
Opportunity: High-tech housing will increase land value and stimulate economic growth in the city allowing for new buildings to be constructed.
Threat: High-tech housing is expensive on the weekly budget and may not be affordable.
Actions: To ensure that I don’t lose money off of high-tech housing, I will make sure to be making at least $18,000 a week, and I will also be prepared to take a loan if necessary.
6: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Goal: Implement more industrial zoning into the city.
Strength: Doing this will increase the amount of money the industrial zoning will make a week, which will improve weekly income as a whole.
Weakness: Industrial zoning takes up a lot of space that can be utilized in other ways.
Opportunity: Increased industrial zoning will supply the demand for jobs in the city.
Threat: Increased pollution and traffic are both immediate results from industrial zoning.
Actions: Use the forestry industy for the zoning so pollution can be eliminated. To address the traffic, I will create big, one-way roads for trucks to use to hopefully decrease traffic congestion.
- TRANSPORTATION
Goal: Make a network of bus routes that has one route connecting to another one which will provide citizens an opportunity to travel city-wide.
Strength: Providing a solid bus system for citizens will lead to an increased land value and an increased weekly income:
Weakness: More busses means more traffic and the maintenance of the busses will lead to an increased weekly expense for transportation.
Opportunity: If the bus system does well and makes the city money, it will make a strong case for other modes of public transportation including subways, trains, and planes.
Threat: If not executed correctly, the expenses for the bus system will outweigh the income, leading to the city potentially losing money.
Actions: To make sure I’m making money instead of losing it to the bus system, I will keep a constant eye on the economy tab and adjust the budget for transportation accordingly.
- COMMUNITY SERVICES AND UTILITIES
Goal: Re-construct water pipelines into a grid with parallel lines that are easy to trace and understand.
Strength: Organizing the water pipeline system will make the water flow better and will make it easier for me to find missed spots and places to continue building pipes when they are needed.
Weakness: I will have to pause the game (which is unrealistic) and spend a large portion of time demolishing and then reconstruction the pipe system.
Opportunity: Using a more efficient and understandable pipe system may lead to a decreased expense on the water in the economy tab which would allow me to spend more money elsewhere.
Threat: Building an entirely new pipe system would take forever and would create the possibility for me to miss some important spots that would cause people to move out.
Actions: To avoid missing spots, I will make the grid of pipes as easy as possible for me to understand. All I need to do is go back and forth with straight, parallel lines and I won’t miss any critical spots.
- PARKS AND RECREATION
Goal: Provide enough parks in the city so that each building in the parks info tab is colored blue (essentially means that the building and its inhabitants are provided enough green space).
Strength: Having a lot of parks will increase land value and increase incentive for people to move into the city.
Weakness: Parks take up a significant amount of space and cost money to upkeep.
Opportunity: Increased parks will lead to increased land value and that in turn will lead to more people moving into the city. This will spur economic growth in the city.
Threat: More parks leads to more expenses on them. This plus the amount of space parks take up could lead to an economic downturn.
Actions: To ensure I don’t lose money, I will have to calculate how much the parks will cost me and balance that with the increased land value that the parks will provide. If I do it correctly, I will definitely benefit from more parks in the city.
- NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
Goal: Put down trees on the sides of freeways, highways, and railroads.
Strength: It gives the city a cleaner look and helps citizens living close to these rather ugly structures ignore the fact that they’re there.
Weakness: Planting trees is cheap but the price can really add up with how many trees need to be planted on the sides of freeways, highways, and railroads.
Opportunity: More trees in the city can lead to a heightened need for the forestry industrial zoning which can lead to more income coming to the city.
Threat: More trees in the city leads to an increased threat of fires. Trees are extremely flammable and in the game they are in the “red” zone for fire threats.
Actions: To make sure fires don’t break out throughout the city, I will build more fire stations and increase the funding for them. I believe spending more on this is worth it for the potential economic gain through forestry.
- FUTURE LAND USE PLAN
Goal: Start expanding city into the suburbs and focus on low density zoning especially low density residential.
Strength: The city’s population will increase significantly.
Weakness: The more suburbs there are in my city the more problems associated with traffic will arise.
Opportunity: The expansion of suburbs will bring in more people which will increase the incentive for businesses to move in and will make the city more money through residential taxing.
Threat: The increase of traffic can lead to problems with commercial zoning. In the game, when traffic piles up too much, commercial buildings don’t get their shipments in time, and they eventually go out of business.
Actions: To make sure that commercial zoning buildings don’t go out of business, I will have to lay out roads in a way that prevents traffic from piling up too much. I will have to make sure that trucks and citizens have easy access to the highways so they can travel faster.
12: IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
Accomplishing the goals that I have set above will be an arduous task, but certainly not impossible. All of the actions I listed above are reasonable to accomplish, and they are all centered around one big idea: a sound economy. Before I can begin to achieve the goals I listed above I need to make sure I have a large, steady income for the city to allow breathing room for possible mistakes. It will be almost impossible to make an instant profit off of some of my goals listed above, so having a baseline income will be essential. My goal is to start working on the goals above when I am making around $23,000 a week. I think this will allow enough breathing room for the goals above to be accomplished.
SIMULATION VERSUS REALITY
Although Cities: Skylines is arguably the most realistic city planning/building game on the market, but it still doesn’t come close to being the same as real life planning. The comprehensive plan that I made for my city is way easier to carry out than Professor’s Burton plan for Johnstown. The obvious reason being that I don’t have to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic while carrying out my plan. Unfortunately, professor Burton’s comprehensive plan can’t be carried out because of the pandemic. In the game, I will never encounter something unexpected that will prevent me from carrying out any of my plans. This is very unrealistic; I feel as though planning is largely about adapting to nonstop change, so when I don’t really even have to deal with that, the game feels unrealistic.
The Contemporary Urban Planning book goes into extensive details of the comprehensive plan. They describe the process of having 5 steps: research, clarification of goals and objectives, plan formulation, plan implementation, and review and revision. In the simulation, I don’t have to worry about following all of these steps or actually typing out the whole entire comprehensive plan like real life planners have to do. In the game, all I really have to do is identify what my goals are and then immediately start experimenting and see what will help me achieve that goal. This is extremely unrealistic because real life cities can’t just build something and tear it down if it doesn’t work the way they planned it to. The book also explains how Geographic Information Systems are used to help with executing comprehensive plans. There is nothing of the sort in the game that is related to GIS, other than the fact that there is a city and a topographical map option. In my opinion, the biggest thing that the simulation comes close to real life is in concerns to zoning. Being able to decide what type of buildings will go into an area is very similar to real life because zoning is a massive part of planning and the comprehensive plan. In short, Cities: Skylines has a lot of realistic part to it, but it is still nothing like the real thing, especially the finer details of the comprehensive plan.