Blog 3: Concept Mapping

Urban design, transportation, and the natural environment are intricately interdependent in forming an innovative city. Central to a healthy and innovative city are these three defined elements.

The functionality of a city is heavily reliant on an efficient transportation system, optimally one that offers a variety of transit options. Mass transit, then, is a key element to the city; Figure 1 depicts a few popular transportation methods implemented in cities across the world. Each individual choice offers unique advantages, and the people are free to decide what fits their needs most at any point. There is additionally the element of city circulation that branches from a city’s transportation setup. Transportation planning is a complex practice on its own; to provide efficient interconnection throughout a city, there requires consideration of various issues. On top of the issue of travel efficiency, though, there is an important element that must not be overlooked: transit’s effect on the environment. 

The natural environment is the key component affecting a city’s health. Its coexistence with city transportation is delicate in terms of pollution, noise pollution, and destruction for more roadways or transportation systems, but it is a coexistence that is possible to achieve. The main elements concerning the natural environment are its preservation and its implementation in park areas. Green spaces are crucial to a city’s wellbeing; city plans such as that of Savannah and Philadelphia were founded on this principle (see Figure 3). Preserving existing green spaces and natural areas has been practiced for a long time. Crucial to environmental preservation and developing green spaces is enacting policies, which brings up the topic of urban design. 

Urban design may be described as a combination of or a middle ground between architecture and city planning. It is heavily concerned with the vitality and functionality of public spaces—larger than at an architectural level, but smaller than at a city-wide level. This element of an innovative city brings with it the importance of kinesthetic experience, or the emotional, sensory experiences of moving through space. The environment plays a large role in maintaining a positive kinesthetic experience, especially in its impact on the notion of “cognitive geography” (see Figure 2). Another point in public space from urban planning is the use and design of a city’s roads and pathways—and this ties back to the importance of transportation in a city’s vitality, including in its walkability and efficiency for travel.  

Cities: Skylines overall captures the interactions between the three elements well. The urban design is totally reliant on the player–he creates the causes and witnesses the effects. The elements of environment and transportation, though, are more reliant on the effects created by those urban design choices than they are reliant on the direct action of the player. For instance, the urban design factor in development of a city’s transportation layout is controlled by the actions of the player: he builds the roads and decides where they go, how they are to be connected, the necessary width or type of road, and so forth. These urban design choices will have an affect on transportation and the natural environment. Transportation’s branch of “city circulation” as seen in the concept map will become active as the roadways begin to work on their own; then, too, branches connecting to city circulation will be next in the chain effect. Similarly, the choices of roadway placement will take their toll on the natural environment–this being an indirect consequence of the player’s actions. Though there are ways to directly manipulate the elements of transportation and natural environment, urban design choices will have the greatest effect both in-game and in the real world. The interconnections are infinite; a city’s health and vitality are never a promise, but that is why urban planning is so important.