The Gong Show

When I think of the places I would like to live, they are often places where the design emerged from the bottom-up instead of places that were subject to top-down urban planning. Places like SoHo, NY or the Marais, Paris epitomize the beauty of bottom-up design. Top-down design often results in ugly, artificial systems and generic, characterless neighborhoods. By contrast, bottom-up cities take the shape of the needs and desires of their constituents.

Christopher Alexander, a Berkeley Professor who created a body of work about architecture design theory, once wrote:

When the oak tree grows, there is no blueprint, no master plan, which tells the twigs and branches where to go. We know in general that it will have the overall form of an oak… but it is unpredictable… and a town which is whole like an oak tree must be unpredictable also. The fine details cannot be known ahead of time.

I think this captures my opinion of city design very well. As such, I’m incredibly excited about the latest edition to the SimCity franchise: SimCity Societies.

In past SimCity games, you plan a city from the top-down as the Mayor (more like a God figure than a Mayor). As the game develops your decisions will be more successful if they are shaped by the needs of your citizens (more fire departments, less expensive housing zones, etc), but ultimately all the decisions are your own and are made from a top-down approach.

In the latest installment to the SimCity series, SimCity Societies, you shape the design of your city by changing the societal energies of your city. Do you want harsh, efficient architecture design? Then you have to encourage your citizens to value efficiency through obedience. Want a wild party city? Then you should foster creativity in your citizens. Your city will emerge from the needs of your citizens based on their values and personalities.

SimCity Societies is a much more accurate simulation of good urban design than its top-down predecessors. I can’t wait to try it out.

Penny Arcade has a great post up that explains the origins of the hit web comic (scroll down to the post “I’d like to thank God…”).

Apparently Tycho and Gabe were rebuffed Next Generation after Next Generation called out to their readers looking for people to write a comic about gaming. Next Generation never chose any other comic strip over Penny Arcade, they simply rejected Tycho and Gabe in favor of nothing at all. The only site they could get to publish their work was some random gaming mag with online distribution called Loony Games. Great story.

The origins of the name “Penny Arcade” straight from Gabe and Tycho:

[Loony Games' rep] said he wanted to run the comics and he asked if the strip had a name. Well it didn’t of course. So I looked over at Tycho who was sitting at his computer on the other side of our shitty little apartment and said “hey, what should we call the comic?” He stared at the wall above his monitor for no more that thirty seconds and then said “Penny Arcade you know because it’s just cheap thrills”.

So appropriate.

Also, if you’re looking for a charity to donate to this year, you should consider supporting Child’s Play, the excellent charity that buys video games for kids in hospitals, which was created by Penny Arcade.