I DESTROYED a European City with U.S. Planning (in Townscaper)

Townscaper is a wonderful little game for making charming, walkable cities. But what if you tried to add public housing projects, freeways and sprawl?

Videos referenced:

Produced by Hannah Woolsey, Dave Amos, and the fine folks at Nebula Studios.
Written by Hannah Woolsey and Dave Amos
Select images and video from Getty Images.
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[NothingXemnas]

The moment you started demolishing houses to get a road through, it got realistic! SUCH TRAGEDY!

[dustinthompson]

I would love to see a video starting with the final state of this map and then trying to undo the damage that was done by suburbanization!

[DharmaPunk]

As an american who has lived near freeways his entite life, my ears are ringing just looking at this road you built. I hate the noise the most

[unclvinny]

I'm so glad to see Townscaper getting some attention, it's such a beautiful little thing to play with.

[martinbruhn]

Don't feel too bad about failed US city planning, many european cities are also working hard at undoing some of the failures of car friendly city planning of the past.

[the.abhiram.r]

the funny thing about "towers in the park" developments are that the developments that actually have green space between these towers in nyc are now being sold as high end luxury housing

[Alex-cwrz]

The original town reminded me a lot of an expanded Portmerion a village in Wales made by Clough Williams-Ellis he has one of my most favourite architecture / Urban Design quotes which is : Cherish the past, adorn the present, construct the future.

[tonysebo]

In cites that are not absolutely booming and attracting huge populations, most of the suburban and edge city lands should be reclaimed for agriculture and wilderness. This would be done over time, so once a house or distract loses its attraction, simple demolition should take place. Instead of putting in more infrastructure and more development (even more intensive) will continue to bleed most proper city/inner core/downtowns of their vitality and potential

[Lemmings]

Townscraper is good fun. If the devs put out an expansion pack of sorts for a couple of bucks, (new features and buildings and stuff!) I would buy it.

[allocater]

Your central city needed more parking lots.

[theoptimisticmetalhead]

I would love to see you illustrate some of this stuff with Cities:Skylines!

[toby]

The last parts where you suggest at a few slightly denser neighbourhoods really highlighted the 'plaster on a broken leg' analogy, and it made me sad how accurately this depicts our long, long path to recreating nice places

[liamalancheril]

Genius way to show and not tell the history. Thanks for your work!

[Civil_Maniac]

I would love to see you apply some the principals you talk about and rehabilitate this city

[dwarftoad]

Don't forget that the warterfront warehouses, railyards, etc, and a lot of the inner city industry (therefore blue collar jobs therefore nearby housing, eventually other jobs as well), would have moved out of the city to be closer to the freeways as freight transportation moved to trucking rather than water (or rail). So they would start to become unused which makes it even easier to plow a highway down the edge of the waterfront or through low income neighboorhoods.

[mechastophiles]

"Not best practices" is a helluva understatement 😜

[ac]

This is the villain arc? Has the spirit of Robert Moses possessed him?

[yeyeTF]

we went from vacation destination to the place I grew up real quick

[noemichillt]

I get the idea behind suburbs. Even the pretty „Altstadt“ in various European cities is stained grey from emissions. I moved to the countryside 9 years ago after living in cities most of my life. I needed greenery and more space for my mental health. But why would you build houses after houses without providing the facilities for your everyday needs within 10 minutes walking distance? Schools, grocery stores, GP, hair dresser, etc. This alone would help a lot to make one’s life easier and a lot less car dependent. Allow small businesses in residential areas, ban traffic in city centers and build a reliable public transportation system. That would be a good start.

[twoelectrik]

The US used to do well in architecture when it comes to the design process, development, finishing touches, etc. It used to be a work of art. Unfortunately many of the historical buildings, monuments, and what some people call relics were demolished and bulldozed to make parking spots so that cities around the US could be more car centric. I personally hate the idea of urbanism when it comes to car dependency.