SimCity isn’t just a game. It’s a philosophy — one built on utopian ideals, broken dreams, and planning myths that still shape our cities today.
From Garden Cities to Broadacre sprawls, this video breaks down the utopian visions that inspired SimCity — and why both the game and the real cities often fail. Along the way, we explore what urban designers can learn from these beautifully flawed ideas.
📌 Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
00:30 – What SimCity Is Really Teaching
01:15 – The Garden City Dream
02:00 – Le Corbusier and The Radiant City
02:50 – Broadacre and the Anti-Urban Ideal
03:35 – Brasilia and Monumental Utopias
04:13 – Why Utopias Always Go Wrong
04:43 – What SimCity Actually Gets Right
05:04 – Real Cities Still Follow These Rules
05:35 – Toward a Better Urban Future
05:55 – Top Comments
📚 References & further reading:
Howard, E. (1898). Garden Cities of To-Morrow. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.
Le Corbusier. (1935). The Radiant City: Elements of a Doctrine of Urbanism to Be Used as the Basis of Our Machine-Age Civilization. Orion Press.
Wright, F. L. (1932). The Disappearing City. New York: William Farquhar Payson.
Holston, J. (1989). The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasília. University of Chicago Press.
Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.
Koolhaas, R. (1978). Delirious New York. Oxford University Press.
Grant, J. (2006). Planning the Good Community: New Urbanism in Theory and Practice. Routledge.
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