After a decade of waiting, today's the day planning geeks have been waiting for. SimCity has arrived! To celebrate, Fast Company has assembled "some of the most interesting urban thinkers...to see who would make the best fake metropolis."
John McDermott provides the play-by-play for Co.Exist's city building tournament. "For this competition, in February, Co.Exist and Greg Lindsay--the co-author of the future cities book Aerotropolis and Co.Exist contributor--assembled six teams of urban think tanks to pit their planning chops against each other in the new version of the city planning game." The teams included reprentatives from MIT, the University of Columbia, Fast Company, Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF), Studio Gang, and OpenPlans.
"The thought was that coupling the players’ collective genius with SimCity’s planning dashboard would result in a vision of a potential urban future, a blueprint for the future of cities. That would not turn out to be the case."
FULL STORY: Using The New Sim City, 6 Urban Planners Battle For Bragging Rights

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Defunct Pittsburgh Power Plant to Become Residential Tower
A decommissioned steam heat plant will be redeveloped into almost 100 affordable housing units.

Trump Prompts Restructuring of Transportation Research Board in “Unprecedented Overreach”
The TRB has eliminated more than half of its committees including those focused on climate, equity, and cities.

Amtrak Rolls Out New Orleans to Alabama “Mardi Gras” Train
The new service will operate morning and evening departures between Mobile and New Orleans.
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