Prominent Urbanists Face Off in SimCity Battle Royale

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."

1 minute read

March 5, 2013, 12:00 PM PST

By Jonathan Nettler @nettsj


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."

Tuesday, March 5, 2013 in Fast Company Co.Exist

portrait of professional woman

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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