I DESTROYED a European City with U.S. Planning (in Townscaper)
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2023
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Townscaper is a wonderful little game for making charming, walkable cities. But what if you tried to add public housing projects, freeways and sprawl?
Get Townscaper: www.townscapergame.com
Videos referenced:
Can we fix the suburbs?: • Can we fix the suburbs?
Should the US Build More Public Housing: • Should the U.S. Build ...
Why did we build "The Projects": • Why did we build high-...
Transit-Oriented Development: • Transit Oriented Devel...
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.
Black Lives Matter.
Trans rights.
For those who made it to the end, oops, somehow the audio for the Nebula promo didn't export and I neglected to check it! If you'd like to support the channel, visit go.nebula.tv/citybeautiful and sign up to get $20 off. The next video on Beverly Hills is already live there!
Love the video concept! Any updates on the city planning card game one of your students made and you live-streamed? Please make your past livestreams available to watch on UA-cam.
I saw the Beverly Hills video on Nebula first, which is how I knew you’d have a new one up on UA-cam. 😉 I have some comments on that one, but as Nebula doesn’t have a comment system I’ll wait for it to come up here too and re-watch it. ❤
Hi Dave. Can you make a video on how good city planning helps in law enforcement or any video which relates city planning and law enforcement?
Next video idea: Ruining a European city with Indian planning in Cities Skylines.
YEP CHICAGOLAND
The moment you started demolishing houses to get a road through, it got realistic! SUCH TRAGEDY!
Anyways...
@@Dotcandolet's build more
True.. We have to move soon because of the same reason (Norway here)
@@YuiAnine People think it's just America, but it never is. Such building practices can and do happen anywhere.
@@passiveagrsivesmeerschwein2320*heavy breathing* more… lanes?
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!
A lot of it would be demolishing the freeway in the city (but not outside) and replacing it with greenspace and high end commercial development, and some high end apartments, unfortunately not enough and not diverse enough housing :(
Ðat would be cool
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.
US planning is better than Indian planning.
the core difference between (primarily) western europe and the USA however is, that while the USA still Largely refuses to get rid of car dependent planning (ie one of the cities in the US that is doing the most for a less car dependent city, is incidentally the same that keeps widening its highways MASSIVELY).
In the meantime europe has been doing alot to get itself back under control, especially the dutch, and i am happy to say that germany is also catching up now.
Euopean cities are also generally waaayyy less car dependent from the get go than american cities - even in some of the worst, its still relatively better than in alot of americas best
Not sure if it's worse that it wasn't so much shitty urban planning as it was nefarious. It was intentionally bad for regular people.
@@historyman9436Europe’s cities are fundamentally different than most North American cities. They are older and largely constructed before the advent of the automobile. Most of the car dependent cities in the US “urbanists” crow about were constructed during the explosion of the personal automobile. These cities are fundamentally driver oriented cities. That’s why “reclaiming” roads in places like NYC, DC etc is easier than in places like Houston, Dallas, LA etc.
@@MelGibsonFan Thats just simply not true however
While the first car was invented in 1886, it took a LOT longer than that to became a valid alternative to horses, especially to the middle and lower classes. That happened from 1908 onwards, and even then, streets were a very mixer bag, with pretty much anyone and anything being on them until around 1930, at which point "jaywalking" was made illegal.
Now if you are trying to tell me that most of the US was suddenly built during and after WW2, then
a) thats an outrageous claim to make
and b) only really weakens your point. If you can manage to create a massive sprawl of cities in under 100 years, surely it wont take as long for you to reverse that, right? Or are you trying to tell me that America went from being a land inhabited by noone, to a country that can erect THOUSANDS of cities and towns out of nowhere, to a land that is too stupid to do what it *just* (and partially still is) did?
Lets take a look at the examples you gave:
Houston was founded in 1836. That is just about 100 years until jaywalking was made illegal, and 50 until the car was even invented.
Similar thing with Dallas, it was founded in 1841.
Now however comes the icing on the cake - LA was founded in 1781. Thats right, LA is older than the US of A.
ADDITIONALLY, your point of "Well europe is alot older" falls flat once you concided Just how much this continent continually went through. Especially Germany got ravaged loads of times, and after ww2 most of europe was one massive ruin.
And yet, after the war, loads of cities built up in either American fashion (aka Car Centric) or got the soviet treatment of so massive alleys that would make even American Highways blush.
Why do you want to settle for mediocrity if you could just go for greatness? It doesnt have to perfect, but if it can be better, why do you refuse to make it so?
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
As a Swiss who never lived right next to a road I hate road noise too.
You and your hearing deserve better
I'm so glad to see Townscaper getting some attention, it's such a beautiful little thing to play with.
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
Meanwhile I, a poor guy in Poland, live in a social flat that used to be a part of a 19th luxurious apartment in the heart of the city.
update: now stuytown/peter cooper village has become "affordable" in the nyc housing market
@@the.abhiram.r
Wow , how ?
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.
Your central city needed more parking lots.
True true. Though I'm guessing parking lots is not high on the list of additions for the Townscaper devs.
That could be a good one!
Something likeFresno? What a sad place.
@@CityBeautifuljust leave giant empty gaps
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
What's already happening is communities are failing to pay for maintenance, so their roads are failing and water/sewage becomes a problem. Other places get killed by climate change, flooding risks get uninsurable, wildfires burn down places etc. Nature isn't negotiating, it's a force (of nature).
nerd
Unfortunately for this plan there just isn't enough housing, we need to get denser housing first in most places before this could start, I'm not sure where this could start currently
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.
Me too!
The singular dev, Oskar Stålberg, made this game as a hobby project and has explicitly made the statement multiple times that the simplicity is the point. He doesn't want to "gamify" this project in his own words.
I wouldn't expect that expansion pack anytime soon I'd say.
@@AyaKhohe should make the game free then
I thought this was going to be an ad for the game. But it turned out it's not great for converting a mediaeval European city into an expanding US one!
I suspect the 'elevated highway' is actually some kind of tool for building city walls, hence the irregular shapes.
But what really disappointed me was that I was expecting classic grid line streets of a US city, extending far out so you get to house numbers with 4 or 5 digits. I guess this happened sometime in the 60s and 70s, but was missed out of this video.
@@rogink There are no right angles in twonscaper. A grid is simply impossible to do (as far as I know) in townscaper
I would love to see you illustrate some of this stuff with Cities:Skylines!
Ahhh, but that would be a much bigger project!
I think he does; I believe he has a channel called 'City Planner Plays' where he builds different livable communities.
@@HHSGDFootballJPD well that's definitely awesome and I'll probably check it out. But I'd like to see basically this video, or something similar, like a lesson plan, but with C:S
@@HHSGDFootballJPD Also, on this channel, lol
@HHSGDFootballJPD thats not the same guy
Genius way to show and not tell the history. Thanks for your work!
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
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.
I would love to see you apply some the principals you talk about and rehabilitate this city
Or apply some more time. Let the strip malls fail and be redeveloped. The mall torn down and replaced (not a perfect example but the cache valley mall replacement plans could be a good model for an imperfect approach)
Yes. What do we do when the damage has been done?
"Not best practices" is a helluva understatement 😜
The exurban development with the token barn, but all of it’s former farm land taken up by McMansions is so accurate. Also, you forgot to put a super depressing nursing home in the edge city where all the nuclear families can ship their old people off to when they don’t want to deal with them any more.
we went from vacation destination to the place I grew up real quick
This is the villain arc? Has the spirit of Robert Moses possessed him?
Never go full Moses.
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.
no they werent, your fav youtuber here, is one urbanist, who wants everyone to live in a 15 minute city, and be confined to it and never see the light of day in a free country, and america did not destroy historical monuments
@@SJRS700 how about heritage sites? The singer building was destroyed intentionally in 1968 for One Liberty Plaza. What about that? Pennsylvania Station, one of many historical jewels in New York was destroyed in 1963 to make way for Madison Square Garden Arena in 1968. What about this? Many historical buildings were either voluntarily demolished or intentionally demolished, many people (you possibly) just don't know what they were bulldozed for. It could be a pointless office building, it could be a parking lot, it could be a parking garage, apartment (which might be reasonable), casinos and resorts (look at Las Vegas), etc. Also I was talking about the late 19th-early 20th century when cars were very limited back then.
@@twoelectrik Yeah look at Las Vegas, destroyed so many ancient buildings in an unhabitable desert to make casinos right? Also they werent just destroyed, do you know how things work?, If I buy a building I can destroy it to make another building, Its not destroyed, its demolished, A heck ton of building were destroyed in a war in europe lol, and many others to make other buildings, thats how it works. if its not protected I can buy and make my own building, its called Freedom kid
@@SJRS700 "15 Minute cities" or as well call them in europe 'small cities', are perfect to actually see light of day since there is an actual countryside just a few walking minutes away from everyone's home. In modern mega cities with their urban sprawl and in every US city with their massive massive suburbs eating up all the countryside most people can't actually reach any "light" without buying and maintaining a car and then driving for an hour or two. We bulldozed the best farming land and stuffed everyone into sprawl developments not thinking for a second that this is unnatural for humans and leads to depression and anti social behaviour as well as destroying the relationship between the city and the countryside.
@@swunt10 yeah Europe will have a lot of countryside when the gov snatches up all the land from the farmers, and American cities are way more green, open, and not congested with concrete and closed up buildings like in Europe, and have way more farming and countryside land than europe could ever dream of. Yeah atleast we have roads unlike your european cities, get in a train and bus like a loser with no freedom because everyone is dirt poor and loser that they cant own and maintain a car. Depression and anti social, americans are way more friendly and helping than europeans can ever be in their whole dream commie land. American cities build with nature, not just building anywhere and concrete it all up and congest it all, we build with wood, not just pour concrete everywhere.
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.
The elevated 'freeway' with windows in it almost looks like some prison. Maybe the City Beautiful Townscaper Police Service partnered with the City Beautiful Townscaper Transportation and Roads Department to build elevated freeways with prisons built into the road deck 🤣
NOPE its a Long Moto-Hotel
You joke buts how much money saved though..... YAH NOPE
@@AMPProf The Ultimate Motel
You should check out Croydon just south of London. This video epitomises the "planning" it had in the 1960s.
“Spoiler alert: I did not make this better”
Well, neither did US, so you’re cool.
The part about malls was kind of trippy to listen to, because there's always been (semi)covered markets called malls in the middle of cities accessed on foot. In Europe anyway (eg Covent Garden Market).
I had to keep telling myself to add-in "motor oriented" at the start, since it was really a reinterpretation of the concept, how to get people to drive there when they could no longer easily walk to it from their home or place of work. Of course it had to be much bigger and offer far more choice to justify the distance, since it would be the only one nearby rather than just one of many in a city centre.
And indeed in many European cities and towns these locales were never demolished, and merely had lots combined by newer business tenants who installed miniature versions of their stores much like you'd otherwise see in an American mall.
Of course some of them now have underground or multi-storey parking somewhere near, some of those with pretty crazy-distant elevated walkways from the parking to the historical locale, but a lot are still purely designed to be accessed from the street level.
I suppose a Strip Mall is the motor-oriented reimagining of... just a regular uncovered shopping street? Like Oxford Street, or Buchanan Street. Except instead of a wide pedestrian boulevard/limited-traffic street, it's car parks.
That stuff about exurbia was pretty depressing too. It still looked so... dead from overhead. I'm sure there's places like that here too, but almost everyone I know who prefers a rural lifestyle rents a farm house here. So, instead of just being separated by giant lawns, they're separated by actual farms, grazing fields with animals, small grain warehouses, and forests. And you actually are a mile away from anyone else, instead of just what looks like half a street's distance hastily camouflaged with a few trees on the property line.
Really good video and use of Townscaper to show how US style car friendly city planning destroys communities. Much more clear to demonstrate with detailed step-by-step examples like this than to talk about it.
The high freeway at the San Francisco embarcadero was a shock to me first, but then I remembered the Perimetral bridge in downtown Rio, a very similar absurdity. It was demolished recently, with the same effect as in S.F.: a much improved cityscape.
Now São Paulo has to do the same with its version, the elevado Costa e Silva, popularly known as Minhocão (the big worm).
Thanks for mentioning, will look into it! You really realize how focused we are of few countries when things like this happen and there's little echo of it in advanced countries. We need people to tell these great stories.
I’ve had townscaper for years and I didn’t know you could create a green space like that!
One reason townscaper townscapes always look so quaint and picturesque is that you cant really build streets let alone roads, just promenades and alleys. Which is very fitting if you ask me, but of course takes away a lot of simulation uses.
You said soul crushing hotels and then showed a true concrete wasteland. I think you were being too kind.
I've only just started watching this and already I am loving the visual element of the growth of the suburbs. This is such a cool way to visualise the topic. Suggestion- use this game to talk about the 15-minute cities while creating them in Townscaper that would be very cool
Never heard more truth come out of this man's mouth when he started building the highway and said "Im gonna keep the church unlike other city planners who would just tear it down especially if it was minority or poor serving." Lmao
The Nebula clips at the end being silent and suddenly being interrupted again by a voice is funny
Yeah, sorry about the audio issue. Thanks for watching until the end!
i cant believe its been an hour watching this video. its just so entertaining having to see how American settlements are built (since i am not from the US), whilst learning that there is a history behind it. thank you for this video! now i will be spending half of my day playing townscaper
the only thing this example is missing is large vacant concrete lots in the central city
no way, when you mentioned edge cities i INSTANTLY thought of Tyson's Corner, VA. It absolutely is a mini-city, just with virtually no housing, only retail and offices. It's crazy driving through what is basically a city-sized shopping mall
The US exported a lot of their city planning to Australia. I grew up in the “inner ring” low income housing which has now because popular and very expensive. I now live in one of the three houses you called “the saddest three houses on the map” in the final houses in a neighbourhood which has been torn apart by the huge Citylink elevated freeway next door. There’s literally our three one-story houses, with a coupon small apartment blocks and then the huge poorly-maintained social housing nearby. We have basically no access to the community just on the other side of the freeway
I did find a neighbourhood in Australia quite lovely. Think it was Mermaid Beach or something. All the homes there have access to the canal that goes to the ocean. I could take my little yacht and go sailing as easy as I could get in my car and drive.
I really like this kind of video. It's really easy to watch in the background while doing something else because of how relaxed it is
I wish Suburbs were as pretty as this
This is not canada?
I really like the over-head view while you explain these concepts! Thanks for the video!
This was actually such a satisfying watch. Definitely more of these gameplay videos please. Thanks 🙏
FINALLY found the interchange at 48:45. I-94 / Kennedy Ave, Hammond, Indiana. Was looking at swampy cities in the southeast for wayyy too long before I remembered you were from Gary and started checking around there.
This is asuch an informative, entertaining and relaxing vid. I'd love to see more.
Great video, it was so enjoyable. I was playing Simcity 4 today, purposely trying to make a terribly 20th century city then make my self fix it later
I played that just to cause my nuclear power plant to meltdown. I can't get residents to stop moving out and abandoning their homes no matter how much I bow, apologize, and reassure it's safe. Get back to the farms and export my fruit!
Dude, you forgot to tear down a neighborhood for a project that never happened so it's just a sad, scary empty area.
such a brilliant way to explain U.S. city planning. I learned so much! thank you!
wow, BRUTAL. But perfectly illustrates what it all went wrong.
he just bam.. Highway..
Brilliant idea! I've been meaning to check this game (software?) out, it seems really fun. In both games like Sim City and strategy games like AoE, my favorite part is always the editing mode where you get to just plop down a bunch of structures, and this seems to really channel that vibe.
You should do more of these kinds of vids
I second this motion, Calling on a Third.
Very creative video, it teaches a lot of stuff!
Great concept for a video!
Straight Moses posting, love to see it.
Great video! So great you earned yourself a sub! Also you need to do a gaming video on the mobile game Designer City.
15:47 - wow that is unreal. It looks so out of place in hindsight. I can't believe that was a thing.
What a great video, thanks for making this:)
The best part for me is the relatively dense townhouses way out in the suburb. I see that out here in Greenville, SC all the time
20:23 I felt this so much I was in Central Phoenix on a Saturday afternoon, and there was almost no one around just a few people like myself grabbing lunch
Thank you for making this video for us ❤️
49:33 OH MY GOD! Im physically hurting at that image, and at this god awful use of land, just imagine all the trees that got cut down for that crap, i mean, Jesus what a way to ruin nature
Fantastic video! Great idea.
a unique style of video. i enjoyed it.
This was very enjoyable and I loved learning the history. A lot of the built environment i grew up in makes sense through this explanation.
Currently I'm concerned about exurbanization and suburbs eating up the rest of the sierra foot hills around Rocklin, CA. There only so much of that land left.
What is the best way to persuade towns to focus on density, less cars, and more walkable places. What are the forces that drive those massive sprawling developments?
Awesome! I would love to see a vid where one deconstructs a modern city to encourage density and nature balance: a hypothesis about what a future city could look like if we committed do de-paving and restoring public space.
Americans don't travel enough abroad! You have too few vacation days, you dont know how things are done in other countries.
Loved this exercise! It would be great to see this in a summarized version so more people can see this full transition
what .. OK YES GOOD idea CAUSE: WOOSH u lost me
As an e-learning developer and a town scraper enthuiast myself, this vas very inspiring
My guy...I just got to you building the belt line, and I'm like...."he just made Toronto". Adding the 401 was the clincher. First it was the DVP. Then the 427. Now the 401. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhh....
I really loved this video! An entertaining way to demonstrate how cities changed over time in NA. Also some funny moments. "oh yeah, look at this, it's looking real good now. this is about as ugly as you can make townscaper" hahaha
"I've done it, it looks terrible as I imagined! It's fantastic!" US positivism really applies everywhere!
Le Corbusiers "Plan Voisin" would be interesting to see in Townscaper
“This farmer has held out of a long time”
*begins demolishing their barn*
Love the video concept any updates on the card game by one of your students that you live streamed once? Please make your livestreams available to watch
It's still in the works -- I'll let you know when the next version is ready. Archived livestreams are a Patreon perk at the $10 level. Sorry!
Okay
what a fun use of townscaper! thanks for this
15:25 I'm looking at you i-95 through most of the north east. New Haven comes to mind as pretty egregious separation of a city from it's waterfront. I-91 also did a good job of wrecking the area.
You should checkout city skylines. It’s just like this game but goes even more into detail with the ability to make bus networks, bridges, and highways. You also get to control zoning laws and local HOAs
Tip: Turn the grid on, would have helpedyou work out what things look like.
Also, 36:30 should have been dark red.
I spoke too soon!
Definitely needs more parking lots. Empty stretches of tarmac are *everywhere* in the US, and they're sooo charming!
I love this. I loved learning about Jane Jacobs. She seems like a true rebel.
Well done dude, you really fucked it up nicely :)
You should make a cities skyline/simcity one! I would love your commentary on that kind of more complex city buiding games
Townscaper levelled up since i last played it... now I'm really glad i got it
Just finished reading Power Broker, Moses was a fascinating imperialist.
Slowly working my way through it, I do the the audiobook, but for some reason I can not be trusted with it in the UK
@@ap9970 Yeah, Robert Caro drags, but its so damn informative.
I watched this while I ate some canned Mac and cheese (with weird sweet fake cheese sauce) that I attempted to fix with pepper and paprika and it just felt so right for this.
Great video
Your tour of US city planning/design history tells me that everything we hate about American cities began with one key assumption: that while Americans would still want to be about 10-20 minutes away from wherever they work or play, that travel time should be spent driving a personal motor vehicle rather than walking or riding a bicycle or streetcar. Thus city planning scaled up to accommodate parking and driving.
Reminds me of I-71, I-75, and the Norwood Lateral in Cincinnati
Nice and fun idea (love this game! wasted so many hours of my life on it already lol). But you could REALLY do this in a realistic way with Cities: Skylines! Cities: Skylines 2 is coming out later this year and I am beyond excited about it because it's starting to look amazing from all the previews!!!
My body is ready, my heart is not.
what kinda misses from this in my opinion is the introduction of big outside of town industry plants
Ever thought about doing a city skylines letsplay? lol maybe not a bad idea with 2 coming out soon 👀
great vid
Will you ever do a more in-depth video on urban renewal?
Finally, good to see you playing theotown
This is brutal to watch. Would love to see a video on how to try to heal the scars of the last half century of horrible planning decisions.
There’s a really fun city building app called bit city you should make a video on it
man turns nice island city into california
Or your average Southern city.
@CityBeautiful your audio is cut during the Nebula advertisement!
Kentlands, in Gaithersburg, MD, is an example of the modern high-density community, with shopping walkable.
Wow, I played Townscaper but never though of making ugly stuff in it xD. That's a great new video format! Using game for education.
I hope ull see this. I'm waiting for you reaction on Cities Skylines 2 in October