SimCity getting better, still a simplification

The original SimCity taught me it’s best to segregate commercial zones far from residential zones to make property values higher, and to build very large donut shaped superblocks. The 1960s form of urban planning that SimCity’s model rewards turned out to be totally wrong.

Now SimCity is on its fourth verson, and the model is a lot more sophisticated. Matthew Yglesias bought it and found some flaws like no mixed-use buildings or bicycling. But it does reward locating different zones near each other and good road connectivity. Ryan Avent has some more comments.