
A Tool Lets Urban Planners See The Potential Impact Of Their Ideas - joshwa
https://www.fastcompany.com/40548501/this-simcity-like-tool-lets-urban-planners-see-the-potential-impact-of-their-ideas
======
jalessio
Surprised to find this on HN this morning! I'm Director of Engineering at
UrbanFootprint ([https://urbanfootprint.com/](https://urbanfootprint.com/)),
the company featured in the Fast Company article. We provide data and tools
for urban planners to assess and compare the impacts of land use and
transportation decisions.

A basic use case is a city updating its General Plan, which would start with a
forecast of how much population growth is anticipated / needs to be
accommodated. A planner then needs to assess where new residents will live,
work, shop, and play. Perhaps even more essential, how are people going to
travel between all of these activities? Will the new growth be auto-dependent,
transit-focused, walkable? Is any of the existing or planned development in
hazard areas such as flood of wildfire? What are the energy and water use
impacts of the plans?

We’re using Python and Postgres/PostGIS on the backend to answer these
questions and a React SPA to serve it up and make it interactive in a browser.

Also, if you happen to live in California, UrbanFootprint is available for
free to your city through our California Civic Program
([http://info.urbanfootprint.com/california-civic-
program](http://info.urbanfootprint.com/california-civic-program)) so feel
free to nudge them to get in touch ;)

~~~
matt4077
Congrats for the PR successes, and also for turning what I can only assume was
a worrying SimCity habit into a career & a tool for good.

To expand that SimCity analogy to its breaking point: I've long fantasised a
game/simulator crossover that tries to get as close as possible to simulate a
city. Down to, say, individual agent's decision to eat out or shop for
groceries, and the resulting traffic etc.

Is that something you see happening in the (longish-term) future?

~~~
jgibson
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-
based_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model)

This is already in common use as far as I'm aware. Its used in the Netherlands
to predict electrical grid load based on the number of EVs driving about.

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IIAOPSW
I believe the tool works, but I'm skeptical it will have any impact. There's a
lot of "no shit sherlock" development that isn't happening. Building dense
near the train station is literally textbook urban planning. It shouldn't take
a complex simulation to prove it. The problem I see is that the electorate
doesn't work the way the founders imagine.

>When communities can see comprehensive data about multiple plans for the
future, the startup’s founders say, it becomes easier to compare them and
reach consensus.

What actually happens is people like and dislike certain things and will post
hoc justify entrenching their preferences in law.

~~~
matt4077
Even given the dynamics you're describing, the basic idea still makes
intuitive sense to me: it's easier to convince someone with a pretty &
intuitive simulation than it is without.

Your case would require _complete_ rejection of rational arguments by the
population. And while I do enjoy indulging in gratuitous negativity from time
to time, reality clearly isn't quite as bleak as one may think. As but one
example: power generation & distribution are one of the segments of
infrastructure that often lead to controversies, but supply has so far managed
to remain stable.

The optimist might say we're using some slack in the system to take our time
to find solutions that might actually better than first drafts. Yet even the
pessimist will at least agree that there's still a lot of potential to get
worse.

~~~
davidw
> Your case would require complete rejection of rational arguments by the
> population.

Sounds exactly like a good chunk of the US electorate in 2018

~~~
TeMPOraL
Or good chunk of the people complaining about US electorate in 2018. It's
easier to blame everything on evil Russian hackers manipulating elections than
to accept that for a lot of people, given _their_ particular problems and
issues, this particular candidate may have been the least worst one, or
promised the best things.

------
BenRoss001
Cities Skylines with the Real Time Mod and Transport Manager President Edition
mods added

Gets pretty close to simulating what cities go through (Foreign Affairs not
withstanding) and makes a great tool in communicating to residents and
businesses (as the Swedes and Finnish discovered).

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HNNewer
I thought it was about Cities:Skyline, I found the game realistic and helpful
for city planning

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paulcole
Sim City?

