I think the problem - in SimCity, Cities: Skylines, other video games, and real life - is that if you're building for aesthetics, there are many right answers, but if you're building for efficiency, there's only one right answer. The reason so many mid-size American cities have converged upon 1/4 acre lots with a road hierarchy, 3-lane boulevards, commercial strip malls on the boulevards, office parks, and freeways to link suburbs is that that's the most efficient way to satisfy the constraints of 2-3 child nuclear families who want privacy and a patch of greenery that's all their own and have varied destinations that each support too little traffic to be worth building mass transit to. #CITIES SKYLINES MOST EFFICIENT ROAD LAYOUT PATCH# The reason many megacities (I'm thinking particularly of NYC + Asian megacities like Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc.) have converged upon high-rise condominiums with street-level retail taking up whole city blocks with abundant bus & mass transit routes is because at a certain population density the suburban model ceases to work, and this becomes the only feasible way to move people to work & shopping. Interestingly, both models show up in Cities: Skylines, and the transition point between them is usually a painful inflection point in your city's development. Its not just a space optimization but a locality optimization.
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