Has there ever been a study of the gamification of city building? Or rather the results thereof?
E.g. give a simulator the current population and layout of NYC with the current influx of people with a budget and see what the results are? It would be fascinating to see people try and "beat" the high scores on different cities (i.e. Austin would be an easy level, Boston harder, and NYC the hardest level, etc.). Then we could collate what worked and what didn't without dumb projects like the Mopac Expressway.
Not for cities, but in the same vein of a more real-world sim, SimHealth was developed in 1994 to debate the Clinton's healthcare plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimHealth
They've spent the past several years on a massively expensive project to add ONE lane of traffic in each direction, rather than a high-volume mass transit artery like it needs.
And it doesn't even work! I took the toll a few months ago because I needed to head North for a meeting, but the thing was moving slower than actual traffic from all the people merging/leaving it.
E.g. give a simulator the current population and layout of NYC with the current influx of people with a budget and see what the results are? It would be fascinating to see people try and "beat" the high scores on different cities (i.e. Austin would be an easy level, Boston harder, and NYC the hardest level, etc.). Then we could collate what worked and what didn't without dumb projects like the Mopac Expressway.
Either way I'd play that game.