When SimCity(tm) 4 (Deluxe Edition (With SimCity(tm) 4 Rush Hour)) came into our household in the form of a holiday gift, I was skeptical as.... When SimCity(tm) 4 (Deluxe Edition (With SimCity(tm) 4 Rush Hour)) came into our household in the form of a holiday gift, I was skeptical as to its ability to aid in improving urban developmental design. Imagine that. It came as no surprise, then, when my skepticism was borne out. The flaw in my initial assumption, however, was that the good people at Maxis and EA Games were trying to create a tool! They were, I am sure, not. They were trying to create a game.

Its status as a game does not preclude its usefulness as a tool. (In fact, at this point I am going to abandon both terms in favor of "software", which is descriptive without being a label, per se.) In fact, I found SimCity 4 to be very useful to those interested in having livable cities.

In may last log I mentioned how difficult it was to balance traffic, density, business, residential, services (water & power, health & safety) pollution and a budget. Now, a week later, it is still difficult to successfully manage them. And why not? City management was never said to be easy. In fact, the larger the game city, the harder it was to maintain a balance. Imagine that.

One of the things that bothered me the most was that subway, bus and train stations must be touching a street. And when you make streets, cars automatically come. That means no car-free cities! Another problem is that building roads does not cost as much as it should compared to rail. Inherent flaw? Let's take another view of it: Given present theories, designing a utopian city is doable. Students of urban design do it all the time. Just run off "what if" assumptions like "what if there were not cars." This software is based on assumptions like roads, cars and gasoline are subsidized on the federal level. And, auto makers have successfully pushed driving as sexy and glamorous (and have bribed every government official they lay eyes on.) Cars are a fact of life as long as petroleum is. So, you, the Mayor of your little city, have to deal with it. Imagine that. But success can be had, I think.

So, the software does not assume urban enlightenment at the federal level. Neither should we. I laid a lot of road, but I found that it was inefficient. It takes a lot of road to get everyone around. With a good infusion of mass transit the ratio of pedestrian/mass transit users to cars was 5:1. So, Sims (game name for residents) like to walk despite the feds. A valuable reminder.

What about density? High density is our short-hand mantra for happy city living and I applied it with zeal here. Bad move. The high rises that grew made detailed management (selecting a bit of road or small building) nearly impossible. And the sheer number of persons crammed into a single plot overwhelmed my central subway stations. Usage was upwards of 150%, and my Sims were getting grumpy. Plus, to physically support such a large building, the footprint often took up an entire city block. Then I was reminded that density has a point of diminishing return. More is not always better: A valuable lesson.

I am running long at the keyboard over this software, so I better get to the bottom line. Does the game allow someone to make a car-fee city? No. An urban utopia? No. So what good is it?

• The software forces one to continuously address the issues of urban living from inception to culmination -- for hours.
• You are invited to challenge and test your assumptions.
• It demonstrates how insanely difficult it is to manage a city.
• It is not entirely unenjoyable.

I very much recommend it as an valuable tool for teaching the basics of urban development to someone who knows nothing about it, because the software fosters dialog, thinking and curiosity. It asks the user to try new things and look beyond the status quo; it asks you to try your hand at building a better tomorrow. Imagine it.