I saw this article on what are supposed to be the best video games for would-be or aspiring planners. To put this into the proper context, these are mostly newer games (or so I think considering certain games evolve over the years from the time they were first released).

Smith, A.N. (December 23, 2022) “These are the best video games for wannabe urban planners,” Bloomberg CityLab, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-23/these-are-the-best-city-builder-video-games-of-2022

When I was younger, the games to play were SimCity and Civilization. These have also evolved, and I think SimCity and Cities: Skylines (a game introduced to me by one of my students) might be the better ones for aspiring planners. You can test many concepts on these games such as transit oriented development (TOD), compact cities, etc. Of course, one can also play with actual planning and simulation software. If one has access to the transport model for Metro Manila, for example, you can test scenarios on this to see how the model will ‘react’ to various conditions or situations.

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