Upcoming, SimCity Societies, I just watched a demo and it’s really the architects petri-dish for Utopia’s, Dystopia’s, Disneylands and Wastelands. Read this quote from 1up:

“As the working title implies, Societies adds a new layer of emphasis on the city’s citizens. The game introduces six “social energies” (such as Wealth or Obedience) that influence your city’s look and feel. Buildings and aesthetics change depending on how these six values develop. Focus on Obedience, for example, and your buildings will start automatically adding security cameras to monitor your citizens’ movements, Orwellian-style. Different energy balances unlock different building types, too.”

It reminded me of a debate in architectural discourse about whether just purely physical changes in the built environment can really change the social characteristic of an area. Herbert Gans replied in his essay ‘Urban Vitality and the Fallacy of Physical Determinism’ (part of the book ‘People, Plans, and Policies‘, with criticism on city planning as a vehicle for social reform, such as proposed by Jane Jacobs

Watch, the demo and the explanation of the driving theories behind the game