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Comment by jelliclesfarm | Hacker News Reader

Gorgeous! I love imagining new cities. One of my projects after I am done with farming is to create a future world with future cities..not unlike Italo Cavalo’s imaginary cities but in the future.

Does anyone want to share how they imagine new cities?

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I have an imaginary city that I started sketching out as a kid. In my imagination it is situated in a real-world place, so a few years ago I transferred my sketch into Google My Maps and I tweak it from time to time, like a garden. Thankfully the location is still uninhabited :)

Are there any tools people like to use for this kind of urban dreamscaping? Google My Maps is pretty rudimentary but it's all I know. Games like Sim City don't fit the bill for me because there's too much other stuff going on -- I just want to sketch roads, buildings, transit lines, etc., on top of a map.

OpenGeofiction seems like it would fit the bill

I used to enjoy Second Life. What was it..a decade ago?..until it became mired in controversy and then the farm happened.

I have created a couple of absolutely impossible templates..mostly my imaginations of cities from books I have read..not just sci fi but also Victorian fiction. My fav genre is cyberpunk. I also like to imagine cities in space and underwater and Mythology and fairy tale worlds.

It all still feels ‘flat’ ..you know? I wish there was some way I can make my words become three dimensional landscapes and cities. I enjoy doing garden designs and urban homestead concepts on paper because there is a sliver of chance that I can actually convert them to reality.

Have you ever come up with fantasy materials..like imaginary metals and materials with fabulous properties.. like walls that can become fireplaces in winter or underground gardens beneath homes..detachable homes levels.sides of homes that are full scale apiaries etc. sometimes I get carried away but who knows..might be possible some day.

A game, heavily modded, like Cities: Skylines might do it for you. You can mod away most of the management minutae and just focus on the infrastructure, transit, and building. It's not hard to basically turn the game into a virtual model builder.