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Comment by matheusmoreira | Hacker News Reader

> Does this look nice to you?

Yes, it does. It's exactly what I want my real life city to be like.

No plants growing everywhere completely out of control and invading perimeters they aren't supposed to be in. No cracked pavement that's just a rainfall away from being replaced with potholes.

Apparently, "soul" means a city that looks like it's unmaintained and teetering on the edge of a precipice, just about to be reclaimed by nature, a few years away from turning into the green urbanscape of The Last of Us.

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You're rejecting the behavior of both human nature and earthly nature in a naively idealistic manner.

From the moment an object is constructed it is being pulled into the ground. Maintenance has a far higher cost than initial construction. Relative perfection is inversely proportionate to complexity.

This is the exact same mentality that drives suburban lawn guys crazy when their grass has a brown spot. You are not fully in control.

> You're rejecting the behavior of both human nature and earthly nature

Absolutely. The whole point of a city is to reject all that.

> You are not fully in control.

I know, which is why I don't bother with lawns. I'd rather fill the entire area with solar panels instead.

The whole point of a city is to allow large numbers of people to live in close proximity to each other. Everything else is a choice.

Who would choose to live in a decaying city? Broken down buildings, screwed up roads?

This is stuff you grit your teeth and put up with because it can't be helped. Who would choose to design a city with this decay literally built into it? That's mind boggling.

I just don't let it bother me that much, but to each their own. A city with rounded down corners feels lived in, comfortable even.

Choosing a decaying city might mean lower taxes. Or better health care. Or tax breaks for the elites. You know, things we choose as a collective.

We choose those things in spite of the decay though, not because of it.

What I mean here that it's a trade off.

Literal millions of people live in New York, Athens, London, Berlin, Rome, and tons of other places with various grades of decay visible everywhere. That’s what we usually call a place having a soul.

Seriously doubt people choose to live in the richest cities of the richest nations on Earth specifically because of urban decay.

What YOU see as urban decay, most see as "home".

I don't get what your point is. Are you saying people don't fix and improve their homes?

Leave cracks and potholes on the pavement for long enough, allow some dilapidated building to stand for long enough, and it just becomes part of the identity of the city and the people who live in it? It turns into the city's "character" ?

To me that sounds like a coping mechanism.

It's very interesting to observe the different perspectives in this thread, which seem to be mutually exclusive. When talking about urban decay, some people think of an artist's loft in a run-down brick factory from the 19th century with Graffiti on the walls and exposed steel beams, others of potholes, trash, and overdue maintenance.

The people who see a run-down graffitied building as decay almost certainly also see potholes and trash as decay. Perhaps not the other way around.

If every rich city has what you call "urban decay", it seems that's a likely side effect of what makes them rich.

Like the roads actually being used and not closed so they can be constantly repaved.

You make a bit of weed overgrowing a bit of pavement that's slightly broken sound like that scene in Idiocracy when the protagonist looks out of a window for the first time, come on.

The extreme opposite of that would hordes of people (or robots) with nail clippers patrolling everything 24/7. When any tile is even just chipped (or when when the scan shows the wind carried away a few molucules from the surface), it gets replaced. When tiles in that exact same color aren't available anymore, they all get replaced. Heck, when the sun was out and faded the color of something slightly more than areas that were in shade, the whole area has to be rebuilt.

Or take cutting your fingernails: do it once a week, do it daily, or why not every second? Every moment they're growing a bit, and they don't remain in the shape determined as well cut by their owner for even an hour! Unless you keep cutting/filing them. But while you are cutting your nails, you can't be cutting your hair, so that's gross. And even if you could, you cannot cut all strands of hair at the same time, it'll always be screwed up.

So of course the answer is somewhere in between, it has to be, and it's probably not the same for everybody.

> The extreme opposite of that would hordes of people (or robots) with nail clippers patrolling everything 24/7.

Hordes of robots constantly and meticulously maintaining entire cities sounds awesome, actually. That's the post scarcity society I dream of.

> Or take cutting your fingernails: do it once a week, do it daily, or why not every second?

We only need to choose because we lack the technology. Maybe one day we'll have Deus Ex style nanobot pills we can swallow. They will invisibly and continuously maintain our bodies for us. Nails are just one of countless things they will maintain.

> Who would choose to live in a decaying city? Broken down buildings, screwed up roads?

Decay is a never-ending process, as are the changing architectural tastes of city residents. Only through a continual process of demolition and rebuilding can they be kept at bay.

You see this in real cities everywhere: districts of shiny, antiseptic, newly-built towers, side-by-side with decaying warehouses and brownstones from a hundred years ago. The former are modern, the latter are charming, to be desirable a city needs a balance of the new and the old.

> I know, which is why I don't bother with lawns. I'd rather fill the entire area with solar panels instead.

Agreed. Or xeriscaping, or something better than grass (which is a really low bar to be better than).

> Absolutely. The whole point of a city is to reject all that.

I didn’t realize cities were made with a point to reject entropy and weren’t mostly organic congregations of people for economic reasons

Every single building is a rejection of entropy. We're literally carving out a secure and comfortable space for ourselves to exist inside. It's literally built to withstand and reject the elements, the chaos of the outside universe. Even the stereotypical jungle survivalists create structures to bend the surrounding environment to their benefit instead of allowing them environment to bend them. Structure is the antithesis of entropy.

This is entirely orthogonal to economically efficient concentration. In fact, cities are an extension of it. We want to be safe and comfortable when we leave the buildings too. We don't want the cities to just look nice, we want architecture that makes our very souls feel safe and protected. We want facilities like well maintained sidewalks and roads so we can walk and drive with ease. This leads to economic efficiency.

> Every single building is a rejection of entropy.

No?

It’s just a building. I’d doubt there’s more than a handful of buildings that were made by hands that were explicitly rejecting entropy and just doing what they needed/wanted in the moment.

Yes. Buildings are structure, and structure is the antithesis of entropy.

Maybe we’re talking past each other.

Do you think the builders of any randomly selected building, built said building as a rejection of entropy?

Like otherwise if we get down to philosophical bones then life is a rejection of entropy as it orders matter and energy, in which case the discussion is pointless if we’re at that level.

> Maybe we’re talking past each other.

I'm just addressing the point about entropy that you made.

> Do you think the builders of any randomly selected building, built said building as a rejection of entropy?

I don't know. I'm just saying that every single building adds to the organization within the system, as does every single life form.

Entropy is a measure of the disorder and disorganization within a system. Any form of structure reduces entropy by definition.

You should probably engage with the second paragraph of my original reply:

> We want to be safe and comfortable when we leave the buildings too. We don't want the cities to just look nice, we want architecture that makes our very souls feel safe and protected. We want facilities like well maintained sidewalks and roads so we can walk and drive with ease.

>I don't know. I'm just saying that every single building adds to the organization within the system, as does every single life form.

No, you didnt. You said

> > You're rejecting the behavior of both human nature and earthly nature Absolutely.

> The whole point of a city is to reject all that.

Saying the "point" of a city implies intent. You cant motte and bailey back and forth between intent and happenstance.

> You should probably engage with the second paragraph of my original reply:

If I am going to engage with your _second comment's_ _second paragraph_ (cause were skipping over your first comment I replied to and the first paragraph of your second comment apparently) that I was replying to, I would probably quibble over you trying to entwine souls and economic efficiency

>naive

Opinions be like

"You disagree with me so I can label you in a negative light"

Since when is naivety negative? You are born without knowledge. You acquire knowledge throughout existence. Seems pretty natural to me.

It's unpleasant to accuse someone of being naive in a paternalistic fashion that implies "you're wrong, because you don't know any better, but if you knew better you'd agree with me".

The post you replied to embodied a preference. You responded that they were wrong and naive for not wanting to depict cities constantly "being pulled into the ground". Some people playing a simulator do not want the simulator to force unavoidable decay everywhere. This is something for which there is room for a breadth of preferences, not something for which there is a correct and incorrect answer.

TIL biological decomposition is a preference.

This is about a video game.

The state of being naive is not negative.

The presumption of someone assuming "I think I am right and you are wrong and therefore I declare you to be naive" is a negative one.

There are many traits that is perfectly fine to possess, but extremely rude/arrogant/negative/etc to declare as existing in someone else.

Speaking of naivete, you can actually live in a city where the sidewalks are maintained, not sinking into the ground, and where the buildings are washed/painted, where cables are buried, where there is no trash on the street, no graffiti, and where there aren't derelict boarded up buildings with overgrown weeds. Nice areas do exist.

I find it comforting to be reminded that when this little experiment ends, Nature is still vigorous enough to take back over.

If the clean lines we laid down were persistent, I'd worry we'd planted the seed of something poorly thought out yet permanent.

Nah, look at the second set of photos. It’s more lived-in, not all the way apocalyptic. The first photo looks like a render from an architect.

The second set of photos just have more detail. For example, the sidewalks are more detailed instead of just being flat rectangles.

The glorification of disrepair and decay is still very much present though. "Soul" means decayed paint on houses, visible bricks and a huge hole on the pavement that no doubt spread its own unique flavor of disrepair to the car that just drove past it.

Adding more detail is absolutely fine, but this glorification of breakdown doesn't sit well with me at all. I see far too much of it in real life on a daily basis and it seriously made me cringe. It's a problem to be solved, not something to be added in deliberately.

> It's a problem to be solved, not something to be added in deliberately.

Yes, it's romanticizing decay to add thematic and realistic problems to games.

"Soul" means something has a story to tell. It was created for a purpose, it was useful, it may be near its end. There are very clear and obvious dimensions to it that help to immerse you into the game. Details to pick up on, some obvious and some not so obvious.

The opposite, where everything is very clearly manicured, created, is so far from reality that the immersion is more difficult to achieve, or is quickly lost. You never stray far from the fact that you're playing a city game with very rigid rules.

I think this is what the author means by "Soul": objects with details to show something lived, was paid attention to, has story, depth, and scars to prove it.

> "Soul" means something has a story to tell.

That's not soul, that's just... History. Of neglect.

Detail is fine, but deliberately adding disrepair and actually calling it nice is something else entirely. It implies this is desirable.

Real "soul" would have been adding urban decay as a gameplay mechanic. Players would be stretched thin trying to keep up and some areas would naturally decay as a result. That's the realistic city story: I had limited time and resources, and couldn't afford to care about every part of the city, so the neglected ones decayed.

This is the real story, the realistic one. Adding decay just because you like the aesthetic of it is something else. It's like adding CRT filters to modern games.

However you want to label it: you don't get a sense that anything living ever touched the little pixels you're moving around on the screen. There is no 'emotional tug' to help immerse you into the game.

I do like your gameplay mechanic idea, but others may not. A quick filter may not add "soul" for you, but it might for others. It's about emotions and immersion, but it's all obviously illusion.

big flat rectangles isnt less detail. ive seen plenty of lots that look exactly like that with the surface being sort of a grippy stucko. adding detail would be texturing it to show the grit better

breakdown and maintenance is a part of life, and if you want a city to look like it spends a million a month per block on maintenance, thats fine to have as a fantasy for a game. Youre playing a game, entropy doesnt have to apply.

the post is right though, city games always put a layer of fantasy over one of the major costs that a city has - maintenance.

i havent played one since sim city 3k, but i expect theres still no setting up snow clearance routes and how changing the order or amount of plows affects traffic, along with the associated costs to the city.

Decay could be interesting as a gameplay mechanic. Spend money on upkeep or your city turns into that.

Neglect leading to decay is supposed to be a punishment though. Turning it into "soul" makes it desirable.

I think it could be tastefully done. Even well–maintained objects age in real life, and that is often part of the charm.

Consider the 115 year old brick building in a town I used to live in, with the faded remnants of a 50 year old replica of the sign painted on the side by the butcher’s shop that originally owned the building.

+1. Some of the added detail (e.g. more realistic-looking brick) looked great. Some of it was the kind of thing that better depicts "areas you've failed to maintain", iff you want your simulator to have those bits of verisimilitude.

I'd be all for separating "better, more lifelike, more realistic rendering, with interesting variation" from "decay".

Absolutely the second version. The first version looks unrealistic and gets boring fast. Assuming the amount of degradation can be adjusted it's a no brainer to make use of it. In the real world the elements will degrade everything over time..

There's sets where the second photo includes a huge amount of litter (10+ piles, each multiple objects).

There's one where the author explicitly says they want run down buildings, and shows an example of a clean wall -vs- a dirty wall, and a clean wall -vs- one where the paint is decaying.

But there are definitely others where it's lived-in, where it's adding trees and plants and even just parked cars.

It's definitely a mixed bag

I had the same reaction. Like, add these effects for when your city simulation is simulating what happens when your city is being neglected.

I think it's just a matter of what people want from a city builder. Some people play the game to build the city they wish they had. While others play the game to build the city they've already got.

Others play to tame a hostile environment and turn it into a comfortable home that provides for every possible want or need.

All about that traffic management!

I one time unravel why old dutch city centers are so enjoyable to just walk around. I had somewhat of an idea but it was insufficient for the millage. Bothered me for decades hah.

One ingredient was that each building was added to the whole one by one, they could build anyplace as long as it didn't piss anyone off. Those who had money build big luxurious and in the face, those who were poor build some place out of sight, say at the end of an alley and everyone in between found their place to fit their thing. Some wanted to look more wealthy than they were, some wanted the opposite. On a slightly curved road one side is small on the front and large in the backs while the other side offered the opposite.

The final clue came as an old painting of a road that currently has the most expensive buildings in the city. They are 3-4 floors and have all kinds of attachments and expansions. The garden borders on the harbor and sits one floor lower than street level.

In the painting however the brick work was terrible, the attachments were made of rotten wood. Then it struck me the painting was some spot half way in 500 years of "cardboard" prototyping. If a building or pig shed was ever so slightly in the way, slightly misplaced or didn't fit in it didn't survive in the long run. Eventually someone would correct it again and again until they got it right. Then when they got the shape right they would rebuild it the same or upgrade it. In the last cycle over the last 60 years the old monuments got floor heating, AC, modern wiring and plumbing, some even got new floors and a new foundation with the building still standing. It's not done, it's never done.

https://www.alamy.com/old-brick-waterfront-houses-of-de-boch...

The second building has the wrong color bricks at the top and the 4th has these cheap ugly modern windows in the roof that should really be deleted.

The scaffolding really completes the story.

This is the irony of virtual worlds: The sloppiest virtual world looks like the platonic ideal of landscaping we have in the real world.

We are invading the nature with our cities, growing uncontrollably. And actually makes people soulless.

Cities have no soul, without the nature

> No plants growing everywhere completely out of control and invading perimeters they aren't supposed to be in. No cracked pavement that's just a rainfall away from being replaced with potholes.

Fwiw this would certainly strike me as soulless. Haven't you ever seen pleasantville or don't worry darling? "Soul" to my ear implies imperfection.

I'm so glad I finally encountered neighborhoods with all natural yards right in the middle of cities that make them so much nicer to walk through, apart from the bees.

Instead we have to beg most big cities to install trees at $40k/pop so you aren't getting melted in the texas sun walking your dog.

Based citybuilder

Maybe you should read The Lathe of Heaven.

> Apparently, "soul" means a city that looks like it's unmaintained and teetering on the edge of a precipice, just about to be reclaimed by nature

That's exactly what a city is though.

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