City building games have gotten ever more intricate. But if it’s realism you want, you can’t go wrong with Sim Nimby. The online parody of Sim City doesn’t have particularly impressive graphics or great gameplay. But it does teach users what it’s like to be a big city developer in the real world of intrusive government driven by overreaching neighbors.
Anyone trying to construct an apartment building, road, or rail network will get hit with a series of obstructing pop-ups screaming “Won’t someone think of the property values!,” “Keep our local fiefdom weird!,” or “Live, laugh, love showing up to these town halls and stopping your building.” Eventually the player realizes nothing is getting built and quits.
The game, created by two Brooklyn ad workers fed up with anti-development sentiment, is as funny as it is accurate. NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) activists have practically fossilized America’s cities and suburbs with regulations and layers of bureaucratic process. As a result, new homeowners, renters, and small business owners pay inflated costs for their space. Short on cash, these cost-burdened urbanites can at least play Sim Nimby for free.
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