Cities Skylines is Car-Centric... (And That's Ok.) - A Video Essay 

They pulled the "shooter games make killers" argument on you, but with cars

Sorry to hear that you're getting hate for just playing a game. I'm very much on board with the anti-car sentiment but that's no reason to be a rude to people. Cities Skylines is a fun place to explore all kinds of ideas related to urban planning without the burden of real ideologies weighing on your shoulders... and it's sad that some people can't just let a game be a game. Besides, it's perfectly possible to be an interchange geek and also be anti-car.

As someone who grew up and lives in a European city, it was immediately obvious in the first few minutes of playing it just how American the game is. I haven't even found a way to do pedestrian-only areas yet, and that's a major thing in my and other European cities. Most shopping miles don't allow car traffic at all, except for supplying the stores in the morning (before 7am). Also, a lot of parking is done in parking lots in newer construction projects. However, the situation is very different in Europe. Nobody ever starts planning and constructing a new city, we always attach to an existing one that was planned for a very different time. This leads to all roads being too narrow (near my home there's a major traffic route that has just one lane in every direction, which is the smallest road available in the game). The law also makes it impossible to just widen roads, like the road upgrade tool in the game. So, I think a European city building game would be very different to this one, maybe always starting with a small prebuilt town where everything was done wrong, and you having to expand on it.

Honestly I'm shocked that people have come to a channel as open, straight shooting and helpful as yours to derail the community discussions. Like you I'm just here to learn how to play my videogame a bit better 😅👍

Cities skylines is basically traffic manager with plopping in a few buildings

As a urban planning degree student I'm on the fence about Car Centricity vs Public Transit Systems primarily because you can have great Transit but people will use cars and you can have great roads but also have idk decreasing traffic flow, Cities Skylines really gave me the perspective of being balanced when it comes to making cities, as a mass transit, someone who makes 90+ bus routes 10+ Train Routes and countless Monorail Lines I really prefer my cims to use Public Transport but moreover using my planning judgement that cims have the option to choose which mode of travel is rational, weighing transit cover, distance over using their cars, but in real life, it really does say that if you give people options then they'll more likely to consider the options, the problem nowadays with the car-centricity is that the modern city is built upon the automobile and people will choose cars if they have nothing else to choose, but if you as a planner provide options and choices then you give people the power to choose. So I think at the end of the day people are the driving factor to change, and Cities Skylines is just a game, for me at least it's a game where I as a practicing planner can put my skills to the test and really simulate decisions that will ultimately make a difference and change in people's lives.

Imo if there ever is a Citys Skylines 2, I'd really like to see not more bureaucracy but still a more wholistic approach to city planning. Cities do so many things irl. Getting people from A to B is only one thing. - And granted, CS does more than that. It also gets good from A to B, say. But beyond that, all the other systems feel rather simplistic. It's not super interesting, for instance, to lay out water pipes or electric poles. If you activate catastrophes, maybe occasionally you'll have to redo those but for the most part? Place them once and you're done. No considerations of, say, water pressure or carefully placed substations or what not. (Not-that-extreme) weather also isn't really an issue: For instance, irl a problem some cities have is, that they are so paved over, that rain can barely drain away, causing local floods. Or the opposite, if you pump water out of the ground en masse, you may not only exhaust wells, but also have buildings start to sink and shift as the too dry ground below them compresses and cracks. Or badly built bridges might collapse from wind or even from people walking on them. Or many many other weird, unexpected outcomes of careless planning. It's perhaps not reasonable to expect literally all of these (and many more I have not touched upon) systems to be represented. That would likely make for a very heavy and impenetrable game. But surely it'd be possible to expand into at least some of these directions.

The concern that a car-centric city building game encourages car-centric urban planning sounds a lot like the concern that first-person shooters create mass murderers. In both cases, people seem to forget that playing a game isn't about practicing a real-world skill; it's about understanding a system and learning to master it. No reasonable person thinks that playing Doom will make them good at killing demons or that playing Street Fighter will make them good at hand-to-hand combat. Why should we assume that a city building game would make you good at building cities? Cities: Skylines is heavily based on the SimCity games that came before it - a game that defined the entire genre of city-building games. Compare it to SimCity 2013 and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was just an improved clone. The original SimCity itself started as a game whose primary simulation was based on Jay Wright Forrester's "Urban Dynamics", which attempted to model the operation of real-world urban areas in terms of population, industry, and housing. "Urban Dynamics" has been roundly and rightly criticized for being reductive and a poor model in general. It leaves out a lot of important considerations and doesn't predict well what happens when atypical approaches are used. As a tool for simulating urban areas for making policy decisions, it's terrible. But if we forget for a moment that the original model was meant to actually model real-world urban areas and instead think about this as being some underlying mechanic of a game, then we see that it makes for a fun game. The model is complex, the system is dynamic, small changes can have long-term consequences and the system is never truly balanced. Part of the mastery is in understanding the model itself and how the forces affect each other. Another part is simply being able to manage all these variables on a large scale - much like spinning plates. It's a challenging and satisfying system of mechanics. And yet, it's limited enough in scope that it's approachable and understandable. Despite the complexity of keeping the system balanced, there are relatively few variables that need to be considered; far less than a real-world analog would require. This makes it quite suitable for making an enjoyable game. If you look at successful cities in Cities: Skylines or other city-building games, it's often apparent that they look nothing like real-world cities. Again, the system of mechanics these games are based on isn't a good model of real-world urban activity. There are plenty of ways to break the model entirely so that obviously important needs aren't met. Systems that are highly optimal under this model would never work well in the real world. If would-be urban planners are coming to this game hoping to practice the real-world skill of urban planning, then they are setting themselves up for failure. This is not an accurate simulation of the real world. It's a game meant for entertainment. The insufficiency and limitations of this model should be quite obvious to an urban planner. Anybody using simulations within this game to make arguments for real-world policy decisions is incompetent. But that doesn't stop it from being an entertaining and enjoyable game. Games don't have to be perfect replications of real-life. None of them ever are or rarely even fall close. And plenty of game development theorists will tell you that it would be beside the point. We play games for many reasons: challenge and mastery, exploration, creativity and self-expression, and many more. A game doesn't have to be realistic to provide these things. Often, it's easier to provide these things by taking things from real life and making them simpler or fantastical - giving players something they could actually engage with. Cities: Skylines is praised for its robust traffic simulation despite the fact that this same simulation has clearly obvious flaws. The time and distance scales are way out of proportion to the real-world. Drivers don't drive at different speeds or change lanes to adapt to their immediate surroundings. Vehicles will weave impossibly close to each other through an intersection, often completely intersecting. Collisions simply don't happen. Pedestrians will happily walk right through the middle of traffic. Traffic emerges from one place in the world and disappears in another place in the world with no requirement for persistence or return paths. The vehicles don't make round-trips with multiple stops. If you're looking for the kind of traffic simulation that would make for proper traffic engineering, this is not the place to find it. And that's just the traffic. The economic, environmental, and other parts of the simulation are trivial. The focus of the game is clearly on traffic management, with those other factors being present only to provide feedback that drives the traffic and constraints that make management more challenging. But none of that matters because Cities: Skylines isn't meant to be a teaching tool for future urban planners any more than Lego is meant to be a teaching tool for future civil engineers. It's a game to be played for entertainment. That it can introduce the player to some real-world concepts and sometimes even does a reasonable job of representing real-world behaviors is a nice side-benefit that makes the game more compelling, but it's not a tool to be used to simulate real-world urban planning or policy making. It's a video game; no more and no less. People who find the most efficient ways to build road networks in Cities: Skylines aren't harming the world any more than people who find the most efficient ways to score points in Tetris. Yumbl isn't encouraging bad urban planning policies by exploring how to make efficient road networks in a video game. Just let the game be a game. If you're upset about urban planning policies, talk to the policy makers who make those policies; don't complain about someone playing a video game for fun.

Biggest problem today is people having their opinion and pointing finger ready before knowing the whole story... Great video!!

Not going to lie, I have binge watched your videos and used a lot of the tips/tricks you've mentioned to better enjoy cities: skylines -- was happy to catch your stream last night as well -- thank you for these videos :D

I'm guilty of this myself, but any kind of sim game quickly gets people that forget it's supposed to be a fun game. It is hard to find a balance between a better simulation and a game that is fun to play and many of us assume incorrectly that a more accurate or complete game will be better.

As someone who lived in a major city, I enter every game I start with the mindset of creating viable options. At times, this manifests as wanting to plan my tunnel routes before I've even hit 2000 inhabitants, because, especially in this car centric game, the need to provide options is paramount. It has helped me to reflect on real life scenarios. When I go further out or to smaller towns, I notice how many persons will be in traffic as solitary drivers. Then I check the bus timetable and realise that many have been soft coerced into driving, along with the costs of maintenance and insurance that likely causes a slight resentment for the road. Cities Skylines, among other reasons, is great because it can prompt consciousness about the real world we live in, while giving space to theory craft creative approaches to builder a better one

I really relate to the bit about how fans of urban planning channels can oversimplify things to absurdity. It drives me nuts how as part of my work when we are trying to improve walking & cycling safety, we face opposition from urban planning enthusiasts who have been told that a certain tool (e.g. one-way streets, or turning lanes, or whatever) is pedestrian hostile. Anything can be pedestrian-friendly or pedestrian hostile, depending on how it is implemented! Even a freeway can be pedestrian-friendly, if it allows a traffic to be removed from a parallel route through inhabited areas.

I used to live in Northern Virginia too. Extending the Metro into Loudon would make a massive difference. My commute from Ashburn to Reston one summer was absolutely dreadful.

I guess, it doesn't matter who made CSL. Most of the concepts are "borrowed" from Sim City, which was an American game. Any other game designer would have done it that way. Also, game designers are no city planners, even if they have some experience in making city simulations. It's not their goal to recreate absolute realism. The goal is entertainment - and that is most of the time something completely different. It's funny how people get "over politically correct" in the name of living conditions, even though it's basically just a game. Maybe it's due to the fact that there is a new generation of citiy planners who are young enough to play the game and realize in the second step how car centric it is. If I were you, I wouldn't take it personally. It is a sign of how good the game is that even city planners acknowledge it and they, along with other people, get upset about the shortcomings. It just means that a follow-up game would have to address this. At least I hope so - only because there are always people who take things very seriously. (Btw. I played the first Sim City)

The car centric elements I most want removed are ones that limit creativity. Things like requiring all connection to a building be road connections, and not having side loading for buildings, which make pedestrian or transit malls impossible, or not allowing grade separated pedestrian connections between buildings, forcing all Cims to interface with traffic. Mods do help, but many of them are limitations of the game systems, which make them a sequel problem. I think an ideal version of cities skylines would allow for car centrism, even as a seeming default, but allow you to explore less car centric designs, since that give you more options for creativity.

I think the main issue is that Cities just doesn't give you the *option* of making a less car-centric city: building pedestrian paths is very limited, you can't have residential buildings connected solely for walking, there's no mixed zoning, bike paths are kind of basic with no traffic control, the train AI is dead simple, etc. It's totally understandable why they made the game road-centric, seven years ago, but I'm hoping if they ever make Cities 2, they'll give us more options there! As for roads, they're still necessary: as you said, services still need to use roads, but more importantly, goods need to get to stores somehow; you can't just have a train station in the back of every corner store, or expect them to carry stuff there by hand. So having a good road network, with nice intersections and layout, is still important, even if every private citizen left their cars at home!

I've been to Munich a while ago. It's amazing how well their public transit works, how fast you can get from one end of the city to another, it's also surprisingly easy to walk places (or bike or even use rental e-scooters). Being in a car there on the other hand can be an absolute nightmare.

My own experience, a few years ago, living in Rockingham, working in Perth CBD, was that it took 5 minutes longer to drive in traffic to work than to take the commuter train. But I would drive most of the time, because; 1. The buses would come every 25 minutes to reach the station in the mornings. Miss it, you're late. 2. Driving to the station and parking there would add $10 per week to my transport budget. 3. Using the transport card system helped save on the regular price, but it still cost me just as much per day, than to drive all week, including weekends.

I love how colossal order's name is such a great description of what they have asked for with this game.

OH YUMBL!! I feel you, bro. In real life, I've served as an appointed zoning official, and I live in a car-centric City that ripped out its streetcar system (and an interurban railway connecting to other cities) in the 1940s. We are literally 100 years behind where we were 100 years ago. And there is the rabid New Urbanist contingent here in town, screaming "Rip it all out. Do away with parking minimums, replace highways with boulevards," and basically everything you hear on the urban planning channels, ad nauseum. And yeah. Wouldn't that be nice if real life were like Cities Skylines, and you could just rip it all out for the price of a few frowny-faces and plop a regional commuter train system with trams to every neighborhood. But, that ain't happening. And in this part of the country, car culture is generations from giving way...if it ever does. You'd need a transportation system for people to experience, for one thing. Not all people travel, or have lived as a mass transit commuter. We have miles of light rail, but it's concentrated in just a few lines. Commuting by rail here nearly always involves lengthy bus trips on either end, and you still might end up a quarter-mile from your destination. Now we have a micromobility task force that is primarily arguing for bringing back scooters. We had them for a while, but the implementation was catastrophically bad. They were strewn everywhere. There were piles of them in an urban lake!! We seem poised to try again, although I don't know how the second implementation will differ from the first. And then, someone asks the perfectly reasonable question, "Why do I want my commute to take four times as long? And then have to ride a scooter to complete it?" I feel like I need to put together a TED talk, called..."Remember, we have to get there...from HERE." Not from an imaginary utopia.

Like a game needs to be socially justified beyond, "It's fun so people play it."

I kind of disagree in that I think designing walkable and transit friendly cities in cities skylines is just as fun as car centric because really roads still need to be there no matter what and the traffic simulation is going to be fun to play whether you're making an American highway city or a modded pedestrian and small road city, either way road and traffic management and good layout designs are important for what you want. I think CS is fun because of the traffic sim but I think it would be whether you want it car centric or not, not BECAUSE it's car centric and that game would be equally as fun with both options.

"I believe the thing that keeps people coming back is the traffic simulator" - 100% for me. My cities always end up feeling the same. No personality in them. I have to use my own imagination to make stories for my cities. I can't have a truly rough area of town with high crime and poor schools, and then the nice houses in the hills. I hate there is no "classes" in CS and it is all just levels. I shouldn't have to have 3 police stations to cover one long mountain road peppered with mansions, it shouldn't need any police stations. I love this game but I can very easily get bored and not come back for 2 months.

Not going to lie, I’m a big fan of urban planning channels, and I have questioned the way you build and plan in cities skylines, in the early days of discovering your channel. It just seemed reasonable to me, to blend cities skylines and real life urban planning together. Watching more and more of your videos however, it’s made me realise that playing cities skylines is a lot different to planning a city in real life. I’m sorry that you’ve received so much negative comments that you’ve had to make this video, but I’d just like to say that your videos are really fun to watch and that you should definitely continue doing what you love doing. Keep up the great work!

It's rather sad that some people confuse your channel with reality. That's like someone accusing a streamer of supporting murder when they play Hitman or Metal Gear. Heck I no longer drive a car by choice, but I still enjoy your channel and City Skylines for traffic management (one aspect out of several of course).

I would like cities skylines to be less car centric tho. I would love to see some mixed zoning for example. I would also like to see something like traffic manager but easier to use and more reliable in the base game, pedestrians areas in the city center. It all doesn't work very well in the game unless you use mods and a lot of effort.

It’s strange how from playing a game and talking about what you are making or building, some people assume that your view of that specific build is absolute in real world. Such a weird thought. If you look at how RTGames plays, does this mean his view is solely to drown the real world in sewage, it just doesn’t make sense. I like to play Call of Duty, that doesn’t mean I am pro war, quite the opposite. No War Please! Yumbl, I really enjoy your videos and have never thought that you had an alternative motive other than to show us great cities and interchanges and other builds… in which you also give great commentary’s relative to the game. Thank You!

Like that will stop me from building mostly 4-track railways everywhere anyway.

As an american who got into this while simultaneously learning about many of the downfalls of cars and suburban development. I didn't care that much of this games was car-centric. Video game are meant to be fun and critising based in how they want to play a video game that they enjoy is just wrong. Im also a big sim racer and much of the community criticizes others for playing games like forza and the like that are not "true sims" while i do agree with that statement that Forza isn't a "true sim" if you have fun playing forza I don't care if you have fun playing forza then go ahead. In this internet world we so critical of other just enjoying playing video games and wanting to share that with the world.

I watch your tutorials because they’re literally possible solutions to help me manage traffic in my city. And it’s not like I lack public transit either. Keep doing what you’re doing Yumble! I appreciate all the videos you do.

Another point is that you learn how public transport might reduce traffic, but at the same time it comes with a price. The infrastructure is costly and maintenance isn't always worth it for the less popular lines.

Anyone who thinks roundabouts are good for cyclists has never tried to cycle through them in traffic, as I did on my (pre-COVID) commute.

Man, I feel you a lot. This is also an eye opener. I admired how you build everything in your videos. City Planner Plays introduced me to you, and that says a lot about your skills and passion. Keep up the good work man.

This is weird, but I have always focused on the buildings not the roads. It's not a city builder, it's a road builder. I knew something was missing, and thanks to your video, I know what it is. Thank you very much. The game now has a new lease on life for me.

wow, feels weird to be early. also I agree, at its basics its a factory game with happiness and growth, while still being focused on city growth. Its a game that will never truly die out

Just stumbling across this video and channel, in my random perusal for things CS or urban planning related, and as much as I love them, your send up of urban planning RU-vid channels had me literally laughing out loud. Easy sub.

"We're all traffic together". That sums it up nicely ☺️

I feel your pain brother! I-66 is the main reason I left NOVA. That orange line needs to be extended to Haymarket!

Hey there! I’m an avid watcher of the ‘Armchair Urbanist Tube’ sect. I actually was drawn to your videos because I think some interchanges you’ve made are novel and could make median-straddling public transit work really well. I also think improving traffic flow could allow for reducing roadway space, a sorta rebuke of induced-demand. I particularly like your Left-Turn Overpass video because I thought it’d make the Colfax Ave-Colorado Blvd interchange here in CO sooooo much better. I could definitely see trams going through that type of interchange as well. Anyway, there are extremists and then there are those who can appreciate a balance when it comes to transit. I think a balanced transit mindset is still major progress in such a car-centric world.

It's really quite easy to have people use primarily transit in this game, though. Because, as you mentioned, the cims will happily walk 1km or more. So if you just want to optimize the game, a grid of metro is really all you need, with decent walkability to and from those stations. (And of course some pedestrian overpasses to keep truck routes from interfering.)

Precisely because of videos like these I've been trying to build an active transportation city in Vanilla Skylines and I'm happy to report it isn't just possible but actually kind of OP (just as in real life). I only have one 4 lane highway running through my current city, mostly underground and with only three exits. The rest of the transit happens via avenues with roundabouts, bike paths and trains.

I agree that if there was a Cities Skylines 2 I wouldn't want the traffic management element to disappear and I would not want a bureaucracy simulator either as that would not be fun. But what I would like to see is for the pedestrian, cycling and public transit elements to be more complex and rewarding. For example if there are feedbacks from the citizens on where they'd like a transit stop to be. Or have pedestrian only road or no ICE roads (without using mods). Maybe the weather affects what transport people are more likely to use. Maybe what kind of district might affect how someone wants to travel there. One way that I suspect would actually really encourage players to think about limiting cars would be to force you to have to build car parking. I bet most players would quickly realise they don't want 20% of their city to just be car parks and think of other solutions. At the moment it often feels like it's a game about roads and everything else is an afterthought.

I'm from Utah and ironically we have one of the highest rated transit systems in the United States. That said so much of Utah is spread out that transit just doesn't make sense for a large percentage of people. I'm always in favor of a balanced approach. Thanks for sharing your opinion!

Don't forget. There is so much room for roads in the US. That is what stood out to me when I visited the US. Man... there is so much space.

Everybody ask yumbl how's the traffic, but nobody ask how's yumbl.

Great choice of words mate!

I live in one of the fastest growing mixed-use areas of San Diego, CA. The light rail system to this area was opened just over 4 months ago so it is still too soon to see what effect it has on the traffic on the highway the light rail parallels. In the game, I tend to make use of trams and metro (once they get unlocked and I have the money to build them) and they have a marked effect on the traffic. The trick is to understand the hierarchy and needed interconnections of the different systems. I think that part of the fun of the game is figuring out how to "defeat" the traffic AI as the population grows.

Man I love your road/traffic vids. Please don’t stop

As one of those car bad people, this video is spot on- I really love your content, and this video eloquently describes allot of thoughts I’ve been stuck on, especially within the community- kudos my friend

Car centric is bad obviously, it took away the life all we used to have on the road in the middle of the city (my mother told me that, I don't have the chance to enjoy that), which is decades ago and is hard to revert back, that's why superblocks are formed in Barcelona. This is a game that can make us think about the problem that car traffic could make, without a good public transport network the city is almost dying because of the jam it cause. It makes us realize the true solution for transportation and the perfect way to lay it out, even Stockholm's city planners used it to plan a whole new district, I'm not sure how it ends lol. The point is this game is actually encouraging us to discover the main cause of traffic issues and the possible solution to implement, either it's planning for a better road layout or having the best public transport network it doesn't matter. I believe those who fall in love with this game can actually relate almost every aspect in your own city that we never care much about before. The first time I felt about this is when I was having a holiday trip with my family my mom was amazed and confused when I named every highway interchanges we crossed over, she don't understand what I was saying. This game makes me understand more about the city I've been living in since I was born and makes me notices the weakest part of the whole layout of my city. It makes me love and appreciate more about the place I called home. Sometimes people may thought that video games don't benefit the society except for entertainment, but some genre of video games like this for example actually educate us more about the things we might can relate that the school doesn't even touch. Some video games can actually bring people together and inspire each other, let us learn more about other interesting stuff and make the world a much creative space to live in. This game made me love to write and express, that's why I'm posting guides on Steam all related to this game, this game makes me me. I believe no one of us actually know about all the road systems from lane mathematics to asymmetric roads until we know about this game and discovered its amazing content creators. To all those people out there, try this game first before complaining about how bad it or its content creators are. "Don't judge a book by its cover", everyone heard about this. “古传带来发展，创新带来进步” "Old natures bring development, innovations bring progress"

i know its 10 months late but GREAT video. everyone who got a Not Just Bikes recommendation in the last year or two is basically forgetting that Skylines came out during a time where most people werent getting educated on the way our places are built. its crazy to call out a Skylines player for car centricity when the reality is, interchanges and cars are a thing in real life. few people have multiple positions that they take, and just see car centricity and go insane. i think im the only urbanist who plays racing games in addition to stuff like this LMFAO

I've been seeing your designs for the most part as purposed for places where walking isn't viable, as well as minimizing the amount of space cars take up while also helping them flow as well as possible

I like how this game goes from: Hahaha funny simcity simulator to : Discussing cityplanning as a whole and debating all of alternatives for city worldwide I discover your channel while ago and you helped me so much just because I wanted to make initially a realistic functional farm and crop system and then I learned about lane mathematics and road hierarchy

I'm pretty sure I fall in the cohort of the typically silent majority who totally get this perspective, and I enjoy your videos for what they are: really cool, aesthetically and mechanically interesting solutions to a game, which also have some significant real world parallels and things to learn from. Can imagine one aspect of drawing a bigger audience is getting a larger share of people who are just wanting to huff about something and find someone to blame.

Hello from a fellow NoVa resident! It was really cool to hear your thoughts on our local city building issues. Despite being in one of the few lucky US cities with a metro system, I am often frustrated by the lack of focus on transit integration or adding transit options, specifically regarding the massive updating of I-66 with no metro expansion. Love your videos- keep them coming!

I knew you grew up in NH from your New England series, but hearing you lived in NoVA now made a lot of things make sense :P I grew up in the DMV, used to live in NoVA myself. As a kid I never really noticed how car-centric things were. I lived fairly close to the metro and lived within walking distance to good schools and community centers and lots of other cool things. It wasn't until I moved to southern Maryland and came of driving age that I really noticed how much we relied on having a car. Like where I live now there are basically no options for public transportation, just small ineffectual shuttle buses. But Cities Skylines (and your videos) I think has been a really good educator on how city planning and infrastructure can make a big difference. It's what made me start to notice things in the real world and gave me the experience and terms to talk about it. I feel like having the traffic simulator and car-centricity really highlights the changes you make when you start adding walkability, bikability, and public transit. I think I've watched some of those same videos about "stroads" and the bureaucracy simulator proposals and it feels like a lot of them are kinda missing the point of what makes it a good game, or even potentially a learning tool. It's also a lot cheaper/easier/more fun to implement changes in a game than to single-handedly implement societal changes or urban planning policy lol

i like your attitude and can relate to your point of view. playing the game made me more aware to my region. moreover can identify and appreciate what is built around me. all in all, i like your content and your channel is great! keep up the good work

I honestly wasn't a big fan of the traffic system in Cities Skylines, despite my many efforts to just play the game and build whatever. However the history of the game developers and how the game functions, everything makes more sense. I greatly appreciate your input and your perception on this game as a whole. For the most part I really enjoy your content for it's format and relaxing experience. I hope to take what you say in your videos and apply it to my Cities Skyline experience.

when I first saw this i thought it was gonna be a city skylines hate for being car-centric and i was like "I'm not gonna hate a game for being car-centric, it's just a game" After watching this I understood that there are some people who would think that

Your channel is my favorite Cities Skylines channel because I have always been fascinated by roads and traffic and you by far have the best knowledge of roads and how they work.

The only real issue regarding car centricity in CS as a european is that I wish there were options to express more of the carless aspects of cities. For example Until Parks DLC it urked me that I had to place parks next to roads, it always felt out of place, because that's not how I experience them here. Things like urban city centers, town squares or pedestrian zones, would honestly round out the game for me a lot. Other than that I don't mind that the game is car centric, as the modern world is reliant on roads and transportations, and as you rightfully said, the management aspect is the real deal, and it shows and explains a lot of real life issues in cities. Keep going I really enjoy your insight and content. Have a nice day!

Having moved from New York City to a small coastal town in South Alabama about 5 years ago, I found that the first thing I missed about New York was Mass Transit and walkability. So I've found that many of my builds use heavy amounts of mass transit, particularly metro, commuter trains, busses, bike paths and walking paths. I wish I had a better handle on how to design these mass transit systems so they would be more efficiently designed in my cities. That being said, because the game does, indeed rely heavily on roads and motor vehicles (particularly involving the delivery of goods and services), that your interchange and intersection tutorials have been an invaluable addition to my repertoire. You are one of my favorite CS RU-vidrs and you certainly do a great job at explaining not just how, but why you do what you do. You've increased my enjoyment while playing the game and I would think that would be a goal for all content creators. Thanks.

I'm a big fan of urban planning youtube, but I got into that BECAUSE of cities skylines. I really like your interchange videos because they work well in the game, and it's cool to learn about interchanges that are uncommon in NA. It's stupid that you've been getting hate from people who cant separate the game from real life. You keep making what you want, in my opinion you're one of the best cities skylines youtubers out there. The tone of your videos is always relaxing and comfortable, just like the game.

Pittsburgh had electric trollies, bus lines, ferries, incline lifts not just for sightseeing, and a good train system and a hell of alot less highway. The government forced the reliance on fossil fuels and cars steadily from the 30s on. The trollies were slowly closed down, and rails left and then finally paved over. The bus stops went from a nice stop with bench and shelter to a sign on the shoulder of a busy road. Currently, most people have to drive to a park and ride which you pay a lease on a parking spot to even ride the bus in to the city. Not to mention they run very few on each line as it is. It's not by choice most Americans drive instead of walk, or use public transportation. It's out of necessity.

I'll be honest after getting on the anti car-centric binge from NotJustBikes, I do cringe every time I watch one of your videos. Not because of you, your videos are fantastic, but because of the realization that the town I live in is car centric and I wish it wasn't. I hope cities skylines two, prioritizes pedestrian and bike traffic simulation first, then you could show us some incredible bike interchanges on your channel!

A quick note from France, to thank you for the quality of your tutorials. My English is not good enough for me to understand all the words, but the video part helps to fill in the gaps. I have not found the equivalent in French in terms of clarity, competence and user-friendliness. I am a newcomer to Cities Skylines and your tutorials are very valuable to me. Thank you for your work!

Love your work - keep it up!

11:05 Everyone's wondering "why am i stuck in traffic?" But it's harder to say "why am i traffic? i am traffic." best quote lol

I think it's great that people are interested in city planning. It's not an excuse to drag on someone making cool things in a game though. Love your stuff. So many people have been pounding the drum about making cities more people-centric, not car-centered. And when a game is car centric perhaps it feels like nothing is getting through. But like you say this is a game, and it's not a simulation of the very real challenges being faced, and the hurdles in place to overcome them, and the creative solutions that are springing up. Have hope!

I love the highway interchange he started with. It is basically a parclo but the addition of roundabouts where the cloverleaves join the arterial. So it is a fairly free flowing service interchange. 👍🏻

The problem is that Urban Planning is a complex science. And like any other complex science on the internet, people thinks that a couple of youtube videos are enough to discuss about it.

I grew up in Jakarta, as a kid i was baffled why Jakarta haven't built any rapid transit yet. This thought appeared after many holidays to Singapore. I am a railfan most of my life and only gained interest on urban planning after Cities Skylines (and some simcity ds). Thankfully after 2016 Jakarta is heading to a better direction although there's still many work to do

"start a channel and just say stroad" Savage. Love it.

Dude, I lived in NOVA (Sterling) for 15 years. Traffic is a nightmare and it will always be a nightmare...too many people, too little road, and poorly designed public transit (as you said). I now live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland although there's far less traffic which I love, it's very rural and there is NO public transit, everything is so spread out, it wouldn't make sense. I love your videos, because I try to build what I know...car centric cities. I've also spoken to my screen many times because people try to eliminate all traffic lights as well. I've never seen a city without ANY traffic lights. Keep doing what you are doing. I've learned a lot from you.

As soon as you mentioned NOVA, I knew exactly what you were gonna talk about. I wish they would extend the orange line past Vienna instead of just expanding I-66!

Fellow Northern VA here as well! And I totally agree about the Metro instead of the Highway project! I enjoy all your videos and grateful for them, they have been very informational and educational on playing this amazing game!

My main reason for getting this game is, water mechanics and mass transport.

Super interesting, great vidéo !!

Thanks for this video! You really found a great way to express a difficult and nuance dynamics going on in our little City building community

"Why am I traffic" cracked me up

The reason I like to watch you is that I like to see smart solutions to complicated problems. That is all that the traffic manangement in CS is. It is very difficult but fun to solve traffic problems that does not mean that one likes cars or traffic. Its like another "face" to something like Sudoku . A different kind of challange.

I'm totally with you. I got City Skylines because I wanted to play with roundabouts and trams. I do want to mention though, that as an avid bike commuter, I much prefer roundabouts over the lights and four way stops common here in America. Stopping and starting on a bike is dangerous because it's when you're least stable, and cars like to push you into lanes that doesn't exist. Most of the accidents I've been in have been due to getting caught in the saccade of a left turning vehicle while going straight through an intersection. Roundabouts eliminate basically all these problems. Your welcome to your opinion, I just wanted to share mine ^^; I certainly agree that once a roundabout has more than one lane, I'm not taking my bike anywhere near it.

What I learned from this video was how to build my own Blvds hahah thanks !

Yes, let me just load all of my shopping onto the back of my bike or should I just push the shopping cart all the way home?

I find that CS is a fantastic game for showing people that car centrism IS inherently not a good design. I am glad the game is car centric! players are immediately hit with bad traffic if they just plop roads down without learning how to build cities sims actually want to live in. the game does a great job of showing how many sims will get out of their cars given the option, whether is walk, bike, or take transit (if routed effectively). i think the CS subreddit is a really good showcase of how effective the game is at getting people to discuss city planning, as the subreddit which is absolutely filled with urbanist discussion on almost every post! there's definently a ton of overlap with this game and urbanist discussion in general. I personally got into CS while i was also going down the rabithole of anti-car content so i think the game helped me see and experiment with a lot of what i hate about my city, and learn how to improve it. anyways great video and great discussion!

The game is car centric, but to me that only makes planning walkable areas and public transit more fun.

I like watching for the gameplay/build tricks and calming voice. Never realised people are blaming you for the world's traffic problems 🙄 hope you'll be able to just focus on making cool stuff again. I would like to see you expand interchanges/roundabouts with dedicated bus/bike lanes in the future, but only if you feel like that's something you'd enjoy! I know there are some roundabouts nearby that allows buses to go through, with a bus stop in the middle of the roundabout for example.

Nothing says:"City Skylines" like a huge spaghetti junction. I love this game, but I also love the fact that I don't live in a car centric city like they have in North America.

The roundabouts you made are so satisfying

*after this video yumbl proceed to make a pedestrian interchange* Jk :p anyway your POV is on point.

Cities Skylines should enable you to build All kinds of cities! It would be quite easy for the developers to tweak some things to provide the Player with the choice of building a City with fewer cars. At the Moment you need a lot of mods to do that.

I personally think the big problem with the car-centricity in city skylines is that all the people arrive by car to the city. Most places cities, towns, villages in the US, UK, Europe existed with people long before there were cars or even roads, I'd love if I could do City Skylines from a smaller scale, rather than "Here's a Highway" I'd like to see "Here's a community of 100 people" and then have to expand based on their needs. Highways could pop in at the edges of the map after hitting a mile stone with a "You have to connect X to Y" instruction and the inference that connecting your own developing city would increase your city's growth rate. The city initially could be walkable or have 'traffic' as horses and carts and slowly develop into the full modern city, I believe that the charm and the hostility to cars in most European cities comes from their history. Building with the smaller size streets and expecting everyone to walk places at the start also would teach the player about the limits of the NPCs which right now are unclear. You can't start the game with the same techniques that are useful at end game with cars, there's not the tools for the NPCs too be able to utilise those pathways even if they were created, however all the tools you could learn in this start would elevate your end game cars by having at your fingertips many of the strategies that a no car start has for a gridlocked network

Cities Skylines is what got me into those "cars are bad" youtube channels. The game simply got me hooked on learning about urban planning. I don't see cars as an ultimate evil, but just that access to public transit, pedestrians and cycling infrastructure in urban communities is very important for the health and sustainability of cities. I am happy for cars being an option for people to get around in many areas where it makes sense, especially in rural communities. I started out building very car-centric cities in the game, studying the types of interchanges and road designs around here in Metro Detroit I encounter on a daily basis, as someone who commutes by car. It's a lot of fun, and it's also fun to dive deeper and build cities that very well accommodate for other modes. It has been an amazing 7 years, exploring and learning many aspects of what goes into how cities are designed over history, traffic engineering, and how to make cities more sustainable and enjoyable. Cities Skylines has been the gateway drug for me into these. Possibly even the old sim city games, as wanting to go back to that is what got me interested in cities skylines and what got me here.

I don’t even play this game I just enjoy watching you put interesting layouts together especially since you have a eye for the aesthetic too Actually stunned that some people are so terminally online they think playing a video game about making roads is the same as political advocacy 🤦🏼‍♂️

I feel like the best solution, just like giving people options to use pedestrian and biking paths, is to just give people options all around. Have specific modes dedicated to specific things such as “bureaucracy management” where your main focus is managing policies, making tough decisions, etc. in a self-growing city, “City building management” where your main focus is properly zoning a slowly-expanding city, and other mode ideas. This would keep the challenging aspect of the game while also making it more diverse and open-minded, instead of forcing everyone to play in a specific way. And for the more-advanced people, you could create a new city that has multiple modes on at once, forcing you to multitask not just, say, roads and pedestrians, but also, say, bureaucracy management, city building management, etc. all at once, making for a very tough yet interestingly-possible and interactive experience, made possible with the standalone modes serving as a tutorial of what to expect from a specific combination of modes. Heck, you could even give people the option to set a difficulty level for each mode in their city. Traffic too much of a pain? Lower the difficulty SPECIFICALLY for traffic so that you don’t have to worry about it too much. Hate bureaucracy management? Lower the difficulty SPECIFICALLY for bureaucracy management so you don’t have to worry about it. Do you feel like your city is ready to handle tough traffic conditions? Bump the traffic difficulty up. Honestly, everything is better when the player gets more of a choice in what he wants to do and more ways to take out the subjectively less-fun parts of the game. It’s like modding, but without the painful part of going out of your way to get them and getting them to work; it’s just built right into the game. Now I know that that’s a TON to ask for, but at that point you could appoint specific people to hard-focus on specific gamemodes that they specialize in, working somewhat independently of each other (but with enough communication to make adding mixtures of these modes possible). It’s possible, but tough. But it also has the chance of making this game one of the greatest games out there.

I completely agree with him but don't listen to me cause I was more interested in what was happening in the background, even picked up a few new tricks tbh

I like both of you channels. The channels you mentioned definately got a valid point and i'm agreeing on most of it. I personally like cars, but they are not very practical in most cases. At least when there is transit. When you live in the outback/some other low populated area, you need it. But you are doing is playing a game, it has it's mechanics. And it's the way you want to play and i never would question that. It's 'just' a game. I also like the interchanges and the other stuff you do. Just keep it up

I find your channel incredible enjoyable and entertaining. Only Cities Skyline channel not drive by trending news. People always wan to critic. Judging by your public numbers and channel age i find you are making it very good. Cheers.

Yumbl in unexpected NUMTOT shock.