When it becomes really advanced (we could even do it now, actually), we replace all upper management jobs and leaving human work to human workers, e.g. customer service, healthcare, arts and culture etc.

Set up automatic bank transfers to chop your income into % parts: 5% play money, 20% savings, bills etc. do what works for you. Get rid of unnecessary subscriptions.

Subscriptions.

Replace all roads with free mass transit. That should work.

Very interesting. What browser are you using?

I should add that this is for PC only. Mobile browsers not supported, unfortunately.

Oh dear 😅 please let me know what level you reach when you do eventually try! My max is level 3. Might need some minor tweaks.

Any Sydneysiders care to comment on this? My understanding is that the northern suburbs are much more wealthy than the others, so this project appears to be placating to the upper classes rather than servicing areas like the west which is poorer. Happy to be corrected.

Dragon Age origins.

Exceptional writing and I walked right into it just expecting a cool fantasy game. I got hit with my first experience of in game romances, the shock of betrayal, the sacrifices… It was such a brilliant experience. Makes me really, really want to play it again now.

Not rose coloured for me. I made VHS copies of the ones I loved with masking tape on the front as a label. Got great use out of those copies. And all for a low, low price!

OpenRA

Lol. I actually read the article and it’s Tim fucking Gurner.

I’ve got friends who work as consultants for his projects and it’s more of a “do as I say” relationship. He buys up properties and then turns them into “luxury” apartments or hotels for his rich mates.

He’s part of our affordable housing crisis.

And he goes on to make this statement. Good grief.

Like, why would you ever build a city differently in the first place?

Exactly. Unfortunately, in Australia, we tend to borrow stupid ideas from the US to make money and have sprawling suburbs with zero amenity.

For instance, we had a new suburbian development within 20km from the CBD with the promise of schools, community centres etc. in the early 2000s. When all the houses were bought and built, suddenly there’s no money for amenities so they just sold the land to developers who then put more houses in. Now the only way to get anything you need is by car because there’s no train or buses because it was supposed to be accessible by bike/walking but now isn’t. And not to mention gridlock of vehicles looking to get out of the suburbs for food etc. out of the one intersection provided.

I would love 15min cities without cars for my country but the attitude to cars here is similar to the attitude about guns in the US.

I like the concept of 15 minute cities/suburbs. You can get anywhere you need within 15 minutes, whether by public transport, bike, walking or car.

For my local industry, at least, generally houses are built better (not that they’re that great compared to houses built in the 80s or earlier) because the materials aren’t bought in bulk like they do for apartments and there’s less opportunity to ‘off spec’ (cheap alternative products).

That’s not to say that cheap materials aren’t used but there’s a lot less pressure to go bottom of the barrel. Plus, the home owner also has a bit more control than an apartment owner during construction.

There’s also a lot more that can go wrong in an apartment than in a house. Lifts, for example. We had an issue in one of the high rises in the city where a lift was broken and there was a huge queue. Whereas in houses, the main issue I’ve been seeing in housing is poorly built housing extensions from unqualified builders.

All in all, it’s more liveable to be in a poorly built house than in a poorly built apartment.

Give me a European style apartment with high ceilings and generous space and you have yourselves a deal!

That said, I’ve been working in my local building industry for almost 20 years and the trend that I see is that though there are more apartments being built, the quality has tanked. We have huge issues with mould, flammable facades, exploding glass, alternatives are rampant through the roof and price gouging.

Unfortunately this has fed the idea that apartment living is no good.

Private health insurance.

Banks.

I respectfully disagree. We have millions, if not billions of private vehicles on the roads right now. If we transition to EVs, there will be millions of batteries that currently have no way they can be recycled and will likely go to landfill. Landfill becomes a toxic waste dump. Toxic waste has huge ecological impacts, which affect climate.

Additionally, parking spaces take up valuable room that could be changed to parks or areas of re-wilding, allowing for eco systems to take root which builds up resilience against climate change.

Private transport is a luxury and not a requirement. The only reason why it’s a requirement is because of a serious lack of other infrastructure.

Come on. Electric cars? Same shit different smell. It’s not going to solve the problem at all due to battery disposal problems and traffic jams. You still have to park it somewhere to and from. Private transport in city centres are a waste of money. Infrastructure in dense populations should be focused on accessible public transport, cycling and walking infrastructure.