This was a generally well written piece, but I got tripped over over this firebomb:

Other critics questioned the absence of race, pointing out that simulating urban decay without taking ethnicity into account was unrealistic, if not manipulative.

Wow! Really? There's people out there who feel that the 1989 version of SimCity is manipulative for simulating urban decay without including ethnicity? I'm curious if there were really critics who said this or whether this is simply the author masking his own opinion.

And if the authors HAD included ethnicity as a factor in urban decay, wouldn't the real-life ethnicities who are supposedly responsible for the urban decay in the game be all offended and crying racism? Rev. Jeremiah Wright (no relation to Will, thankfully!) would have had a field day with that one!

baldone,

SimCity would have been amazingly realistic if it could have simulated the suburban blight that stems from the uninspired mindsets of idiots like you. Oh well, this thread will have to do in the meantime.

You'd have to do it by setting up a bunch of races, determining which ones were more and less powerful, and then having some kind of "racism slider" where you set how much discrimination was found in your city. Then you'd have the "fun" of seeing e.g. white ghettos emerging. Or maybe it would be randomized, and if you didn't like it you could pay for anti-racism campaigns, or encourage it by discriminatory laws.

Basically it would be extremely controversial, not add anything significant to the gameplay except to make it more complicated, and also be depressing and possibly sick ("I set up my city with a super-powerful minority and everyone else living in horrible slums! Bwah ha ha!")

I suppose some people might think that it should be set up by default that every city has a black population that is discriminated against, and it's better for your city if you work against this from City Hall. That's simplistic and probably patronizing. What if you live in Africa, and you assume your city is almost entirely black? You have to play with whites on top anyway?

So, a stupid idea, in my opinion. Better to be color blind. If it floats your boat, just imagine to yourself that your slum elements have more minorities, but don't force that depressing view on everyone who buys the game all over the world.

Displacement:

I notice you call me an idiot, but you don't disagree with me. I can only assume that means that you know I am correct, or that you choose to engage in name calling rather than attempt to point out the perceived error in what I am saying. So are you saying that the Farrakhans, or the Rev. Wrights, or the Sharptons of the world would have not jumped up and down screaming their racist screeds and calling for the heads of all those at Maxis? Clearly this is exactly what we could have expected from the slow of mind such as yourself. We can see which part of you is "displaced"... Have a nice day.