Paradox Interactive announced this morning that it’s going to be assisting city planners from Stockholm by using its city-building game, Cities: Skylines, to help design and develop a new city district called Norra Djurgardstaden.
This is actually one of Europe’s largest urban development projects focusing on long-term sustainability, with plans to add 12,000 new residences and 35,000 workspaces, helping an area that’s suffered a shortage of accommodations for its increasing population.
Modders have been helping with the development of this district too, but there’s also plenty of Cities: Skylines Mods to help you as well!
Paradox Interactive and the Stockholm city planners will be holding a workshop on September 3rd and 4th, where Cities: Skylines will be used to explore possible methods for this district to become sustainable, and offer enough support for the local population.
“More and more people are realizing the potential that games have – they’re already a medium that engages people all of all ages and countries, to develop and influence all aspects of our society. We truly commend the City of Stockholm and The Swedish Building Services in their ambition to find new and forward-thinking ways of solving real societal challenges,” said Susana Meza Graham, COO of Paradox Interactive. “We are thrilled that Cities: Skylines was chosen to help contribute to this change right in our own backyard, and are excited to work with all involved parties to bring this project forward, not in the least our very dedicated community of players and fans.”
The best thing about this is that players of Cities: Skylines in Sweden and abroad have become involved with the project too, by contributing ideas, plans, and modifications to the game that will allow the planners to adapt the designs to their needs. In fact, one of the most active modders in Cities: Skylines, Alexander Oberroither, will fly from Austria to Stockholm to help with the workshop.
“A citizen dialogue that functions well is key for urban city planning, now and in the future,” said Erik Kalmaru, head of communications at the Swedish Building Services. “Computer games have shown to be a very effective tool to build engagement and generate ideas, but also to visualize the process. We undertook a previous project with Minecraft and Mojang which developed into a project spanning the world, and we look forward to seeing what using Cities: Skylines as a tool will generate.”
The latest expansion, Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters, was revealed during GamesCom only five days ago, you can find out more about that here.
