Schools should use city simulators

I think kids should play "Cities: Skylines" at school. No seriously. Hear me out.

Cities are living organisms, affected by resources, spending, planning, disasters, maintenance, and the changing habits of its citizens. But very few people really understand how all of those elements affect each other and make a city successful, or not.

In the game Cities: Skylines, you have to grow and manage your city, touching every element. If you're familiar with Sim City, it's like that, only better.

Like Sim City, you have to plan your zones for living, business and industry. But in the case of industry, it helps if you zone on top of actual natural resources, like forest or oil or minerals. You can place your zones wherever you want, but you have to plan your roadway network to account for real traffic patterns. In this simulation, the people are going somewhere and you can even see where they're going. You can see where the traffic jams are and try to fix them. You'll see why industrial areas need their own access to highways. You can deploy various forms of mass transit such as buses, trams, trains, subways, elevated monorails and gondolas. You'll learn how traffic circles help manage intersections.

You have to manage the budget, but you can elect to forego the money angle and just have an infinite pot of money to build what you want. You have to manage power sources and power lines. You have to manage road maintenance, garbage and health services, schools, fire and police. You have to manage your water supply and sewage, making sure that you don't put sewage out pipes upstream of your water intakes. You even manage parks, graveyards and garbage.

What I really like about this sim is getting down and zooming in to the level of a city block and watching the people use my city. I can see if my citizens are sick and why, or see if they are happy. I can tell if there are enough workers or shoppers to buy what's being produced. I can watch a monorail pull into the station, see the riders get out and leave the station, then walk down the street, some of them gathering at the nearest tram stop to continue their journey. I can click on any car or service vehicle and follow it around while it does its thing. I can zoom in on any intersection and decide whether it needs a traffic light, or can get by with a stop sign, or no controls at all. I can analyze the usage of my existing mass transit lines and see if they're serving enough people.

I can see pollution in the form of smog in the air and dirty water from the sewage outpipes. I can add parks, trees and bike paths.

And if there's anything I don't like about my city, I can tear elements of it down and start over to make it better. What a wonderful learning tool.