(2018-04-11) This Simcity Like Tool Lets Urban Planners See The Potential Impact Of Their Ideas

This SimCity-Like Tool Lets Urban Planners See The Potential Impact Of Their Ideas. UrbanFootprint, a startup with a software tool of the same name, was first to begin providing stats.

The software makes it possible to plug in any urban planning scenario, push a few buttons, and see a broad set of impacts, including how a plan might change traffic and commute times, the ability of kids to walk to school, access to jobs, energy use, the local economy, health, and carbon emissions. (The software tool can’t predict changes to rents).

Today, the State of California announced that it is partnering with the company to make the tool available for free to more than 500 cities, counties, and regional agencies in the state.

Looking at several impacts of a plan simultaneously also makes connections between multiple problems clearer, such as the link between walkable neighborhoods, transit, and health.

Calthorpe and DiStefano also realized that it was difficult to scale. The work in Salt Lake City took two years, a massive budget, and “an army of consultants.”

In late 2017, the company raised $5 million in seed funding from the venture firm Social Capital and angel investors. Social Capital, a purpose-driven firm in Silicon Valley, has a different perspective than some peers. “We believe UrbanFootprint will be transformative for one of the most critical real-world challenges of our times,” says Jay Zaveri, a partner at Social Capital.

The tool uses a variety of models, some built in-house, and others that build on academic work. California energy and water agencies helped build the models for measuring energy and water impacts; conservation modeling was developed with the Nature Conservancy.

The software is currently built for the U.S., though UrbanFootprint is also working with international cities like Chongqing, China, which has a population of 30 million, nearly as large as all of California.