[MUD-Dev] Locations vs Social Spaces (was: I Want to Forge Swords)

[Bruce]

Sie Ming wrote:
> Auli wrote:
 
>> Going back to my original point, limiting travel to encourage a
>> sense of vastness to a world simply does not encourage people to
>> settle down and call one spot home.
 
> I suppose my statement, "If popping from location to location is too
> easy, then people will not settle down and call one location home." 
> was not substantiated in any way.  What I probably should have
> written was something like, "If popping from location to location is
> too easy, then there will not really be any separate locations.
 
> It was not my intention to suggest that travel should be limited in
> order to make the world seem bigger.  I was suggesting that if you
> want to have the phrase "different locations" have any real meaning
> in a game then travel between those locations can not be instant.

In a totally different context today, I came across this paper:

  THE AUTOMOBILE CULTURE IN CANADA: CHOICE OR ALBATROSS?
  http://www.flora.org/afo/albatros.html

Sections of this were interesting in light of this thread, like the
excerpt below (although the paper over-demonizes the automobile and
probably plays a bit loose with facts):

=== begin quote ===
      The implications and repercussions of urban sprawl
      are numerous. It can create social isolation, and
      a lack of sense of place. With the automobile, the
      conquering of physical space became possible. If one
      owned a car, distance was no longer an important
      consideration in deciding where to live. However, a
      sense of public space was lost. As Peter Freund and
      George Martin explain in The Ecology of the Automobile:
      "The spread of the auto as the primary mode of
      transportation has catalyzed the deterioration of
      vital public space. The accomodation of space to
      motion in an enclosed capsule has contributed to a
      loss of meaning for public spaces: "The technology
      of modern motion replaces being in the street with
      a desire to erase the constraints of geography."
      Public space is no longer seen as a place in which
      to do many things but as essentially meaningless,
      except as something to pass through."48  Essentially,
      the automobile improved the speed and distance one
      could travel between destinations but weakened the
      spaces in between, rendering them dead public spaces.
      Ultimately, we are left with isolated, disjointed
      destinations scattered across a huge urban terrain
      sustained by an indispensable road system which
      serves as their lifeline.

      Urban sprawl has also contributed to a human-scale
      loss in our lives. In the words of Marshall McLuhan:
      "There is a growing uneasiness about the degree to
      which cars have become the real population of our
      cities, with a resulting loss of human scale, both
      in power and in distance."49 Perhaps this can best
      be seen in the many spin-off industries of the
      automobile introduced in the twentieth century that
      have nothing to with transport and only serve to
      strengthen dependency on the car. For example,
      drive-in movies started 50 years ago in New Jersey,
      and their numbers have increased to nearly 3,000
      across the United States.50 According to authors
      Peter Marsh and Peter Collett, drive-in movies
      encourage pychological dependence on the car for
      people who can transport their living room on wheels;
      the film simply provides the rationale to engage in
      social activities in cars.51 We can also note motels,
      drive-in restaurants, drive-through bank tellers,
      and drive-up telephone booths as familiar features
      of the ever omnipresent car culture. The automobile
      succeeded in creating a fragmented and clustered
      society; a society in which the car does the
      "walking" for you to the bank, to school, to work
      and to the park because the distances are just to
      great for your humble feet to bear.

      The importance attributed to the automobile is also
      seen in the physical design of private homes.
      Designs of private homes changed drastically when
      the garage door replaced the front porch, and was
      prominently placed next to the entrance door for
      convenience and to protect the family car, treated
      as a family jewel, from "stranger danger." This has
      social implications. Few homes now display front
      porches in their design. Once an integral feature
      of the family home, porches and verandahs contribute
      to a sense of neighbourliness and provide public
      spheres where citizens can converse and children
      can play with little danger. With so much emphasis
      on car ownership, our society has essentially
      eliminated any kind of street life where pedestrians
      are the central features. With increasing traffic,
      inevitably street life declines. According to
      studies carried out by Donald Appleyard in San
      Franciso, residents residing on streets with
      light-flow traffic (2,000 vehicles per day) had
      three friends and six acquaintances on that same
      street; on the other hand, those residents living
      on heavy-flow traffic streets (16,000 vehicles
      per day), had only 0.9 friends and three
      acquaintances.52 In contemporary North American
      cities, it has become the norm to not know one's
      neighbour.

      Ironically, by disassociating oneself from one's
      immediate physical environment, public safety is
      undermined, not enhanced. Author Jane Jacobs
      advanced the notion that, by providing "eyes on
      the street," people-filled areas become less
      vulnerable to crime.53 By extending the amount
      of time one spends in his or her car, danger to
      oneself and to others increases greatly.
=== end quote ===

Actually, I think that was the only part of the paper that was
interesting in relation to this thread. :)

I don't know how well do the ideas of urban planning or the writings
of people such as Jane Jacobs apply to the design of spaces within
virtual worlds.  It isn't really my field at all, but it seems
interesting.

At the least, it could make the case for looking at means of travel,
travel times, and such in terms of not just how they impact perception
of world size, but also how the impact the culture living in the
virtual world based upon similar things in the real world.

An old post by Jon Lambert 

  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/1998Q2/msg00122.php

indicates that Will Wright became familiar with the writings of Jane
Jacobs while working on SimCity.

  - Bruce

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