Clueless Urban Planners: Desert Edition

The Geo Gang
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As 3 urban planners from Vancouver, a coastal, temperate urban paradise, we have absolutely no conception of the challenges of building a city in the desert, real or virtual. What better way to test our skills and knowledge than dropping ourselves in the dunes in Cities Skylines and developing a community from scratch. Join us on our journey for hot urban planning takes and even hotter asphalt roads. Follow the original video series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JXFTuxvILkY?feature=shared

  1. JAN 11

    Urban Planning Is Always FUN and EXCITING! | Ep. 18

    Urban planning isn't always as glamorous as it might seem (did it ever seem glamorous in the first place?) as today we turn into "boardroom planners", exchanging lots of words rather than putting lots of shovels in the ground. We collectively decide to build a medical school for our university, which will produce the doctors necessary to treat sick workers from our new coal power plant. Aaron begins development of a hillside neighbourhood akin to LA's Hollywood Hills (but with more sand). We also have an exciting conversation about how we take our tea and coffee. Video: https://youtu.be/R-G4u8PfrGc

    18 min

  2. 12/29/2025

    "Grids For Me But Not For You" | Ep. 17

    We debate the proposed downtown location, settling on a space just beyond the two intersecting highways and north of the oasis. Stephen reveals some light offline building in the form of a new interchange north of the university, and a freeway extension that also bypasses it to the southwest. A site for the airport is roughly planned out, along with some optimal plane spotting locations. Onyx goes back against his usual hatred for grids as he builds his campus and insults Stephen's old mountainside Azur Bay university, prompting him to defend its non-grid layout on the basis of a lack of buildable space. Video: https://youtu.be/TUay8nRVHz0

    14 min

  3. 12/23/2025

    City Planners: All TALK and No BUILD?? | Ep. 16

    In a primarily discussion-based episode, the city expands to the north in order to provide land for the construction of our first university campus. We lose power as our main power plant, the solar tower, goes up in flames. As we extend roads northwards, we debate our proposed locations for the city downtown core. A sync error forces us to delete all cars in the city to resolve it, resulting in a ghost town-like streetscape at ground level. Video: https://youtu.be/Z_y-aNWiZ14

    17 min

  4. 12/18/2025

    The CURSED Saguaro Neighbourhood | Ep. 15

    Stephen rescues the city from its "vanishing buildings" plague but Onyx alertly notices that we have way more money than we should have (a side effect of the fix) and Stephen pledges to fix that too. Aaron builds another bus line to serve the north edge of the city through to the park. Onyx neglects his lake watch duties and it floods again, even worse than the first time. We begin developing a new district, Saguaro Park, but we immediately start to experience problems glitched pipes, roads, lag and crashes. Video: https://youtu.be/Zd-q2xDyr_Y

    14 min

  5. 11/16/2025

    A Nice FLOOD To Cool You Down | Ep. 14

    The attempt to fill the park lake works too well as we flood the surrounding neighbourhood and damage several buildings, including the park's maintenance depot. Aaron proposes a crosstown bus line once again and Stephen finally builds it, hoping to alleviate the massive traffic jams emerging on our streets. Meanwhile some unknown issue begins to spread across town, causing businesses to rapidly disappear one after another and buildings to eerily flicker until they vanish. Video: https://youtu.be/jFN7da69sU0

    15 min

  6. 11/08/2025

    Traffic Is FINALLY Jammed (And We Don't Know Why) | Ep. 13

    Stephen de-zones all of Manchester industrial area but Onyx forgets to replace it in the temporary district despite being asked to do so. To temper expectations of a quick university build-out on Manchester's former lands, Aaron builds a vanilla university instead as a stop-gap measure. As we survey the city, we notice that severe traffic jams are emerging across the city on all our arterial roads, yet we can't determine what's causing them. Onyx reveals (and is very proud of the fact) that he knows where to buy the best dr*gs in Vancouver. Video: https://youtu.be/b_uP5NJGpHw

    17 min

  7. 10/29/2025

    Cut Healthcare Or Open Some Mines? | Ep. 12

    Stephen audits the city's finances and cuts healthcare funding again, only to restore it immediately as everyone gets sick. To boost our revenue, a new mining district is drawn out and we start the relocation of the Manchester industrial zone to this area. Meanwhile, the former land is reclaimed and cleaned for residences. Onyx states he may be on the autism spectrum, while Aaron voices his belief that everyone is on the spectrum in some way. Video: https://youtu.be/4SerjM87xqc

    19 min

  8. 10/23/2025

    Math Is HARD For Urban Planners | Ep. 11

    Onyx is back from vacation and makes sure that everyone is aware of that. Stephen mass replaces all the US-style roads back to an enhanced vanilla road style due to the US road inventory not having any roads with bike lanes (as should've been expected). We begin to collaboratively plan the eastern neighbourhoods as a mixed residential-commercial district with a separate office park. Onyx attempts to do some math to calculate the water needed to fill his park late but botches it massively. Video: https://youtu.be/A6X9nWU0PP0

    19 min
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As 3 urban planners from Vancouver, a coastal, temperate urban paradise, we have absolutely no conception of the challenges of building a city in the desert, real or virtual. What better way to test our skills and knowledge than dropping ourselves in the dunes in Cities Skylines and developing a community from scratch. Join us on our journey for hot urban planning takes and even hotter asphalt roads. Follow the original video series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JXFTuxvILkY?feature=shared

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