What I Learned About Affordable Housing in a Video Game
It’s 6:30 AM and I’m laughing to myself if this is a good idea to talk about a video game in a blog to share with work people and clients, but it motivated me enough to get out of bed to write, so hear me out.
I never got into video games in my childhood, always preferring paper over digital screens. There were arcade games - like Galaxy and a Pac-man-like game called “Bubble Bobble” in the 80s, a green dinosaur chasing two dimensional fruit. They were nothing like what my 5 year old has on a Nintendo Switch now, with fully developed characters and storylines. Just watching the intro to Super Mario Odyssey, I understood why Max thinks he is Super Mario on an epic quest. But just as my friends could not get me to chase moving fruit with them 40 years ago, my son gets disappointed that I don't join him in a car race or a rescue mission. I can’t tolerate prolonged fight-or-flight state for my mental health, nor would I ever reach the level of ambidexterity to survive in a Nintendo universe.
So when my son and I stumbled upon an ad for Township game on my phone one day, both amused by the idea of feeding adorable chickens and cows, my son was visibly excited that he could finally talk about a game with mom. So we hit the download button and started building Maxville together.
“Township is a unique blend of city building and farming! Build your dream town! Harvest crops, process them at your facilities, and sell goods to develop your town. Trade with distant islands. Open restaurants, cinemas and other community buildings to give life in your town special flavor. Are you ready to build your dream? Let’s get started! (Source: Township App Store)”
Being five, Max is mostly interested in feeding animals, planting trees and harvesting crops. I learned several new things about him, like how he processes information and makes decisions. It turns out a five-year-old human being is capable of more sophisticated thinking than I ever gave credit for. But what I didn't anticipate was how much I learned about myself playing a phone game.
On Strategy
Often in my interviews in The Spark Mill’s GATHER process, I ask my subjects what they would do if resources are limitless - time, money and everything else. It’s what I call the Lotto question. “What would you do if you won the Lotto? You can do anything.” The most serious people will laugh, and will accept the invite to make believe for a moment, however silly. I find that they often give me the most unweighted, unrestricted thought when they become imaginary Lotto winners. When resources are abundant, you are able to focus on your true wants and needs. Your priority can shift from meeting requirements. Your true priority emerges with clarity.
Township, in many ways, is my Lotto world. It’s not perfect (I still have to play by their rules), but I get to make most of the decisions - where things go and what I build for whom. I’ve never had so much freedom. All the resources. So much capacity. With such power, comes responsibility.
My internal dialogue has been so revealing to me about my values, priorities and biases. Every small decision presented serious questions like environmental impact, affordable housing, sustainable farming, food access, capitalist values, colonialism, domestic relations, fair trading, education, racial equity, economic equity, representation, cultural appropriation, transportation, health/wellness, mental health, nature preservation, animal rights, veganism, time management and more.
I’m still finding enough new ones every day that I could probably turn this blog into a series (Should I? Leave me a comment), but today I want to share about how housing works in Maxville:
High density multi-family housing
Most of my childhood in Korea, I grew up in high-rise apartment complexes. It’s a smart way to provide more housing and it is a unique living community experience that culturally enriched my early years. Township let me build only single family homes first, but once I was able, I built apartments, co-ops and condos all over the town. I made a rule that they come in all price ranges to rent and own, allowing all people of Maxville to have a safe, healthy place to live.
Surprising things about my dream home
When given all the resources, I found a remote spot of land in the outskirts of the town to build a house facing away from the main road, surrounded by poppies and a willow tree. My day-self is social and extroverted and my house-self is clearly the opposite. In real life, I rent a very similar looking house in Lakeside. In Maxville, it’s not clear if I own or rent. It really does not matter to me, which was also a revealing thought about myself.
Access
In so many ways, I recreated the best parts of my childhood memories of high density, multi-family housing. Lots of high rises spaced out with a lot of green space and flowers. Convenient access to public transportation and community amenities. Making sure the waterfront properties do not limit the access to the river for people outside of those neighborhoods.
Another unexpected benefit of Township is how it helps with my mental health. I have distanced myself from all social media platforms because I found they made me overly anxious. I miss some updates from friends and family, but limiting exposure to too much information has been helpful to me. In many ways, Township is a very small, very controllable universe. If I feel stress or anxiety during the day, checking on my virtual animal friends is oddly calming. Does it sound sad to care for virtual pets, gardens and houses? Maybe, yet it is who I am. I prefer paper books to a Kindle, virtual chickens to real ones, and a digital Utopia where opportunities and resources are abundant.