NationStates

Cities are the lifeblood of modern countries. Some capital cities like Paris, London, Washington DC or Moscow are instantly recognisable, iconic testaments to the history of those people. NationStates allows us to name our capital city for good reason.

But not all cities are the same. Some, like Florence or Rio de Janeiro, are consistently seen as very beautiful, with all the benefits that come with it, while places like Norilsk or Houston are famously not. This is a very impactful distinction in the real world; from the mental health of the residents to the crime level to the reviews of tourists, the evidence consistently shows that visually pleasing towns enjoy a wide swathe of advantages over their less considered peers. I would like to argue that there should be a new stat in NationStates calculating that difference of visual stimulus.

For good reason, we have plenty of issues in the game discussing the architecture and planning of the nation's cities, from house style regulations to lawns to the old town. City style is certainly something that appeals to the kind of person who plays NationStates- just look at the vast effort many roleplayers put into describing their amazing capitals or tourist hotspots in the factbooks. Hell, NS even visually acknowledges how important cities are in the banners! Dozens of them depict cities or buildings as visual markers to instantly tell the observer something about that nation. Yet stats wise, there is no clear way to differentiate if we are running Venice or Brasilia,

But that can be fixed; with the implementation of an "Architecture" stat.

I believe architecture is a neutral, nonjudgemental way of expressing something that the player will instantly understand. It accounts for the beauty standards across cultures, climates and time. It implies quality and planning in building standards, something that generally trends towards desirable places to look at.

But what do you think, GI?

FAQs and Objections:

"Isn't this subjective?"

Yes and no- while one person's standards may be different to another, there is genuinely a consensus on the standards of beauty in a city. Very few people would describe Venice as ugly, and millions flock from every continent and every country to go see it every year. The research is also pretty conclusive that these generally agreed upon standards matter, and have a measurable impact on resident civic pride, crime rates, mental health, tourism, investment and many more factors.

And even if it was just pure subjective, that would still not be a reason to oppose this new stat. Players are perfectly free to imagine what their utopia's amazing architecture looks like while they pick choices to increase the stat, or what their horrible hell looks like when choosing to vandalise their cities.

"What about existing stats- like Charmlessness, Environmental Beauty or HDI?"

None of these quite fit into the mould for what an architecture stat would track. Charmlessness for example is portrayed with a gas mask and described as whether it is desirable to spend any time in them. This brings to mind ideas of pollution, climate and crime as well as the beauty of the location- and hence does not adequately measure the stat.

Environmental Beauty is literally portrayed with a palm tree! There are plenty of awful cities nestled in beautiful nature- look no further than Brasilia or Sao Paulo, universally recognised as ugly as sin while sitting in one of the most amazing countries naturewise in the world. We also have the inverse. Amsterdam is widely considered pretty while sitting on a flat, featureless natural landscape.

As for HDI, while wealth does correlate with beautiful cities it doesn't necessarily. Luanda is one of the wealthiest cities in Africa yet it is also consistently ranked one of the ugliest in the world- all that money goes into soulless, uninspired concrete blocks instead of something with charm.

The architecture stat wouldn't need imagining or squinting to measure what it sets out to do.

"Aren't these just climate or wealth?"

Tromso and Murmansk sit at near the same latitude- yet while one is considered a cute university town, the other is seen as an industrial hellscape. Climate is neither here nor there when it comes to whether humans build aesthetically pleasing cites or not.

Same with wealth. While decaying buildings in a poor city are universally considered very ugly, there are still many poor cities that are very pleasant to look at, like Nepal's Bhaktapur or pre-war Aleppo. Meanwhile, plenty of rich cities spend that wealth on things that aren't city designers, like aforementioned Luanda.

"What about the differences between cities in the same country?"

Chester and Coventry certainly do share the same flag, but not the design that's for sure! But then again, countries with amazing natural parks can also have toxic waste dumps in them, very inclusive nations have some racist cranks and very intelligent countries have some idiots. We average them. The architecture stat would track the average design standards within the nation's cities, even if it has some outlier unesco world heritage site or city that god has abandoned.

"The work...."

Well, that's always the consequence, isn't it? But that's what my proposal is; something that someone could work on to measurably improve this website. With a result that will be worth it.

"What about the technical play-offs?"

I will not pretend to be very knowledgeable about NS's internal stat mechanics, so won't give a detailed breakdown. But I imagine that it shouldn't be difficult for those in the know to come up with a good way of doing it.

Hmm, an interesting idea. As a stat, it seems like something that would be parallel in nature to the new Food Quality stat - a measurement of a specific theoretically subjective cultural output. Those are fun, in my opinion - like you say, people have all different kinds of RPs and those stats feed that kind of activity.

Personally, my instinct would be that something like what's described would fall into the ground between the Tourism and Culture stats. Would have some fun play with others as well, of course, to try and capture the nuance of what inspires those kinds of things.

It would be really cool to have a architecture stat.

(I deleted my post because I was dreaming)

Anyway, is this stat able to be influenced by RP posts?

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:(I deleted my post because I was dreaming)

Anyway, is this stat able to be influenced by RP posts?

Unfortunately, no. Stats are only influenced by issues. There's hundreds of nations RPing every day and there's absolutely no way to track that.

Wealth would probably be a factor. Buildings are big and expensive to maintain. Third-world countries can have a few decent-looking cities, but their rural villages are often made up of sticks and mud, whereas in more well-off countries, even small villages can be scenic. Formerly-successful cities in an economic depression are also likely to have a lot of run-down buildings.

Electrum wrote:

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:Anyway, is this stat able to be influenced by RP posts?

Unfortunately, no. Stats are only influenced by issues

and, although only for WA members, by the passage of GA resolutions.

Verdant Haven wrote:Hmm, an interesting idea. As a stat, it seems like something that would be parallel in nature to the new Food Quality stat - a measurement of a specific theoretically subjective cultural output. Those are fun, in my opinion - like you say, people have all different kinds of RPs and those stats feed that kind of activity.

Personally, my instinct would be that something like what's described would fall into the ground between the Tourism and Culture stats. Would have some fun play with others as well, of course, to try and capture the nuance of what inspires those kinds of things.

As I said, I don't have a strong feeling on how the stat would play off others under the hood, but glad you are warm to the idea!

The Democratic Republic of Avalon wrote:It would be really cool to have a architecture stat.

Thanks

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:(I deleted my post because I was dreaming)

Anyway, is this stat able to be influenced by RP posts?

As others have said, no. This is purely affected by only issues and by WA resolutions if you're a member.

Trotterdam wrote:Wealth would probably be a factor. Buildings are big and expensive to maintain. Third-world countries can have a few decent-looking cities, but their rural villages are often made up of sticks and mud, whereas in more well-off countries, even small villages can be scenic. Formerly-successful cities in an economic depression are also likely to have a lot of run-down buildings.

Wealth definitely plays a role, but it is not always a 1-1 conversion that must happen. I mention Luanda for a reason.

We have environmental beauty as a stat, so having man-made beauty seems like a no-brainer. Support!

This provides a logical counterpart to other stats and makes sense. Support!

Certainly will be interesting for me and my data-loving side! If this becomes reality, then there will be a LOT more trends to analyse. :3

Culture vs Architecture, for instance.

Valentine Z wrote:Culture vs Architecture, for instance.

I think Architecture vs Environmental Beauty would be a really fun one. There's no obvious reason to expect either a positive or negative correlation (unlike with Culture, where it's obvious that there should be a correlation and it's just a question of how much), but it would be interesting to see how many nations manage to do well at both, meaning they're beatiful both within and beyond city limits.

Hi!
I’ve recently started a stat ideas thread over on the technical forum
It’d be a great place for this idea, and it’d get more attention

Great idea, btw. I can totally see it making it into the game

What if we evaluate the humanism/humanistic development of the urban environment?

0 = City is a poorly designed money-making machine.

300 = The cities were made comfortable by the efforts of the people.

1000 = They have utopian settlements

(This idea is unfinished and hardly promising, but I WANT to express it. Sorry.)

Electrum wrote:

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:(I deleted my post because I was dreaming)

Anyway, is this stat able to be influenced by RP posts?

Unfortunately, no. Stats are only influenced by issues. There's hundreds of nations RPing every day and there's absolutely no way to track that.

Yeah, I get it.

But say, a nation has a low architecture stat, but they RP as a futuristic society. Then what would you think would happen? As you said, you can't track it.

what would it measure and how? personally i find rectangles ugly, and that includes not only conventional housing mandated by building codes, but rectangular grids of vehicular streets as well. i'm sorry but i don't find bigness attractive, nor for that matter, particularly cities. and a nation or a world sufficiently technologically advanced, would not actually need cities at all.

i do find CREATIVE architecture aesthetic. though generally on a modest scale and surrounded by natural like informal gardens and forested mountains.
transport hubs, universities and government centers do tend to attract large populations, but the beauty of a city is in its public transportation, diversity of eating places, and public access to university libraries.

Acclaimed architecture tends to come from depth of history, I find, plus legislation to preserve and protect those buildings. For sure, there's beautiful contemporary architecture too, but as a broad generalisation I'd assert that the nations with beautiful modern architecture are also those that place a value on aesthetic preservation as well.

That in mind, it seems to me that there's not much that can be done to separate this from the Culture stat, in terms of game stats.

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:Acclaimed architecture tends to come from depth of history, I find, plus legislation to preserve and protect those buildings.

Fair enough. Cities don't get built in a day, after all, so to be "pretty", they have to have been pretty since the days of the oldest still-standing buildings. If anything, a few ugly new buildings in a mostly-pretty city can be forgiven as "artistic statements", while a few pretty new buildings in a mostly-ugly city aren't going to impress anyone. Well, except for the postcard manufacturers who know how to frame a photo so that building is the only one you can see.

Cameroi wrote:what would it measure and how? personally i find rectangles ugly, and that includes not only conventional housing mandated by building codes, but rectangular grids of vehicular streets as well. i'm sorry but i don't find bigness attractive, nor for that matter, particularly cities. and a nation or a world sufficiently technologically advanced, would not actually need cities at all.

i do find CREATIVE architecture aesthetic. though generally on a modest scale and surrounded by natural like informal gardens and forested mountains.
transport hubs, universities and government centers do tend to attract large populations, but the beauty of a city is in its public transportation, diversity of eating places, and public access to university libraries.

That will be up to the players interpretation. Issues do not dictate what the RP is.

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:Acclaimed architecture tends to come from depth of history, I find, plus legislation to preserve and protect those buildings. For sure, there's beautiful contemporary architecture too, but as a broad generalisation I'd assert that the nations with beautiful modern architecture are also those that place a value on aesthetic preservation as well.

That in mind, it seems to me that there's not much that can be done to separate this from the Culture stat, in terms of game stats.

I'd disagree that a city's buildings must be old for it to be beautiful- people cite places like Tokyo and Hong Kong as pleasant places but you'll struggle to find many buildings older than the 20th century.

It also isn't necessarily purely culture as well- Italy's Pomezia and England's Stevenage were founded within 20 years of each other, but while one is decent construction the other is famously avoidable. And I'd find a blanket position stating that the UK is less culturally rich than Italy to be controversial.

There's an element of intent that's unavoidable here. The United States is culturally dominant, publishing literal hundreds of thousands of books a year, has Hollywood, wields an enormous presence in just about every cultural sphere namable...yet apart from a few bright spots is famous for bland, copypasted cities. Hell, Nashville is a Mecca for musicians yet well known for not being worth a look.

There's more than enough distinction.

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:

Electrum wrote:
Unfortunately, no. Stats are only influenced by issues. There's hundreds of nations RPing every day and there's absolutely no way to track that.

Yeah, I get it.

But say, a nation has a low architecture stat, but they RP as a futuristic society. Then what would you think would happen? As you said, you can't track it.

my question?

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:
Yeah, I get it.

But say, a nation has a low architecture stat, but they RP as a futuristic society. Then what would you think would happen? As you said, you can't track it.

my question?

Architecture as proposed by the op is a measure of its beauty; not just it’s advancement. A future tech society with poor architecture could have supremely advanced brutalist architecture; unpleasant, anti-human, superbly efficient, and filled to the brim with space-age technologies. Something like this on every street.

Umbratellus wrote:

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:
my question?

Architecture as proposed by the op is a measure of its beauty; not just it’s advancement. A future tech society with poor architecture could have supremely advanced brutalist architecture; unpleasant, anti-human, superbly efficient, and filled to the brim with space-age technologies. Something like this on every street.

Interesting. But as their RP it states that their buildings are just like these regular futuristic sci-fi buildings, then what?

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:Interesting. But as their RP it states that their buildings are just like these regular futuristic sci-fi buildings, then what?

Then the player is question would just need to work on raising their stats up until they are satisfied! Nobody starts in the gold for technology either.

Umbratellus wrote:

Communist Beijing Must be China wrote:Interesting. But as their RP it states that their buildings are just like these regular futuristic sci-fi buildings, then what?

Then the player is question would just need to work on raising their stats up until they are satisfied! Nobody starts in the gold for technology either.

Sorry to butt in, even if no one asked! It is I, bringing more data.

That is correct! Though of course, to back this up with a bit of data, here're nations (as of 2022 Feb) whereby I have filtered the nations with seemingly 0 issues answered, and with descending order of IT industry:

Now of course, this is a bit of a conflict there because somehow you have a lot of nations with seemingly no issues answered and yet, they have Top 1% or 2% badge for IT. That's mainly because these are very old nations, the "Number of Issues Answered" as a metric is a bit inaccurate with old nations.

So what if I narrow it down for nations AFTER 2015-Jan-01? Not a single Top 10% (Even with the peak high for number of nations, 35,000th is not Top 10%.)

So it fits!

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And that's the end of this little diversion! ♥