City Planning in the Basement

LEGO and the roots of building a city

I played SimCity back when it first came out. I was in college and had (still have) an old school Mac and played SimCity as a way to relax. I’m not a video game person. I never really got a chance. Either my older brother or my mom were playing so I learned to use the computer as a tool not a toy. I pretty much played two games TETRIS and SimCity. I guess I still play SimCity, but now with LEGO.

I tell people building things out of LEGO bricks is a slippery slope. You start and next thing you know you’ve got a basement full of the stuff and an empty bank account. Every year the LEGO Group releases two sets that I must purchase, no matter what- The Winter Village and the Modular Building. I know people who love building Star Wars sets, and those who are really into Technic builds. I guess I am a city planner- I build and rearrange my city once each year. This time I’ve done it twice- thanks to the Botanical Garden set which is not a modular but is still a wonderful build and currently sits in a park in the middle of my city taking up four baseplates so I have room to add more gardens and maybe a sculpture.

I started building modulars with the Palace Cinema set (originally released in 2013). I didn’t buy it, it was a gift and even then I decided to follow a rule- never buy older sets. As a comic book collector I know how collecting things go- new stuff isn’t that expensive, but the minute you try to fill in the holes, you start spending more and more money. The same goes for LEGO sets. They are a collectible, so the minute a set is retired, the price increases, in some cases to astronomical levels. However each year, a new set is released… and my city grows.

My current city and the possible location of the Tudor Corner.

I just finished building the “Tudor Corner” the latest modular set. Now my job is to figure out where it will fit in my current city layout. Being a corner this means I need to have a corner or intersection for it to sit. I first thought of a simple location that I had open, then realized that it really didn’t work there. Now literally everything is on the table. I’ve currently moved it to a small neighborhood I had. This required me to move buildings to make space. Some sets can be moved easily others… not so much. This will take some time and I’m sure I’ll end up heading to Bricklink to get pieces that I just can’t seem to locate no matter hard I try to organize my pieces.

For those in the know, I have built my city on the old road plates. I’m not planning on investing in any other way no matter how many people say it is easier to move things around. I don’t feel the need to spend anymore money on infrastructure (kinda like the state and federal government). I am still looking at ways to make the sidewalks a bit nicer. All I’ve done so far is just expand them since the road plates have space for sidewalks. I’ve also modified some of my buildings as I plan for the future.

At least I have an idea as to what I’ll be doing this weekend. Everything IS awesome.