Permit Pending: a free city-builder where every project faces hearings, appeals and the next election
Play mayor in your browser and watch a 12-story apartment block shrink to six stories and then die in committee.
Developer Peter Cai's Permit Pending is a browser city simulation 'in the spirit of the classics' with one twist: you are an elected mayor, not a god. Every apartment block, bus lane and factory goes through hearings, reviews, objections, lawsuits and appeals; residents have ages, incomes and homes; a seven-seat council votes; and you face reelection every four years. It is free, needs no account, saves locally and works offline after the first visit. Scenarios range from a 200-person hamlet to 'The Unaffordable Metropolis'.
The Show HN thread turned into a debate about housing and permitting itself: whether a century of keeping every neighbor happy produced today's shortages, whether unregulated building just creates other problems, and how books like Abundance frame it. Players also flagged story text that doesn't match their town, and the author replied with fixes.
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SimCity (1989 video game)
After exploring Permit Pending: build the city of your dreams, subject to approval, the classic it riffs on is SimCity (1989 video game).
Will Wright's 1989 city-building simulation, in which players zone, build infrastructure and collect taxes while balancing the city's needs.
Wikipedia · Wade · 5 min
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Abundance (Klein and Thompson book)
After exploring Permit Pending: build the city of your dreams, subject to approval, for the policy argument the thread kept citing, try Abundance (Klein and Thompson book).
A 2025 book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on why the US struggles to build housing and infrastructure; it popularized the YIMBY movement.
Wikipedia · Swim · 30 min
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