- An amphitheater might work (upbeat music)
over here so that people can bring their stuff.
I guess I got inspired from my village (laughs).
It actually has a DJ booth with a whole band in front of it.
And my villagers seem to like it.
They go and sing into the microphone.
Hi everyone.
My name is Yamillet,
and I work in a city planning department.
I am also currently a graduate student at UCLA
pursuing my master of urban and regional planning.
So being a city planner is being a public servant
to your city and the community that resides in it.
So at my job, a regular day-to-day is reviewing
development plans, checking plan proposals
of new development, and seeing if they really align
with the city's goals.
Being a city planner is definitely a rewarding job
that allows you to just keep bettering
the environment around you.
So Animal Crossing is probably my favorite game.
I do have a five-star island,
so it's been really awesome
to use my real-life work in a video game.
Unfortunately, we won't be using the Animal Crossing game,
because that just takes hundreds of hours (laughs).
Today, we're gonna be using a website
called Happy Island Designer to showcase
an idea of what my ideal city would be like.
As we can see, we're starting with a completely blank slate.
So what I know that I love about living in Los Angeles
is the mountains, and so I know I definitely want cliffs
and mountains in the back of my city.
This lighter green shows some elevation change.
And so I actually want this
to be a high point right over here.
Let's see, what do we want to start putting first?
This is the museum icon,
and museums that I love to visit, the Getty,
or like the Griffith Observatory that you're up there,
and then you really have a nice view of the city.
And so I feel like in my ideal city,
I'd want something like that as well.
And so here's the museum.
We definitely want some pathways.
The staircases look really nice,
but we're gonna go for accessibility here.
And so we're going to use some ramps.
Something that I really enjoy having on my island
that I would want in a city
is fossils or the dinosaur structures or paintings
right in front of the museum
to showcase like what everyone is going to see.
So we can add a (mumbles) of T-Rex or something
right over here.
We're going to add some flowers and definitely some trees
to create our botanical garden.
Let's make it interesting with different kinds of flowers.
Let's put some fountains here and right over here.
This can be fountains or a pond or a lake.
So let's put the campsite kind of near the museum,
because if somebody's visiting,
whether it be the community or someone outside
of the city, they should be located kind
of close to the museum so that they're easily able to go
to the museum and learn about the city that they're in.
There's no such thing as too many trees,
'cause they provide shade.
I would include a lot of benches.
There would also be telescopes around.
Another thing that I love about L.A. or other cities
is bodies of water.
We are going to put a river through the city.
I've always appreciated water and outdoor spaces,
but I feel like, especially with the pandemic
that's going on, there's like an extra appreciation
to being near nature, and so I know for this city,
I'm definitely going to incorporate lots of that.
We're gonna put a bridge here
so that it can cross,
and we're gonna have to continue our path.
Oh, I just realized these are stairs,
but we're going to pretend this is a ramp,
because in the game, there's like stairs and ramps,
and so we're gonna pretend this is a ramp,
again for accessibility.
The main structure in Animal Crossing
is the resident services building,
which is basically like city hall,
because that's where you can get your permits to build
the construction, and so we're going to put this
near the middle.
It's kind of like the town square,
so it's a place where everyone to meet.
Before continuing the town square, the market plaza
that I'm going to create here,
let's actually put down some houses,
so we can get an idea of the distances.
I'm going to put down 10 houses.
For Animal Crossing, they only have single-family housing.
Imagine this just as a placeholder for housing.
I'm not saying my ideal city would be filled
with single-family housing.
We would also want to give everyone some sort
of front yard, whether it be an apartment, townhouse,
condo, single-family home,
We would definitely want
to give people some space to enjoy themselves.
That is just one little village,
and so let's create another one on the other side.
So the reason why I didn't put them all together
is because you don't want to pack them in too much,
because we do want to give everyone room to move around.
But we do want them equal distance to things.
They're going to be able to walk to resident services,
and then there's gonna be lots of open space
and public areas that they can enjoy.
I personally would like curved paths,
but that's also not, I guess like a thing
in Animal Crossing, so we're gonna be using straight paths.
Around here is going to be like the town square,
the plaza for all of the markets and the stores.
We would put them all together,
just because it's like kind of like a one-stop shop.
Here is like the general store,
and this side, it's a clothing store.
We would have more shops,
so these can be kind of placeholders,
but we would also want to include a clothing store,
but we also probably would want like a thrift store,
because if we're thinking about sustainability,
we don't want perfectly good things
such as clothing and products to go to waste.
So we would include that there.
This area can be filled with like a bench
for people to sit or to gather,
where street performers can go.
My city is definitely one that is meant to be lively,
and it can change everyday.
Beneath over here, we are going to have a community garden.
And so this is going to have all kinds of trees,
so there's gonna be orchard.
Just think of these like extra apple or cherry trees
to be other types of fruit,
because we would want a variety for everyone.
We're going to want space for our street vendors.
And growing up in L.A., they are essential to life here
that I constantly buy things from them.
Think of this as like a bunch of street vending going on.
Okay, so this is what we have so far.
We have our village area to the left
and another village area to the right.
The idea is to have easy access to the middle area,
which is the plaza.
And then we would also include a community garden
for everyone to utilize along the street vendors.
Let's move on to over here.
There's a couple of lakes in L.A., like Echo Park's
and Silver Lake.
I think it's very important to have something
where people can exercise.
And then let's add another one to the top.
Okay, so now we have a path to the bridge
that connects everyone to the museum,
so let's start working down on this little area.
We're gonna dedicate more open space near the top area
and around the lake, but over here,
we're going to dedicate more use of public spaces.
It's like extremely important,
and it also gives an opportunity to have,
give you access to things that perhaps you may not
usually have in your house.
With city planning, you would have an idea
of who you're designing for.
Usually, you would have community input,
and so these would ideally be public areas
that reflect your villagers
and like what is important to them,
So personally for me, somewhere around here
will have a basketball court,
because I think basketball is the best.
But not everyone would agree,
so usually with community input
and negotiate, and so we'll figure out these things
towards the end of what exactly we will put there.
For now, we'll just leave it like that.
And then you'll come back to this area.
We're going to put the airport around here
so that it is near the campsite
and away from the residences.
You don't want any pollution.
Let's fill a lake with possibly a waterfall maybe.
One of my favorite things to do is hiking,
and so a big component in my ideal city
definitely has lots of things to do outdoors.
We would want a more natural ramp.
If people want to go to a ferry, we would (mumbles).
We're gonna add our trees.
And there's gonna be natural wildflowers.
A little area for everyone
to catch a breath and relax.
What's definitely important
is having lots of spaces to sit.
Probably gonna be another path
to the bottom of the waterfall,
so let's add some over here.
That was just basically the hiking area.
I'm trying to think of what we would want near an airport.
I'm guessing some more stores.
We're gonna want to put like a little pier at this lake.
That's where you can go jet skiing and kayaking.
And so I do think this would be big enough for that.
Let's create a little muscle beach.
It would be a little bit more elaborate
then I guess the typical muscle beach.
We are gonna have machines that are more accessible.
In my island, I have outdoor book house,
and I really wish, I think it's really pretty,
but I guess it's not realistic for a city,
so let's just put a building here
that will signify your library.
I want to make a library very, very pretty.
Playground area for children.
There's like a saying of like,
if your city is like safe enough
for like children to be out, then it's a good city (laughs).
I did say I wanted for me to have a basketball court.
We're gonna want trees around it,
so for the people walking,
entering on. (crowd cheers)
I think an ampitheatre might work over here,
so that people can bring their stuff.
I guess I got inspired from my village.
It actually has a DJ booth with a whole band in front of it.
And my villagers seem to like it.
They go and sing into the microphone.
So I guess like an area just to gather over here
and do performances.
Let's just make a path going to the lake area.
And then with the beach,
we can put some cafes there like a beach cafe,
so people can eat.
There probably should be one around here.
So this will be a pier.
Let's also do a kind of a deck where water activity.
There could be an area here,
but cities can always grow,
so I think my ideal city would just have open spaces
for people to start their businesses
and their dreams, so they can always visit city hall
and get their permits for that.
So we'll have some open spaces
so that they're able to build here.
I'm also going to include some buildings
to represent other things for indoor use.
We're gonna include like fun things,
like this is gonna be a like a roller rink right over here.
Probably a movie theater.
Because we could have like a restaurant here.
Near the the community garden,
we can put the community center.
(upbeat music)
All right, here is an birds-eye view of my ideal city.
And so here we have the museum,
the botanical garden, and here, bamboo trees
with the zen garden, and over here would be probably
like T-Rex outside (laughs).
On the lower cliff would be a big campsite,
and so I thought it was a good idea
to be in close access to the museum.
Here we have the beach cafe
and the beach where people can visit.
Over here, we have the airport
and some different indoor activities that you can do.
If you go to the left, it connects to an area
where you can hike.
Over here, I feel like it's the main plaza area.
This would be very lively.
In the middle is gonna be the community garden.
And then to the right and to the left is the village areas.
Easy access to both the plaza and to the public areas.
Here's a lake that you can do more activities
and with the muscle beach over here.
Here is gonna be a pier,
I imagine like Santa Monica (laughs)
with rides and an arcade.
I'm really happy (upbeat music)
with my finished product.
This website, I do feel like it is pretty helpful
if you're trying to use it for Animal Crossing,
just because limitations on this website
is very similar to the one in Animal Crossing.
And it's definitely very useful.
I'm kind of tempted to create my island again (laughs),
because I didn't use it the first time.
(upbeat music)
- Hey everybody,
thanks for watching another episode
of Professionals Play.
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