Economics and the Proiekt future

We are quite the topic in the Law Society at the moment. The following thread includes comments and criticism, some of which I think is spot on.

Law Society Thread on Neualtenburg


One of the points is that Neualtenurg is, essentially, a residential sim. This has long term ramifications for the economy and the city budget. Barring significant changes in zoning and revenue structure, I believe the current sim is unlikely to ever attract significant commercial activity. Coupled with the impending demise of Dwell/DI, the long term revenue projection is land fees and that's it.

This makes the original sim a place where people pay for the privilege of participating. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. although it makes Neualtenburg "clubby" to some extent. The sim is currently just over 3/4 occupied. Assuming an eventual 90% occupancy, you are left with a monthly surplus after making the tier payment to Linden Labs of roughly 65USD/month. If the city intends to pay artisans for their work on public infrastructure (remember the Gilde strike?) There won't be much government spending, ever.

If the city wishes to continue to spend and grow, there are two options.:

Option one is to add sims and operate off the surplus income from land "sales". The problem here is, of course, that more sims means more infrastructure to build and maintain, not really solving the long term revenue problem.

Option two (much harder, but more sound in the long term) is to find something for which residents are willing to pay, put it on the sim, market it, and make sure the city gets a cut. Questions here include - What? Where to put it? (large lots inside the walls are not to be had) How to get a piece of the revenue to the city government? (Any broad based tax would be revolted against , in all likelihood. Maybe the city could be a real partner with a private entrepreneur--either through donating land or waiving fees, in exchange for a cut of gross revenue)

Or are we happy to be funded by residents willing to pay their money and built by residents willing to donate their time?

Claude, very interesting! I was quite unaware of the Law Society thread.

I believe that yet a third option is possible in order the address the economic dilemma we face. And in fact, I think that Kendra, in proposing the structures which will replace the current Rathhaus/SC Hall, has taken the first steps towards making that option happen.

But let me explain. Back in the Spring/Summer (2005) when the current Neualtenburg was shaping itself (on the sim "Neualtenburg" a discussion was carried on about the nature of commercial activity within the walls of the city (commercial activity being precluded by covenant from outside the walls). Some felt that since the underpining of commercial activity would be in the efforts of individual "artisans", those efforts needed substantial protection by city structure (the Guild) and infrastructure (city-maintained structures around the platz). Others of us (myself included) felt that relatively unfettered private initiative is the best incentive driving commercial success. Therefore "city-owned" property should be divested to interested merchants and interest-groups, who might operate under a franchise arrangement with the city, in which the city defined its interests and then released the merchant to pursue her trade within that franchise context.

My proposal ran into its most serious criticism because the "concept" was broadly drawn to include all city-owned enterprises, such as the museum and the church. But probably the most important real estate in the city, the buildings around the Platz (the location of all tp arrivals) was somewhat overlooked. Subsequently, no change from the vision of the original founder was put in place, so that even today, the map of the city shows the "General Store", the "Bank", the "Department Store", the Rathhaus, and the SC Chambers still listed as City properties. While some tiny steps have been taken to introduce traffic to those buildings, they are in general empty.

On the other hand, in her Altenburg section of the city, Kendra has shown that prominent marketing can really be successful. She now has 3 stores plus the pub. Each is attractive and contains sellable products; in fact, i feel that the only reason her stores are not more successful is that they are hard to find for the newcomer arriving at the tp and unfamiliar with the twisting streets of the city.

The RA recently commissioned, and the Guild (in the person of Kendra) has just about completed, a new building for the city functions, including RA, SC and routine admin, such as the Deed Repository. At a recent RA meeting, I was heartened to hear her suggest that the buildings which replace the old RA and SC be mixed use, with commercial space on the ground floor and possible residential space above.

Claude, I feel that you have raised an essential topic for the future of Neualtenburg. Option One, in which the residents of the medieval bavarian city share a themed picturesque location, is a yawn. Who cares?? The essence of the Neualtenburg vision is the formation of social/political/commercial relationships between people. These are *one* thing. We have completely omitted serious attention to the commercial side, and this thread, and the wonderful comments of the Law Society, have brought this to our attention.

I'll prepare a more substantive proposal. First, we desparately need an updated map to enable the discussion. I'll begin on that immediately. If anyone has map elements beyond what is available on the site, please let me know.


Sudane

I agree. My own statement was reflective of Neualtenburg's current status, as opposed to any wish for what it should be.

I'd prefer the city be more supportive of commercial ventures; the current measures, while intended to help, really do more to hurt, between:

(a) limited commercial activity to within the city walls

(b) difficulty of navigation (Neualtenburg LOOKS nice, but is unsuited for the actual circumstances of SL)


Now, to be honest, I kind of like the city as it is in a way; keeping it as an "attractor" and a place for inexpensive homes suitable for basic accounts, possibly renovating the main plaza to better accomodate such. Thus, most of my ideas have centered around a differing pattern of zoning for a new sim, which would allow a comparison of the two approaches (in regards to amount of money brought in).

I very much agree with Aliasi's comment about difficulty of navigation - and for a new sim I think we could do a few things to make it easier:

- don't be too high up! When I first came here as a newbie I didn't know how to switch off clouds, the mist made it difficult to see what was going on and made flying round the city almost impossible
- make the layout more grid-based. I know the irregular layout is one of the charms of the city but its time consuming to learn. In RL, being a clueless tourist its easier to find your way around New York than London because of the grid.
- make the layout uncomplicated enough that you don't need a map to get everywhere
- have more signposts within city areas to main buildings and more prominent street name signs
- don't have everything in German! Please!
- have the city's website address prominently signposted in Arial font all over the city (Arial because you don't have to wait for it to rez as long before you can read it)
and
- allow point-to-point teleporting to commercial sites within Nburg

I very much like it here; these are just the things that tripped me up when I was new in Nburg and its easy to forget about them now I've found my way around a bit.

How does one switch off clouds?

It's a Debug function, Claude. Debug/Rendering/Types/Clouds

If you don't have Debug showing up on the menu bar at the top of your screen you can enable it with: Alt + Ctrl + Shift + D Personally I like the clouds.


Concerning the topic of this thread, the input I've solicited and received from retailers while laying out PI sims with a major shopping component is fairly straightforward. Highest priority seems to be:

- Where is the telehub for the sim? I want my store to be as close to the telehub as possible.
- I don't want anything like trees obstructing the sightline from the telehub to my store.
- I want frequent well-attended events to pull traffic to the sim.


Thanks all, for your kind words about the Law Society thread.