ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at two urban simulations, Replica and Virtual Singapore, and the implications of their data-collecting practices and urban design technologies. It does so by contextualizing them within the history of SIMNET, a military simulator developed for the US Department of Defense. By tracing connections between SIMNET and commercial urban simulations, the chapter illustrates how Replica and Virtual Singapore contribute to visualizing city residents as if they were enemy combatants on the one hand, and constant consumers on the other. The chapter examines the consequences of these connections with a look at the blind spots of supposedly all-immersive, all-seeing simulations and how such simulations foreclose on urban futures outside the purview of military, security and financial motives. It also examines the data extraction that feeds these urban design tools, with an emphasis on how such data contributes to the militarization of urban environments through surveillance and securitization.
