Urban planner with zero coding experience builds Chicago housing simulator using Claude Code

kylef5993 · reddit · 2026-10-13

An urban planner with no coding background used Claude Code to build Fix Chicago Housing, a free browser game on a 3D map of 481,000 Chicago buildings, in just a few days.

What the game does

Flags 1 in 5 buildings that couldn't legally be built today under current zoning
Lets players rezone around transit stations or neighborhoods and toggle real policies (BUILD Act, single-stair buildings, affordable housing mandates, plus ideas from Minneapolis, Cambridge, Vancouver)
Simulates 15 years, with the goal of closing the region's 297k-home shortage by 2041, tracking rents and affordability for six example workers
Includes myth cards and simulated "public comments" grounded in housing research

How Claude was used

Python data pipelines split building footprints, streets, and zoning maps into per-neighborhood files for browser loading
The game is one HTML file using deck.gl; the author never edited code manually
Claude also sourced and fact-checked 50 figures, produced three design mockups, ran headless screenshot tests, and set up GitHub/Cloudflare deployment

The author notes domain judgment—choosing which policies to model and what to omit—was the part Claude couldn't do, and they caught errors like museums treated as redevelopable lots in Grant Park. It's a learning tool, not a policy tool.

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Urban planner with zero coding experience builds Chicago housing simulator using Claude Code

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