Permit Pending is a free city builder where every apartment block has to survive a hearing, an appeal and a lawsuit

“Build the city of your dreams.” Then a rubber stamp underneath: “Subject to approval.” That’s the front page of Permit Pending, a free city builder by Peter Cai (@pcai_).

It calls itself “a city simulation in the spirit of the classics, with one difference: you are not a god. You are an elected mayor.” The economy underneath is real: residents have ages, incomes and homes, and businesses hire, grow and leave. “The city keeps changing while you are stuck in committee.”

The page walks you through “How a good idea dies.” Month 3, you rezone an empty lot for a 12-story apartment building. Month 4, it’s Filed, and nearby homeowners organize over parking and “neighborhood character.” Month 7, at the Hearing, you trade height for parking, and the building is now 6 stories. By Month 11 it’s under Appeal, construction is delayed, and a lawsuit is filed.

Month 42: “Rents are still rising. Young voters blame you for the shortage. Homeowners blame you for the proposal.” Month 48 is election day. The page doesn’t say how that one ends.

Steal this

When a change needs sign-off, count the approvals before you count the work. Permit Pending’s 12-story building was easy to draw and took four stages to kill. Every sysadmin who has waited on a change-advisory board knows the feeling: the build is easy, the approval is the game.
Kind of like haggling at a yard sale, every concession has a second cost. In the game, trading height for parking made the project stop paying, and the developer came back asking for a tax break. Before you give something up to get a yes, check what it does to the budget.
Know who shows up. “High-turnout groups have more power than their numbers suggest,” the page says. In a real meeting, find out who will be in the room and who will vote before you pitch, the way you’d check the guest list before choosing the music.

Why it matters

The boss fight is the process. Negotiate concessions at public hearings, “win votes on a seven-seat council, and spend your political clout wisely.” The page adds: “Some cases last longer than your term.” Reelection comes every four years.

Every fix makes enemies. “New housing lowers rents and angers homeowners. New industry brings jobs and smog,” the page says. “Fix one problem and you create a new group of voters who are angry about it.”

There’s a paper, and it’s watching. “The Gazette reports your successes, your scandals and your parking minimums.” Heatmaps, graphs and plain explanations show why voters are angry “and which decision did it.”

There’s no winning. It’s a sandbox with “No campaign and no win screen. The city goes on as long as the voters let you.” You can start with a 200-resident hamlet or inherit “The Unaffordable Metropolis,” 300,000 residents with “very entrenched interests.”

It runs in the browser with no account or download, saves stay on your computer, and after the first visit it works offline. The fake testimonials say plenty: “I support new housing. Just not here,” from a Concerned Neighbor in Northgate, and from the Neighborhood Preservation League, “We have filed an appeal on procedural grounds. The procedure is the point.”

City builders have always been about pipes, power and traffic. A game that makes the zoning board the hard part says something about which problem players now recognize as real. If it catches on, the next question is whether someone builds the same thing for permits people actually file, where the simulation shows you, before the hearing, which neighbors will show up. The footer only offers this: “Permit Pending is not a joke. Is this a joke to you?”

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