To expand that SimCity analogy to its breaking point: I've long fantasised a game/simulator crossover that tries to get as close as possible to simulate a city. Down to, say, individual agent's decision to eat out or shop for groceries, and the resulting traffic etc.

Is that something you see happening in the (longish-term) future?

This is already in common use as far as I'm aware. Its used in the Netherlands to predict electrical grid load based on the number of EVs driving about.

Additionally, we aim to provide numerous high value datasets and analysis modules “out of the box” to lower the bar to entry for many planning tasks. For example, we provide users a normalized nationwide parcel-level land use “canvas” to create projects with. This means you can be up and running with parcel data for most cities in the United States in a few clicks!

And for the record, there is absolutely nothing on the technical side that precludes us from doing agent-based simulation -- we just haven’t focused on that yet. I’d personally like to build a feature which allows you to use simulation to produce scenarios as a starting point and then tweak them to your liking.

For MapCraft, I'm not up to speed on what it is now capable of. I am familiar with their cofounder’s previous work while at UC Berkeley. This is a good reminder for me to circle back on what MapCraft is up to - thanks! Also, if you’re a customer of theirs I’d love to hear how you think UrbanFootprint compares.

I'll have to leave questions about PECAS for someone else on my team as I don't personally have any knowledge/expertise on that one.

(Disclaimer: I'm the founder. Not meaning to steal UrbanFootprint's thunder, as it looks like a great tool, and it would be great to interoperate with them someday.)