THIS NEIGHBORHOOD IS ZONED FOR NO ACTIVITY AT ALL.

I've had some fun with zoning follies.  No pickup trucks in your driveway! No above-ground swimming pools in your back yard!  (How many palms do you have to grease to get an in-ground pool and the requisite fencing approved?)

Apparently, it's now possible to experience the frustration on your own computer or mobile device.

City building games have gotten ever more intricate. But if it's realism you want, you can't go wrong with Sim Nimby. The online parody of Sim City doesn't have particularly impressive graphics or great gameplay. But it does teach users what it's like to be a big city developer in the real world of intrusive government driven by overreaching neighbors.

Anyone trying to construct an apartment building, road, or rail network will get hit with a series of obstructing pop-ups screaming "Won't someone think of the property values!," "Keep our local fiefdom weird!," or "Live, laugh, love showing up to these town halls and stopping your building." Eventually the player realizes nothing is getting built and quits.

That's a simulation, but Reason's Christian Britschgi notes it's still freeware. In reality you probably have to pay to be frustrated. "As a result, new homeowners, renters, and small business owners pay inflated costs for their space."  Now, if you live in Brooklyn, as the developers do, you also get to have a ditzy representative of Congress who will keep employers from building new capacity there.