Redesigning Monopoly: High Finance Edition

Free parking is a thing of the past. And Atlantic City no longer has much cachet in the eyes of real estate moguls; even the Miss America pageant moved to Vegas back in 2006. Capitalism and real estate have changed a lot since the board game Monopoly was first sold by Parker Brothers in the 1930s. So Studio 360 is giving the classic game an overhaul.
We’re assembling a top-notch team of advisers for our Monopoly redesign. This week Kurt Andersen called finance expert William Cohan to find out how to make the rules of the game more representative of capitalism in the 21st century. Cohan is a former investment banker and the author of Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World. He’s also written about the collapse of Bear Stearns, so his suggestions shouldn’t be too surprising. His version of Monopoly would have government bailouts, leveraged holdings, and a bank with vested interests.
We’ll send Cohan’s suggestions to game design guru Brenda Brathwaite, who’s creating our new-and-improved (if unofficial) Monopoly. We need your suggestions too. Let us know how you would redesign Monopoly by May 1.
– Michael Guerriero
  
Bonus Track: Kurt Andersen’s  full conversation with William Cohan
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Should Atlantic City’s Boardwalk be the most valuable property in a 21st-century Monopoly?(Rich Brooks/flickr)