One of my favorite old game.
The sequel Yoot Tower is worth a look too. Sim Tower was a rebadge of a Japanese game called The Tower.
(Project Highrise is a newer game in this same style)
Kind of.
SimTower really leaned into building traffic control. You would need to do things like build commercial spaces to get escalators, then demolish them to artificialy increase the number of floors you didn’t need elevators for.
Project Highrise is mainly an economic sim. You need to plan out expansion to meet contracts or get to sustainability before running out of money. The argument regarding elevators in that game is more when you can afford them or you are forced to buy them because the building needs them.
Yeah, the “magic” elevators were a bit disappointing in highrise, and Sim Tower was the one mentioned in Howard Payne’s DEFCON22 talk on elevator optimisation strategy.