Downtown Layout

[Ricardo1992 0]

First of all I want to say i am sorry if this topic has been stared before but I always have trouble making a nice downtown with nice skyscrapers..so could u help me by telling me how u layout ur downtown (roads,parks,civic structures,densitys,etc..) thanks

[MrFingers 0]

I have the same problems too... from what I gather it's all about making it the transportation focal point in your region and basing it roughly on grids. I think that last point can be bent quite alot though.

[S_C_mbody 0]

How good a citybuilder are you? You can't get skyscrapers within five minutes, or even within two years of playing. You need to have been playing for a much longer time than that. If you have never gotton skyscrapers chances are we can't tell you how to get them in an instance.

However, do not let this take your hope away from building a nice downtown. Without skyscrapers you can still build a nice downtown.

Your buisness section should be in a very active part of your city. I suggest it being right on a busy city connection (connection between two cities) so residential cars have to go through it to get to the other city. Only start this buisness section once you have a good residential city. Start the buisness section in the residential city.

Start by creating an avenue in your buisness section. Put some high wealth (you think) plottables such as the empire state building...you know. Then Make sure the area is covered by police, fire stations, and clinics or hospitals. Create an airport and a university somewhere (your choice) in your city. It might look nice if you put them right next to your buisness district. Anyway, now create an avenue that crosses your first avenue so they form an X or a +. On these two avenues make 3x4 and 4x4 lots of high density commercial zones by holding down the control key while making each lot. Wait for your commercial zones to develop, then make it night to see the real beuty of your new downtown.

Well, those are my suggestions, I hope they help.

[anubis89 107]

i suggest you to look at the "show us your downtown" thread, or look at some CJs

 

you can also use google earth for viewing at some real ones

[SC4Noobie 5]

Generally, CJ downtowns are plopped. Some are exceptions though. If you want to grow skyscrapers, then you'll need a large regional population, good transport, ect. Desirablillity, too. Just keep building. Also, if your new, then don't expect skyscrapers all over your 1st city. At least not until your 15th or so city. It really depends on play style. Using regional play is extremely important...

[SpecialEddie 3]

There's also the...super demand mod... Shhh.

[Prophet42 1,501]

If you want a large downtown, with tall skyscrapers, you will need a reagional population of 500,000 sims or more.  In the downtown region make sure you use a lot of transportation (avenues, one ways, bus stops, subways etc).  It must be easily accessible for it to grow and flourish.  Also C$$$ likes plaza's and parks so make sure you have enough of them mixed in with your high density commercial and residential zones.

All this takes a lot of time before a good downtown takes shape.  I suggest using cities in you region to practice.  Build small cities with small downtowns then try building medium cities with slightly larger downtowns.  Eventually as your region grows, you can build "THE Downtown" and make it a good one.

[luigiguy 1]

make residental around the downtown, thats what I do

RRRRR

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RR CC CC RR

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[RushHourFreak 1]

Patient is the way, But if you allready have the demand, the funds, and the desirability to develop skyscrapers, place a large plaza and build roads with square blocks, be sure the blocks are 4x4 or more for zone the future-skyscraper-tile.

[Ricardo1992 0]

But i dont know why sometimes when i plop down landmarks it actualy makes my demand for C and CO go down thats why i usually dont use landmarks and I cant seem to place bustops in my downtown because then I have to always destroy the buildings and then it makes it more difficult to build around and is the 4x4 road layout the best road layout to make?

[Simsknight 1]

Use road top transit under the downloads section or even the stex. You can then have bus stops and subways on the road side and not take any space for buildings

[MayorTim 16]

Most very nice downtowns use a combination of the super demand modd, and several hundred buildings downloaded from the Exchange. Including mine!

[capitol1 1]

mayortimmys right never ever use repitition in officebuildings. But try and do it with normal looking residential towers.

[SC4BOY 20]

If you are that worried about the space for a buss stop I'd guess you're trying to cram everything into a small space.. This is not only not necessary, but normally is not conducive to the best downtown anyways.. Also you just don' t need a bunch of mods and downloads as people are suggesting.. maybe the NAM and of course all the latest simcity.com updates too. And the NAM install can be very "tame" you don't have to soup it up with radical crap... But TIME is what most counts.. If you keep working, learning, and playing with it you'll have great cities..

[cammo2003 20]

Originally posted by: capitol1 mayortimmys right never ever use repitition in officebuildings. But try and do it with normal looking residential towers.quote>

I'll occasionally do it with Com structures. In fact, in my current region, I have a block which is pretty much all just one type of building. Although it's not in my main CBD, but a satellite).

To be fair though it's quite lowrise so you can get away with it.

Generally the maximum repetition I'll allow is two buildings next to each other (you can easily palm it off as a complex). I will allow the same building to show multiple times in a CBD, but I force a distance of several blocks by demolition.

[MrFingers 0]

Big downtowns depend on:

500,000+ region population

Large amounts of traffic flows

Good accessibility

Building Rewards

[MayorTim 16]

Well, as far as making an asethetic city, we are both right. It takes a lot of time, AND a lot of downloads. You can't make something as nice as what is displayed on this site with only SC4 default buildings.

[st louis dude 6]

Download skyscrapers.

[josefmayor 8]

I always base my cities off of real life cities and try to mimic the same buildings so that I get a realisitc amount of sky scrapers and mid rises and low rises.

[GreekMan 246]

you have to do little by little. Education and Health help. I like a grid in a downtown area

[YourNickname 0]

Summary: Ensure that the area you want to be your "downtown" acts as a hub for the city from the very start. Lay it out from the beginning so that Residents are forced to travel through it to their industrial jobs, thus promoting the commerce and centralizing it. As your city/region grows, commercial demand will rise if you provide enough civic services to your residents. Don't overbuild! Only build small bits of Commercial lots untill the demand for Commerce levels out. Keep a design in mind that will ensure the area remains the hub, but if you overbuild it wont work.

Larger guidelines: Personally, I always start with a concentrated scheme like this. Industrial park over here on the east side, Residential lots over here on the west, lots of farms around. In the middle, on the only road where they can travel betwix, I only put a couple 3x3 Commercial lots on that one road (planning out for eventual 6x6 commercial blocks). I do not plan for Avenues or such, since I enjoy the challenge of redeveloping (it provides such a nice problem later on trying to reconfigure the area, avoiding destroying the older building. It also adds a quirk to the city, quirks real life cities have that yours wont if you plan out for avenues). As traffic increases, I start expanding down the street (keeping in mind my block scheme, but not building the blocks just yet. This helps the early Commercial Service stuff a ton, since they need customers to thrive, and busy commuters don't like inconveniant, out of the way retail. Once demand for CS$$$ starts moving up (as my Residential areas become middle class), then I know it is starting. I can then build the blocks I had been planning in my head, because now commuters wont be going exclusively to the Industrial districts, a good deal will actually be commuting to commercial jobs. Thus, they don't all need to be concentrated on the one road, but can branch out and breath. This continues, and I expand as commercial demand needs it. Remember to keep it centralized, continue to force your industrial commuters to go through this district (or it will faulter!). Any mass transit systems MUST be concentrated, and proliferated here (at least at first, later on you can create bypasses, but only after high rises begin to form). Rezone for Medium Density Commerce once CS$$$ is in very high demand. Then rezone select, wealthier parts of the district for High Density once Commercial Office (either kind) becomes a significant demand. Every block you build, keep in mind any civic buildings to increase the desireability of the area. Once your region (or city) goes over 100,000 you should have already started to see a good deal of high rises around 10-20 stories concentrated around your busiest roads here. Now, here or a little bit before, you can redevelop (like I was saying earlier) as you see fit to accomidate the commuter activity. As the businesses should no longer be reliant on industrial commuter traffic, you can start thinking out a highway system to lock in and bypass the "downtown", or do whatever you think is necessary to keep the city's traffic running smoothly. Now you just got to stay vigilant, and keep building. Eventually you'll see a very, very tall building. And thus your quest has been completed, within a short period of time, if you keep on building for more residents, the area should be swamped with them.

Final Note: Remember that grids are not the end-all, be-all of Downtowns. My favorite Downtown I created with triangular looking blocks. I did so because it molded to the important commuter routes around it, which formed a triangle. It was very neat looking, with a few dozen skyscrapers concentrated in a couple blocks, and surrounded by eclectic looking buildings trying to work between the odd road pattern (with irregular blocks, it caused little 1x1 left-over pieces, where only much smaller high rises could fit). The loveliest skyline I've ever seen in one of my cities. Another neat downtown I had was more like Washington DC, with a landmark at the center, and roads originating out from it in a star shape. Of course, that downtown couldn't work with my usual "concentrate" commuter strategy, and it was very spread about, so it eventually looked like DC: with lots and lots of 5 story buildings, but no high rises . But it was a nice downtown none-the-less. Just be creative, and keep the geographic and aesthetic charactaristics in mind.

[BBGun06 0]

always remember, build out before up. Look at cities in Real Life: Tampa, FL - a dozen or so high rises in the center, sprawl for 20 miles in every direction.

[MrFingers 0]

Should point out though that Florida IS sprawl in every direction.

[josefmayor 8]

Originally posted by: BBGun06 always remember, build out before up. Look at cities in Real Life: Tampa, FL - a dozen or so high rises in the center, sprawl for 20 miles in every direction.quote>

Tampa is spread out over 40 miles or so.

I live about 27 miles from downtown. I live in the farmlands though so... There are subdivisions north of me though.

[halo_lover 1]

Originally posted by: BBGun06 always remember, build out before up. Look at cities in Real Life: Tampa, FL - a dozen or so high rises in the center, sprawl for 20 miles in every direction.quote>

I agree.  I know that in my latest CJ I filled up ~2/3 of a large map before I even built any small midrises.

[MidwestSimGeek 0]

Myself, I'm a fan of the 6x8 block, because of its versatility. You can plop down a bus stop and a little 1x1 park or plaza next to it to enhance land values, and yet still have (6x6)+(5x2) or (7x6)+(1x4) to work with. So many things to do with the smaller space, as towers grow in the larger one -- you could zone it light commercial, to achieve a rough equivalent of the "street level retail in towers" effect... you could turn it into a long promenade of plazas, a sort of "mall" effect in the midst of your downtown... row houses, if you're one of those New Urbanist types that wants to put everything within walking distance... you could even just leave it as part of an irregularly shaped High Density Commercial block and see where the game decides to put the towers. The possibilities are endless.

A couple of other things I do with my downtowns -- 1) some sort of identifiable "main drag", even if it's "main" only in the sense of being a wider road than all the others. A sort of grand, encircling ring or crescent around your downtown can achieve the same majestic effect. 2) Some irregularity, particularly around the edges -- imagine that some other Sim developer had a plat laid out for a sister city at the same time, and they eventually grew together and merged... only they were on different grid sizes... leaving small irregular plots of land to be sorted out. Here you can pop down some row houses (see the various articles on row house zoning), maybe a little light commercial, turn it into bohemian-land for your Sim coffee drinkers and collectible-vinyl enthusiasts. Then slowly fade out the development, through areas of slightly different character, until it eventually becomes the calm yet predictable rows of tract housing that shelter most of your city's middle class.

[S_C_mbody 0]

Look at the omnibus too...there are some nice tutorials there that will help you build your city properly and with eye candy. If you do so, you'll eventually get a nice looking downtown.

[josefmayor 8]

I like to vary the blocks dpending on the district. I have several Districts in my city, most of them having different block sizes. Downtown is 4x4, West Josef Bay is 13x5

[Ricardo1992 0]

man thanks alot for all the replys it has helped me a lot...... oh yeah i forgot but why when i plop landmarks my demand for CO$$ AND CO$$$ goes down isnt it supposed to go up

[dusten 0]

Most likely when you placed a landmark. there was room in your existing commercial buildings.. thus the landmark created more jobs, and where filled really fast.. so fast that the residentail couldn;t handle the extra.. thus your Comerical demand went down.

Hope that makes scence?????