How would you start your new city?

[djlee1999 3]

I felt like this forum could use a topic like this, How does other Simtropolis users start building their city. Do you start with Infastructure, start with the power plant, start with zoning, start with road layout & design? Typically I have a tendency to place the power plant in the corner and start from there. However prior to starting do you draw a map in photoshop or any other art program or simply draw your layout so you have an idea of what you want. In a region would you start from the center & work outward or would you start from a corner & why?

[writingliberty 0]

I usually start with roads, starting from either a random point near the center of the map or (if I'm playing in a region with adjoining towns already built) by extending existing roads that cross into the city from neighbors. Then I put in civic service buildings (schools, fire and police, medical) and water pipes, then power and water plants, then I start zoning. Usually stripes of commercial along avenues (which if there is a highway, most if not all connections to the highway are avenues, so that's where the traffic is), with residential clustered around the civic buildings in between commercial stripes.

Then sometimes I'll devote whole sections of the city to industrial (in which case I leave out the commerce striping) or commercial, though I have not quite got the hang of doing a high-density commerce area yet.

Being from Southern California, and in a "build what you know" sense, I tend to use lots of highways and bus stations, and not so much in the ways of agricultural or subways or trains. I also try to get away with wind power as much as I can - and if I need a big power plant I always take the natural gas unless it's going to be deep in a heavy industry area.

[CommishGordon 0]

I usually team my residential/commercial city with an industrial city.  So, I will build a power plant and some industrial zones in the "dirty" city first, then begin work on the "clean" one.  Usually starting in the corner, I will build an outer avenue that (eventually) rings the city if its to be an ugly, metro type city.  Then begin building streets and house, expanding slowly and adding city services as needed. Road connections to other cities are definitely important, and I will tend to build more, even if there are no building there yet, to make sure demand factors are met.

[Jazzmaster 716]

I try to plan out my transportation infastructure, especially mas transit, ahead of time. I'll usually create a grid with avenues, then have large blocks with roads Xing the avenues and small side streets, upgrading them as needed. Then I also try to make an effecient railway and possible busing and such. This way, I don't have to tear through heavily developed neighborhoods to construct a rail line.

-Yoshiisland

[jamietoronto 0]

I always begin with roads and highways. But how I place them depends on the land. If the land is flat, then I make grids with avenues, like Yoshiisland. But, if the land is hilly, I try to conform the roads with the hills, and put the major routes through valleys.

[jacqulina 162]

i begin with farms and work around those

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

I'm a transportation nut so I start with all roads, highways, transit, etc first. Then I zone everything, starting in the middle and slowly working out.

[Nardo69 51]

I usually start with the main Railroad system (see my thought thread to get to now why in my sig) and then go on w?th roads. If there is a highway I usually build it part by part within the progress of filling the map due to its maintenance costs (I do not use any money cheats mods or lots).

Depending on how I wanted to fill the map I go on differently:

If it shall be rural I "work my way" from village.

If it shall urban I start with the outskirts - farms if there should be any, industrial wastelands and suburbs and make my why from the outside to the inside.

Not the fastest way of filling maps but usually I (and my CJ readers) do like the results.

Bernhard

[haavardlill 0]

i usally start with the civic building and then make roads between them and then i make some commercial spots and

i fix the design how the building are goiing to be placed wen the city gets bigger, and then i build windmills and a own spot a little

distance from the city, then i fix water, police, fire, ambulance and i wait a little bit before i make schools becouse they are realy

expensive every month!

[hawkpride147 1]

highways are the only area i have a masterplan for...i just let the city choose from there...i look at the demands and everything after zoning what will eventually become the downtown, i start letting everything develop then as demand grows, i cater to it.

[Cob92 360]

I start out by simply dragging out a large low density residential zone that becomes the intial downtown grid. I'll then create an industrial area and place the power plant in it. I sometimes zone some farmland around the city in the early stages. As the city grows, I gradually convert the downtown area to commercial zones, saving 1 block of "historic" houses. The city usually sticks to a grid plan until highways are laid and the downtown begins rising upwards.

When I am planning my highways, I usually try to leave undeveloped land near the downtown that can be used as right-of-way for the highway. If no undeveloped land is available, I find the poorest, least developed neighborhoods for right-of-way acquisition. As the city becomes wealthy and large, I will stretch beyond the initial square. Master planned communties are built in vacant areas, and the highways are stretched out past the city limits into the countryside. At about this point I will construct a highway bypass loop and an airport. If the city sprawls far enough, I will construct a second loop. From this point most of what is being built is sprawl.

[frdrcklim 139]

I forgot how I started my city. I usually start at the side so that there I would get connected to a neighboring city and maybe still that cities' demand. Then, I'd start with residential and commercial zoning along with high value civic services such as a grade school and a clinic and maybe a few industrial zones. After that, I build my bus system which will eventually evolve to a subway system. The rest is history. I want to put GLR tracks but then at the late part of the game, the place where I want to put it is already filled.

[City2TheMax 3]

Most of them time I build a power plant on one side of the city, and a road on the other. Then I zone commercial on the road, and build streets which lead to residential buildings behind commercial zones. After that I zone industrial further away, sometimes closer ot the power plant, and connect the streets and roads. If the industrial area is far away I might build avenues or highways. If I feel like building organized I build a grid system of residential zones (think of suburban Los Angeles, or any other suburb in general), and have the occasional commerical zones inbetween.

[elew4too 77]

I like to start with low density residential with industry nearby (with a seaport if i have water). I like to use railroads going through the industrial areas to make it more realistic. I also usually only have about one avenue, then upgrade as I need to. Anyways, if demand goes up, then I build more industry and more houses while putting schools and medical facilities up. As time goes on, they want more commercial jobs so I put low density commercial places at the corners of busy intersections. When commercial demand skyrockets, I make a downtown area. Then as my city grows more and more I make highways. I just demolish houses and make highways, like in real life. Then I make an airport when they beg for it. Just like Cobhris, I like to make a bypass, and sometimes even an airport spur!

[xxbydesign 1]

When I start with a blank region, I imagine where old roads would have gone: around hills and mountains, towards the narrowest parts of a river, where there are fewer trees and gentle contryside. This becomes my main road, not a highway, just a road, cause I like to grow my city from the ground up rather than planting it inside a web of transit; it makes it feel more real, and each city will have its own visual character and design issues within it. I ususall start with a small plot of dirty industrial. I never could get into the farms because the pollution just put me off from the start. Then i have streets radiating out from the dirty industrial, so that as many people can walk to work as possible, and i build up the residential till demand is met. Then I make a new industrial plot and repeat the cycle. It gets more complicated in an older city, where new wealth groups move in, commerce starts buzzing, and you go up in density, but its part of the fun. I've documented one such city from start to present, and I'm thinking of starting up a small CJ, but time is such a big factor. But yeah, i just like to make a city that feels more organic and progressively developed rather than planned down to every last bus stop.

[keefpirate 0]

I usually drag a railtrack through the area with three stations for each type of zone to connect them up, along with a main road connecting all three. then I zone low density in large clumps, filling in the rest of the area with farms.

Begin placing fire stations, and once I feel demand is tapering off I lay down an elementary and library, and start zoning a few residential areas with mid-density, with the aim of de-zoning the overflowing low density, so that the population becomes condensed in one area rather than urban sprawl.

[mayor of the manor 0]

If I am trying to make the whole region work I start with a small tile as a little farming community and then connect via road to the next one and do the same. If I come up against a larger tile I'll either make a farming dominated village or small town with minor industrial estates (or just another small farming hamlet!). I tend to work my way across the map like this. With the largest tiles I build small towns with minor industry and farming to provide jobs and once all the tiles (or most of them) are completed I hook up rail links between the major villages and then start to expand (where the previous patience pays off!). I expand outwards first... good old urban sprawl-stylee and then when the boundaries of the map are being reached I start putting medium density in. In the biggest towns I focus on either heavy industry or the commercial service sector and then start linking the towns around the major city tile to it so as to create suburban satelites. Note: I include a lot of parks and common areas in my towns. My big towns are usually found on the railway line just like it is so on the London-Brighton line which my boring commuter town is built on. I also value the importance of the bus! haha I base my city building on the South-East of England but I don't like the huge expanse of London. I prefer the smaller cities of Portsmouth (Born there!) and Brighton. It should also be noted that I like to follow the landscape and build on flat land whilst reserving the hills to agriculture and nature.

[whoopscareless 0]

Good topic! I just started a new region today, actually. I spotted a perfect little grid-based town on google earth, and recreated it (Fairview, UT, if you're interested). I re-created that vaguely to scale (looks like a 4x4 grid, which makes it fit perfectly in a small city tile). I'm going to follow the satellite pic for other nearby towns until I get bored and decide that actually, I want there to be a beach somewhere. I'm thinking maybe I could have a ridge of mountains to the east of my line of cities that slopes down to the sea... maybe I can have a huge city down there too... hmmm....

City-wise, I only normally build small, self-contained towns (can't cope with anything bigger). One road north-south. One road east-west. Streets in the central area in grid pattern. Slap down power station somewhere near edge with a rough patch of industrial. Pepper the outer perimeter of the city with small industrial zones, with a few in the centre just for variety. Bit of commercial around where the main roads cross. Residential neatly in the grid. Agriculture round the edge. Then where the streets come out of the grid I'll stick in little estates, roads going off at crazy angles, different sized lots etc. intruding onto the agriculture to make it less regimented.

[mayor of the manor 0]

I thought my previous post (and this thread as a whole as I want to see everyone elses ideas) could use some picture examples so here's a newly started region view... I work on farmland first.

(Oh and sorry for the overall poor quality of this picture. I don't have a decent editor to edit out the discoloured tiles and blue background )

And the village you can see on the left is going to be a large town/city district in the future but this picture shows how it is with no medium/heavy industry and how it will stay until the rail and industry is inserted into the whole region.

And here is a close neighouring small village (West of the above village across the water) that would become a satellite commuter town when the urban expansion begins...

I hope this provides a new insight in to how you can create cities/regions! It's my favourite style of play but I am considering doing a US-style grid region sometime soon, but maybe set in a desert in a country like Mali, Africa.

[villagemayor 0]

Like you pics mayor of the manor. I start out my cities by building grids. These are foundations of the arterial roads and main arteries of the region. Then I start with an industry city, much like in the 1700-1800s. Anything goes, with industry next to residential, and no parks whatsoever. I might have several churches and a village common. Over time, the city deserves a commercial office area, so I build a downtown. I've also added GLR just to keep it as realistic as possible.

[mayor of the manor 0]

Thanks! Yeah when I start to put industry in I build a small patch of it and then have urban housing centred around it much like the 1700-1800s revolution in the UK... It creates a much more natural-looking city in my opinion (at least natural to the UK anyway!). GLR is something I haven't experimented with yet but I think I might try it on an old region to experiment...

[HuskerDude 12]

It depends entirely on the type of city I'm building and the terrain. Since I build my larger cities on rivers or by the sea, I'll tend to start out with the power plant and some industrial zones right on the water, along with rail connections and eventually a seaport. A ways away from that, I'll build a little village, with a high street type strip of LD commercial, surrounded by LD homes.

I'll generally build a couple of these "industrial villages" along the river, all connected by rail, with agriculture on any decent flat land remaining. I plop civic buildings as they're needed, create local bus service to get people to the train station, and slowly, as demand goes up, the villages tend to run into one another. At which point I'll generally rezone some to add a small central retail/office center, and start plopping City Halls and libraries and high schools and such, possibly with a small hospital if the population warrants it. this is also about the time I'll start zoning MD residential around my new "city center" to help draw in more commercial demand.

Once that starts happening, it's pretty much a chain reaction. By then you're probably profitable, and every new bit of R zoning you do bumps up your C demand, and vice versa, so you're free to experiment and start adding transit and changing things from a village to a full-fledged city.

[Cob92 360]

A shot of my current city's downtown:

A pic showing the completed stretch of the freeway system, along with some homes:

[flame1396 9]

Transit. A sunken highway almost always. Then plops.

[Anomaly1 0]

I usually start with the transportation networks. Power and water comes next, and then I begin zoning starting near the main roads and moving out. I add the plops and civil services as I spread out.

[politicman 1]

Excellent ! It a beautiful and i really like the highway

Super !

[ilikehotdogsalot 308]

in all my cities, i start off with a center piece of the city, whether it is a large church, skyscraper, or plaza and build out from that point. after buildings are grown, zones filled in blank spots, i add details like road crossings, bus stops, ....traffic generators , etc etc. i also like to make a creative layout for my cities, so i look at real world cities for ideas and inspiration.

[cemaphon 0]

I always start by looking for places in my regions where towns would naturally be sited - natural harbors, river features (river valleys, forks, deltas, etc) interchanges of obvious roadways - and plat small towns in these areas, placing the largest one in the area that I envision as the eventual city center.  I'm usually emulating Western US cities, so these town cores are always gridded, except around terrain features. (incidentally, this was not primarily because of traffic flow concerns, but due to the fact that the Federal land grants for most of the Western US was parceled out in square lots) Towns are connected largely by rail (which mostly follow along rivers) and later by roadways. I'll zone some industry along the rails, and make a bunch of farmland in the flat areas.

Then I grow the towns out and up, adding infrastructure and redeveloping as necessary.  I like maps with harbors, so I usually end up building a huge industrial port at some point.