Show us your Downtown!

[timmie 988]

My first ever highrise-downtown! (Okay, okay, they're not supertall...)

[iowndiscti 141]

* Simply Arca*

[Piteri 17]

Trying out meandering highways in cities concepts.

[Ion_Cannon 677]

@timmie - They may not be supertall but your layout and variety of buildings is excellent, it will look even better when you get some life in there - cars pedestrians ect.

@iowndiscti - The picture seems rather small, can't make out that much detail, the main thing you should do though is to reduce your level of repetition. The layout looks good

@Piteri - For a maxis dominated city it looks great, you've managed the change in building height from low to high very well

One of the smaller downtown areas from my CJ.

  Edited April 6, 2012 by Ion_Cannon  

[Moskva 75]

This is Samotsvety Plaza, not exactly the Downtown, but it is between the Downtown, Commercial, Oceanic and Lenin'sk, so it's kinda the new core of Lenin'sk, after it was re-styled in the late 90s.

[jakehh 52]

A planned CBD outside of New Cambridge to alleviate congestion in the city.

  Edited April 8, 2012 by jakehh  

[PDMX 2]

Here is my attempt of a natural maxis grown downton on a medium tile... It took at leats half the time to let only the desired buildings of the CBD grow and demolish the small ones compared to building the whole city. Unfortunately the transit network of this city is nuts and far from profitable... I will have to redo most of the monorail tracks and remove the ground trains... On the pictures are several 5000+ job buildings.

[-JD- 41]

This is a new CBD I'm working on but its not going to progress too much further until I decide what kind of mass transit I want to include. Any suggestions are welcomed!

[jakehh 52]

@-JD- Put a Tram line through the centre then convert it to subway to connect to the suburbs etc?

[iowndiscti 141]

@-JD- Put a Tram line through the centre then convert it to subway to connect to the suburbs etc?

you said that backwards. subway lines should be in the downtown area because developers try to save space around highrises. he trams should be in the suburbs because it breaks up house repetition . Personally I'd like to see some EL-Rail there, it will compliment those high skyscrappers nicely.

@ JD: NWM would do that area nicely, you've got an excellent start though

  Edited April 9, 2012 by iowndiscti  

[iowndiscti 141]

This is the same place from my other picture above this one. any constructive criticism would be nice. (Sorry for the Double post)

[jakehh 52]

@-JD- Put a Tram line through the centre then convert it to subway to connect to the suburbs etc?

you said that backwards. subway lines should be in the downtown area because developers try to save space around highrises. he trams should be in the suburbs because it breaks up house repetition . Personally I'd like to see some EL-Rail there, it will compliment those high skyscrappers nicely.

I'd more so say tram's on the avenues, could even combine it with subway.

[Tramwhet 53]

My downtown with over one million inhabitants:

  Edited April 9, 2012 by Tramwhet  

[jacksunny 741]

^I recommend turning off the UDI zots before taking a picture. Other than that, your downtown looks really good, especially with the night view.

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

The downtown area of Madisonville, Paridise Island:

[Ion_Cannon 677]

This is the same place from my other picture above this one. any constructive criticism would be nice. (Sorry for the Double post)

Constructive criticism you say? First of all you have two repeating buildings right next to each other in a very prominent location, you should change that. Secondly maybe use an AVE2 for the road by the waterside? you could also add some pedestrian footbridges over the road to connect with your waterfront area. The increase in building height is managed well, but seems a little pronounced because there is really only one row of taller buildings, behind which it seems to become lowrise again, to counter this you should mix some taller or medium tall buildings into the area between the row of taller offices and the 2xOWR-3. Lastly, turn shadows on, it gives scenes alot more depth.

Hope that helps

[-JD- 41]

@-JD- Put a Tram line through the centre then convert it to subway to connect to the suburbs etc?

@-JD- Put a Tram line through the centre then convert it to subway to connect to the suburbs etc?

you said that backwards. subway lines should be in the downtown area because developers try to save space around highrises. he trams should be in the suburbs because it breaks up house repetition . Personally I'd like to see some EL-Rail there, it will compliment those high skyscrappers nicely.

@ JD: NWM would do that area nicely, you've got an excellent start though

Thank you both for your suggestions! I've decided to use the RTMT subway/bus stations on top of the avenues, and then convert the subway to GLR once it leaves the down town core. I think I may put a few special stations embedded in the blocks of buildings too, just for some wow! factor

And now another picture....

"Some things never change."

  Edited April 10, 2012 by -JD-  

[IVAN S 1]

This city is not as nice as I have seen.

No mods.

Here some pictures.

This pictures are not the downtown, because the downtown are very large, and do not know how to put it another way.

[Follarch 326]

@Ion Cannon: That is one mighty gorgeous city with all the green in it!

Downtown New Uniden and surrounding housing. This actually was redesigned about four times.

  Edited April 14, 2012 by Follarch  

[Tramwhet 53]

my 2nd downtown

[PDMX 2]

After all those Maxis buildings annoyed me so much, I just dumped the whole region and downloaded a nice little Island. This will be the CBD in the biggest city of my new region.

[Follarch 326]

Be careful with those four blue glass towers you placed in the last image. They tended to turn immortal for me after trying to bulldoze.

[Andrey km 304]

[Moskva 75]

Man i badly want the skyscraper with the green lights . Please ^^

[Cob92 360]

I think that green lighted skyscraper is in Dallas.

Anyway, here are some shots of Downtown Clarksville:

(Sorry about the box; I have those randomly appearing on my avenues for some reason and have no idea how to get rid of them).

This last one isn't technically part of Downtown, but it is close enough and important enough to be considered part of the CBD (can you believe that all this was farmland at one point?)

Just to show how far the city of Clarksville has come, here is a picture of the roundabout from the fourth picture as seen in the city's early years:

[PDMX 2]

Be careful with those four blue glass towers you placed in the last image. They tended to turn immortal for me after trying to bulldoze.

Regatta Diagonal becomes immortal, when you place another building next to it and demolish this one. Demolishing the Regatta Diagonal alone is no problem. However the Regatta Diagonal in my pic is only surrounded by roads and tunnel entrance. Demolishing roads is no issue.

How do you like that skyline??

[slee62 0]

I find blatantly plopped cities quite conspicuous and oftenunsightly...   imho.

 

Besides that point, here is my city, New Vanta

 

Not a huge city, around 160k population, networked with smaller satellite cities of 40k~100k.

The majority of the coastal area is residential/commercial integrated zoning. You could say my CBD isn't a true 'business district' in that sense.

I guess you could call this my attempt at a 'green' business park.

Majority of the population takes mass transit, with bus stops at every block and three corridors of heavy rail down the main residential/commercial integrated zone. I'm not a fan of highways =P .

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Man i badly want the skyscraper with the green lights . Please ^^

Try a STEX search for user "scotty222".

@PDMX: Very tall and shiny, but IMHO it's too many supertalls all in similar colours plopped too closely together. This effectively takes away from the visual impact of each individual building and makes it hard for any one particular building to catch the eye of the spectator due to its uniqueness. That Washington monument also looks pretty out of place there because in such an environment it's just no longer a momument. Put it in the center of a large park, and even if that park is surrounded by supertalls, the monument will still have some impact. Tuck it between skyscrapers and the beach without any representative surrounding, and it's just an odd stone column.

Of course, all this is a matter of taste, and you're really making this for yourself, so what I'm writing here is just an expression of my personal impression and taste, which don't have to mean anything to you.

[PDMX 2]

@T Wrecks

I think you are partly right. I will remove 2-3 skyscrapers to find another place for them. But there must be that feeling of density somewhere. I remember an argument on Skysrapercity, about Shanghai, building beautiful skyscrapers, but filling the space between with parks and parking lots, at least in Pudong. Whereas New York City or Hongkong are just dense as hell... So why not combine the beautiful scrapers and the density?

[T Wrecks 10,209]

The problem is not only density alone, but also the massing of signature buildings. New York and HK are full of regular and less spectacular skyscrapers, with some buildings that stand out clearly - WTC, ESB or Chrysler building in NY (to name just a few) or ICC, 2IFC, Central Plaza etc. in Hong Kong. There are also some very bland and uninspiring buildings inbetween, and that's what makes the spectacular buildings spectacular.

slee62's CBD is also quite dense, but IMO it works much better because there's not so much bling all around that it blinds the eye and makes it very hard to focus on anything. Add one or two spectacular supertalls there, and you have buildings that have an impact.

What also helps is that most buildings are rather generic and blend into a coherent cityscape, with only a few being cleasrly discernible if you look at his last picture: The bright white/blue building near the waterfront, the glass cylinder, the one with the stepped crown, the brown one with the pyramid top that's a bit detached from the others, and even the Maxis R$$$ highrise right at the cliff makes a really good show - imagine that overlooking a bay with a large marina instead of that boring Maxis harbour, and you have a real looker - with a Maxis building that's not even that tall!

@slee62: Speaking of your city, I think a water mod and a tree mod would make it a lot better. Some trees in general! And there's too much building repetition going on. That group of Key Towers is the most blatant example, but there's also a lot of repetition among the other buildings. Have you considered adding some more mid-rises to your plugins folder?