Starting a realistic city

[ezoons 0]

I've returned to SC4 after a long break, and looking back at the saves I still have, most of those cities were grid-based. I want to start building my own realistic cities, but I'm struggling. My first attempt at a "historic" layout (i.e. suppose once this was a village and then it kept evolving and expanding) gave me an abomination which looked like a celtic-cross thing. You know, an X shape with a circle on top. I've tried building chaotic cities, following the terrain and avoiding straight lines as much as possible. Grids are boring (plop utilities and then plaster zones all over), the alternative building style requires certain creativity which I lack. This is kind of frustrating. Could someone post a couple of suggestions or links to realistic CJs?

[bighaben 0]

Unfortuantly I find most cities in fact use a Grid system, it's getting the suburbs that is the tricky part, and that, imo, makes the most realistic looking city.

Also Downtowns tend to still be gridded, but for some reason tend to be agaisnt the grid of the rest of the city.

[Dsrwhat316 12]

i use a fair amount of diagonals in my downtown areas. i usually model them after paris or washington, d.c. in terms of road layouts; using diagonals and roundabouts.

not to toot my own horn or anything, but if you check out my CJ, you'll see what i'm trying to put into words in pictures.

~ Dan

[ixnayonthetimmay 16]

I like the 'realistic' approach to SimCity building for some reason. Here are some tips I have found for achieving a real-world look in your cities. This is just what I do, having refined these techniques over years of trying to make a realistic-looking region.

1. Abandon all hope of creating a realistic modern metropolitan area by glossing over it like a printer. To do it and to make it look good will take time. The more you rush, the more artificial and, dare I say, simulated it will appear.

2. Think big. Cities in real life aren't limited to blocks of 1, 4, and 16 square kilometers. My primary region contains 450 different city lots of all three sizes. Also, remember that unless you're building Midland, TX, it is pretty unrealistic to see tall buildings in a city of 100,000 people. Save the high density zoning for when it would be appropriate in reality. After all, part of the fun I have found is going back into already built-up areas and redeveloping them. It also ensures I don't forget about a place once I have built it.

3. What I do is to plan how I want the city to eventually look in the region as a whole. I plan where my downtown area is going to be and build that first. However, I don't make it a 'downtown' right from the start with skyscrapers and the like; rather I make it an actual small town to start out.

4. Build farms. Lots of them. Fill the surrounding empty tiles with farms, making sure to include enough residential to fill the demand. I usually zone a farm, wait for it to build, and then place a 1x2 or 1x3 residential zone immediately next to the farm building. Also, small clusters of "homesteads" work to fill the needed residential demand to cover the boonies with farms.

5. Once you have farms everywhere looks feasible, continue playing as if you were on a timeline. So play your core small town as if it is a small town; zone low-density. While you're playing, know that someday in the future, it will be the big downtown core. Place small towns to act as the cores for suburban cities in the future. Resist the urge to place things that aren't yet needed, such as an international airport or a beltway freeway system in a region with just 80,000 people. This will really help in the effort in realism.

I have attached a screenshot of the region I am working on. Despite having sprawled out over what might be considered a large area in the game, the population is just under a million simians. The highest density is limited to the central downtown core, and I have been focusing on the sprawl-type growth in expanding the peripheral areas of the cities. I have been working on this region off-and-on for a few years now and even then it looks still quite unfinished.

Again, this is just what I do for realism. It may not work out for you, especially if you wanted results a lot faster. But I hope any of the info I gave here can help you.

[RJN 1]

Originally posted by: ezoons I've returned to SC4 after a long break, and looking back at the saves I still have, most of those cities were grid-based. I want to start building my own realistic cities, but I'm struggling. My first attempt at a "historic" layout (i.e. suppose once this was a village and then it kept evolving and expanding) gave me an abomination which looked like a celtic-cross thing. You know, an X shape with a circle on top. I've tried building chaotic cities, following the terrain and avoiding straight lines as much as possible. Grids are boring (plop utilities and then plaster zones all over), the alternative building style requires certain creativity which I lack. This is kind of frustrating. Could someone post a couple of suggestions or links to realistic CJs?quote>

 

i sometimes have the same problems too.

[bighaben 0]

And remember cities aren't perfect you should have poor areas as well as rich areas, and remember to conform to the terrain you're using.

[SpokaneFlyBoy 2]

Another aspect to a real city is to occasionally change concepts as the city grows to simulate the changes in civil engineers. Occasionally you have great ones in office, some times you have ones that you really wonder if they actually had any formal training in civil engineering.

[underwearman2007 0]

Well, I'm working on an entire country. So I need realistic maps for it to look good. Also you need, like say your city is Slavic, or Asian, you wouldn't expect so see

Jose's Spicy Taco stand in Siberia.

[DRGRONK 2]

Build a high density grid downtown.  For suburbs build something like this....even with square roads it looks good. make sure it is low density..so downtown really sticks out..basically set a square size between main highways or avenues and then build a maze inside it.

Not that i know anything about realism.check out my region.

[ezoons 0]

quote>

 

This is a perfect example of what I'm trying to avoid. There's no flair, no difference between "city #10" and "city #110". All grids and concrete.

I want to end up with European-looking cities.

So far, GingerBlokey's Reedwood CJ is the best Euro CJ I could find.

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=96809&STARTPAGE=1

[Hahayoudied 3]

My main city looks sort of unrealistic, because there are barely  any buildings that is between the tall buildings and the open space. Also, it is grid city because all the roads are in a 6x6 grid. However, I won't delete my main city.