Show us your... Zoning!

[flyinbird93 2]

Personally, i love comparing my zoning to real life zoning and other peoples.  i also know i looked in many ways for zoning tips when i first started.  so lets see how well you all path your zones out   they can be in game lay outs or just mspaint layouts!

here is my newest city layout.  its the southwestern part of a 6tile city.  clearly lots of land for prime development!

riverside hansing

downtown hansing

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Fascinating thread.

Here's mine from Lupanis, in Patian County:

[flyinbird93 2]

thats interesting, is that a downtown shot i take it? your res seems very segregated from the commercial district. hope they dont need milk at 2 in the morning what kind of commute average does a zoning like that get? mine is still ruffly in the 40s and odly enough slowly droping as the city expands in pop.

[flyinbird93 2]

This is a expanded view of 4/6 of my Hansing City tiles.  The other two have no development on it as of yet.

[City2TheMax 3]

Here's an example of one of my developing suburbs -it's a bit old, so I edited in the areas that were developed since I took the pic

[Haljackey 17,354]

Some new zoning I've been doing:

Please click the pictures for Full Resolution!  (1920x1200)

Nice idea for a thread!

Best,

-Haljackey

[steelersfanforlife 43]

[azza_1992 0]

How on Earth did you do that?

What's in the middle, in the big terrain coloured patch? And why is there a tiny little bit of low density res on the side?

[steelersfanforlife 43]

the middle of the map is the downtown area where i mostly plopped office towers. the reason there is low density res on the side is because there is an airport near the zone but i am thinking about removing the zone

[Darth Apple 54]

this is my zoning for a city I tried to use to test traffic jams with!!! as you can tell , itis zoned well for a traffic jam , but even with 30,000 using the highways , still no traffic jam!!!

I am not sure how to post pics correctly , so I hope this works.

[flyinbird93 2]

blake, looks like you uploaded your pic just fine looks kind of like you have 3 villages poping up is that the only zone of your region so far i take it? looks like a good start.

[lildee321 1]

Let us see how you Zone / Layout your cities.

[gjahn 3]

I started out placing colored squares in Microsoft PowerPoint.  Once I had everything setup the way I thought I wanted it, I started a new city and placed the zones to match.  I think I worked out pretty good doing it that way.

[tarrina 2]

Originally posted by: steelersfanforlife

quote>

What?!? That's just crazy... Did these zones actually develop?

As for my zones, they are usally very unorganized despite spending a lot of time pre-planning about zoning.

In Kotabaru, with a population of about 40K, a somewhat messy quasi-grid is in development:

In Voltaterrina, a single-tile region island of 165,000+ residents:

[willfish 0]

gave me some good ideas thanks for the maps

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

The 'Show Us your Road/Rail/Transit Maps!' thread will also give you good ideas on this subject.

Wait... every thread here sparks ideas!

[LironTheChick 20]

What?!? That's just crazy... Did these zones actually develop?

As for my zones, they are usally very unorganized despite spending a lot of time pre-planning about zoning.

In Kotabaru, with a population of about 40K, a somewhat messy quasi-grid is in development:

In Voltaterrina, a single-tile region island of 165,000+ residents:

quote>

Did you just say...Kota Bahru?  Nice job on that!  I'm planning to make a region dedicated to several countries after I finish several of my imaginary European countries. And one of those countries is Malaysia! 

[Terring 6,476]

From an older city...

[Lycostheuser 1]

I zone for farming but it always turns into industrial? Farming always cause water polutions also, how can I get clean farms and no industry?? Plx and thx

[shanghai kid 6]

Do you zone with the agriculture zoning(the first one)? as the middle one is medium ind. and the 3rd one is heavy industry.

It do sound like your using one of the industry zoning choices, as no industry will develop in agricultur zoning unless rezoned with industry zoning.

[flyinbird93 2]

Valley City; still under construction

[Sniper296 83]

Here is the zoning map I used in the making of my map.

[Haljackey 17,354]

Big bump

Couple new zoning jobs I've done.

  Edited January 31, 2019 by Haljackey  

[Naomi57 2,985]

Just came across this video, which was rather neat to watch, how local roads and urban planning works in real-life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9vDcfH03gs

The Reason Our Streets Switched to Cul-De-Sacs | City Beautiful (7½ minutes)

[Haljackey 17,354]

A new town in the hills is zoned and ready for the play button

[Haljackey 17,354]

Ploppsville with zoning ready to fill in the city.

[Ssaidd 1,325]

6 hours ago, Haljackey said:

Ploppsville with zoning ready to fill in the city.

What a nice Downtown/Midtown

[Odainsaker 2,135]

While doing some cleaning I found two images of zoning concepts that might be interesting to others.  I recall these were originally whipped up as a reply to a topic or post on mixed zoning, but the topic faded and this was never actually posted as intended.

 

Common Pattern of Block-Based SimCity Zoning:

This first image is an example of a common pattern of zoning within a grid.  Zoning is based primarily on street blocks, creating uniform and even uni-zoned commercial blocks, residential blocks, or industrial blocks.  These blocks can be further arranged to make larger zoned districts.  Because SimCity strategy guides have long suggested using commercial zones to separate industrial zones from residential zones, and so commercial blocks are used to separate industrial blocks from residential blocks.  As players are often aiming to max out the zones with the biggest possible and highest value buildings at the fastest development pace, the highest density zone becomes the only density zoned.

This strategy of zoning is not unlike segregated or pod-based exclusionary zoning, and is sometimes derided as colored-marker or color-bubble planning, for the process seen in the real world is simply filling-in map squares or diagram bubbles with single colors with a magic marker.  Streets and arterial roads connect the colored bubbles to each other, and as this pattern is overwhelmingly common in suburban planning, the underlying pattern is called "suburban" even when high density skyscrapers are built.  While individual blocks of a given zone become easy to understand and develop because they are internally uniform, the greater pattern often creates streetscapes that are problematic, as when one side of a street borders a residential block with single family homes whose front driveways and porches all face a commercial strip of gas stations and car washes on the other side of the street within a commercial block.  Meanwhile, repetitive, uniform zoning also gives rise to building repetition.

 

Street -Based Zoning:

The second image loosely attempts to show a mixed street-based zoning along a primarily commercial street.  Commercial zoning largely fronts a commercial street, where both sides of the street are storefronts facing other storefronts.  It is similarly possible to have residential streets, where front porches face other front porches.  The border between zoning largely does not happen down the middle of streets, but through the middle of blocks, where the back of an apartment complex can abut the back of a retail strip and not be incompatible.  Commonly, a service alleyway might even run through the block.  In the real world, within a handful of blocks it is possible to create a gradient across starkly different levels of density, height, wealth, and zoning types by keeping the transition hidden "in the back" within the block, while preserving street and neighborhood character.

In a street-focused system, street corners also become important, and it is possible to have higher densities or compatible alternative uses at significant corners, and to grow from corners and crossings into urban nodes.  Over a much larger area, it is possible to have several commercial streets create a greater pattern, often a crossing in smaller towns, to spiderweb patterns of commercial streets leading to cores in large cities.  Different zone densities and orientations where used to force development to maintain certain lot and building sizes which may ideally allow for mixed lot sizes, use types, and wealth for a visual appearance of mixed developed buildings.

Admittedly, this is a much slower and more tediously detailed way of zoning.  I actually want to redo the image to show some aspects I had described more clearly, but it's, well, tedious...

Regrettably, though I did let these rough test examples develop, I neglected to save or screenshot them.  Still, hopefully these will be of interest here.  Of course, this is SimCity, and there is no right-way or wrong-way to play, but maybe this can offer another alternative planning and design mindset which players may find useful.

[Haljackey 17,354]

Low density across the river

[Haljackey 17,354]

Still need parks and things but I got some large low destiny zoning fields