How do you plan your cities

[briantwigley 0]

Hey all

Now I have decided to finally plan a city instead of just zoning masses of commercial and stuff. I have created a map and I am considering using big bits of paper for the different islands I have and just using my imagination to create a street plan, using google maps as a reference so I can compare cities.

How do you plan your cities, I would love to share ideas, and it would help me a lot

Also, Do you have any tips to help make my city more realistic? Since im British I probably have different ideas to Americans but I would really like to hear your tips!

Cheers

PS if you need to see my map just ask and I'll post a screenie.

[Boycey08 0]

personally i have an idea in my head and then i just make it up as i go along based on the mental image in my head, differing slightly based on whats possible ingame and what is practical ingame, plus ive no problem bulldozing half a city to start that section over again

[GamerOS 1]

I just do what comes up with me, it goes great till the point I find out what mistakes I have made

[4th Texas 0]

Originally posted by: GamerOS I just do what comes up with me, it goes great till the point I find out what mistakes I have made quote>

 

That's realistic!

[The Bluejay 40]

No, realistic would be making big mistakes and calling them miracles of low cost urban architecture.

[kj3400 178]

What I do is usually build the basic outline of my cities with main arteries, freeways and rail lines, then fill the rest in. I usually end up having to squeeze el-rail and GLR in, but that's what most cities do, if I'm correct.

[naftixe 131]

I usually, start the town with the core founding blocks. Then I work outward as the city grows. I also start off with low-end zoning. Then as the city spreads, I start the zone up the core as i work outwards. In the back of my mind, I keep a plan for future highway and public trans development. Large modern items i do not put in until the city grows to a point, in which in real life that city would actually use that item. I just let the city naturally build itself.

[briantwigley 0]

So maybe I should zone all my city low and medium and only when I have no space left I will then zone high density to be most realistic. Thanks for all the ideas!

[GamerOS 1]

I suggest you alreaqdy plan out the part you think will be the center, High Density generates a lot of traffic so you should plan you busses, subways and avenues in that area ahead.

[briantwigley 0]

So I should plan my centres roads and not connect the roads until I fill in the outskirts, so basically just do the suburbs and industrial estates first.

[TheChosenOne 0]

I plan all the networks in the city (with money mods ) then I start zoning and adding services. If I had to tell you my style I would say 'Bigger is better' since I don't care about space. If I had to demolish some skyscrapers in order to build networks I certainly would.

[Wheezy 23]

Normally, I take the approach everyone else has demonstrated.  Start at a point and spread outward from there.  

But that's proved bastardly slow (and confusing) when building large cities, so for my upcoming CJ, I'm taking a different approach to planning.

The region will eventually be covered by two cities and their suburbs, so I'm laying huge sections out in advance, then developing over them.

This is what I had as of January 8th, after 17 days of work downloading stuff, smoothing the coasts and laying transit.  (UGGGHHH.)

[The Arrowz 3]

wow man... that must've taken a while

how did you get those different colors?

[duack 14]

What i do now is I plop the CBD and then al;l ow the surrounding suburbs to grow. I noticed that a popped CBD looks more realistic than a grown one.

[Eʟᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ 273]

Originally posted by: duack What i do now is I plop the CBD and then al;l ow the surrounding suburbs to grow. I noticed that a popped CBD looks more realistic than a grown one.quote>

that's true. If you let your CBD grow you will end up with different style buildings in the same areas, better to pick and choose.

[Lampala 1]

I get the impression that plopped downtowns look worse than grown, but maybe I just get lucky

[briantwigley 0]

I never plop, I just bulldoze what I dont like until the one I want grows

Thanks for all the ideas, I'm going to make a start now and I might start a CJ to show my progress!

[sakarr 1]

Originally posted by: kj3400 What I do is usually build the basic outline of my cities with main arteries, freeways and rail lines, then fill the rest in. I usually end up having to squeeze el-rail and GLR in, but that's what most cities do, if I'm correct.quote>

 

exactly what i do ^-^

i lay out a rough grid of avenues that follow the terrain and then add highways and rail leading into my cbd

in a way i kinda build how its like where i live (cleveland), wich has a basic grid of main roads and then the highways leading into downtown

[Wheezy 23]

@TheArrowz - 17 days, but some days I didn't work on it.  I'm nowhere near done.  (I have to cover most of the region, but I'm going to start building before that so I don't get bored.)

Region legend mods are available on the STEX.

@Lampala: If you don't do them right, they look fake, but usually grown downtowns look messy IMO.

[lplover123 0]

I always plan for highways, avenues, and major roads first. Then I lay down roadtop bus stops and subway stops, but not drag subway lines yet. Then I zone for R and I along the edges of my map. I work inwards and usually plop my CBD a little.

FIRST POST! Hi guys!

[GamerOS 1]

I think there is a third way to create your large city's

First you construct the suburbs and then continue to work inwards to the city center.

[WillG_75 19]

I usually draw out what I want my city to look like before I start it. I'm one of the few who can't just go into SC4 and make a masterpiece, it has to be planned or it will look really generic.

[FatherBenjamin 0]

I like to lay out the transportation skeleton of my city before I start developing as well.  My main problem is that I can never get the freeways to work as efficiently as they should.  I have to cut off the sims' extra access points between portions of the city or between cities  to keep them from clogging up the surface roads.  Anyone have some tips and/or pictures on how to plan out freeways?

[GuyverScythe 1]

I've had good experience with my cities by first plotting out basic road and rail that converges at a CBD of a few blocks. I'll place a few more blocks nearby it to fill with what should eventually be high density residential, and fill in the commercial zone as demand goes up for it. Then I build a few more core neighborhoods linked to the infrastructure, and build out over the map from there.

That's worked great in easy-mode. I decided to build in hard mode on my new region, and well... things are progressing slowly. If you're after making your city more realistic, you should try building in hard mode. Not only are you forced to scrutinize the budget a lot more, but advancements must be made wisely, lest you go broke. You should also DEFINITELY get some plugins from the STEX! A lot of it really makes leaps forward in making the city more realistic.

FatherBenjamin: A portion of the NAM plugin, that enhances your transit systems, can provide that your Sims are smarter about pathfinding. I installed it, and although I don't have highways yet in my region, I have much fewer traffic problems. Sims tend to take Roads and Avenues when nearby instead of simply finding the shortest route via neighborhood streets. If I remember correctly, it should also enhance the way that your sims use the highways, but I don't remember correctly. It's in the STEX, and links to it are everywhere. Check it out.

[naftixe 131]

Also, the style of the city will depend on yours world area that you are recreating. For example, European, Asian, and your ancient cities, say at least 300 years old will not have highways in the central/old part of the city. Meanwhile, North Amercian cities and modern planned cities say 100 - 300 years old, may have highways in the central part. You can also look at planned cities like Washington DC, and Brasillia, Brazil these two are purely master planned before the city was built. DC was built from reclaimed swamp in the 19th century and Brasillia was carved from the jungle in the 20th century.

Try this link for more research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Planned_cities

[zwr100 2]

First I decide which city size I'm going to use to make my high wealth CBD so I know how many tiles the map has.  Then I draw my road layout on graphing paper where each square represents a block (which are usually 6x6s or 8x8s (or 7x7s-10x10s if you're including roads).

For example, I'm currently working on a CBD using a medium tile where the blocks are 8x8s with avenues on all sides.  That gives me 12 blocks by 12 blocks plus 3 tiles around the edge of the map.  (I use the graph paper to figure out where the basic municpal buildings, big rewards, and additional transportation will go)

Since I refuse to cheat I start by making adjacent cities following the grid (on the bordering edge) so that when I do work on my perfect CBD there's demand to fuel growth and pay for my roads which line up perfectly.  (Having functional/efficient highways connecting cities in this method requires additional planning or costly demolition/rebuilding)

That sounds like a really boring grid but the university, airport, and highways break it up.  The adjacent cities also break  up as they get farther from the CBD.  And the more oulying areas can be developed to make the region look more realistic.  After all, many downtown areas are close to perfect grids; when you look at google maps notice that there are areas with close to 12 x 12 uniform blocks like my cities

[Herodotus 2]

I normally decide where downtown is going to be first. I like my big skyscrapers on the coast next to the water, very picturesque. Everything is based off of where downtown goes. Highways, rail, subway, buses, and high speed rail links run out of downtown to the rest of the city.

[FatherBenjamin 0]

Thanks guyver for the tip. I'll try it out, though I'm not sure it'll work for a mac.

[Kahara 0]

I try to do what Herodotus does, but where the downtown district appears seems to be up to the sims. I place dense zones in my preferred area and light in all others, but it never develops there and i rezone dense elsewhere and high rises appear there, on the other side of the map. As for planing a city, i do it slowly a section at a time, placing transit as its needed, kind of what GameOS said.

[Emerikol 0]

The way that is always going to be the most realistic would be to toss the idea of planning the city to work perfectly right out the window.

On a medium map just run a highway or two haphazardly in one general direction so that it isnt running perfectly in a straight line, Run a few avenues the same way branching off of the highway. From there just build lots and streets in a completely random way to try to keep up with demand. Do this a small section at a time until you fill the map(or don't fill it).

It makes for a much more interesting play experience than gridding out a city or planning everything beforehand. You will also get a few surprises here and there. The city will develop just like a real one would, with stupid people living gangsta style in their little slums shooting each other all day, and the rich people staying in the well educated area, with the middle class suburbia living somewhere in between.

It is something few people dare to intentionally try to do. It makes it fun trying to make a city that stays in the black.