Horrible at planning

[Humpty 0]

 I am absolutely horrible at long-term layout planning for my cities.  I have no problems with demand or budget (I always turn a substantial profit within a few years and my RCI is always through the roof) but by the time my cities reach ~80-90k in population, I have sims fleeing due to commute times and gridlocked traffic all over town.

What's the best approach?  Should I just force myself to keep all commercial in the center of town, downtown, and have the residential spread out from there?

I always start in the corner of the map and spread out as demand calls for it, just placing zones as I need them.  If you look at the "zoning" data view for my cities, they look like patchwork quilts of varying shades of green and purple.  I'm so lost.

[k808j 0]

Try working from the center of the city then out. Also try to plan and place your transit network (at least 30%) before you place your first zones. This will dictate your zone areas because you wiil follow the network setup. Of course you can make amendments as needed. 

[drillman42 4]

I have the same problem, and my cities always end up with pollution everywhere and abandoned buildings everywhere.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

I normally plan like this:

CBD: Grid

Inner Suburbs: Roads grid. Streets grid

Middle Suburbs: Roads reasonably grid-like. Streets reasonably grid-like

Outer Suburbs: Usually a main artery connects the outer suburbs to the city. Roads random. Streets random.

[DanWalker8 3]

upgrading infrastructure in urban areas as it is needed is part of the natural growth of cities. i think its fun to work on city after it is already built

[magnet152 0]

Transportation, loads of it

[SimCity4IE 202]

Make sure to use a hub where all forms of mass transit meet in the city centre. There are large stations you can download that contain monorail, el rail, heavy rail, bus and subway; this station should go to a central location. Also make sure to have at least one main line for each type of transportation, and connect all the lines to that.

[830point35 8]

Start by plowing freeways through town: it can be heart breaking, but challenging and a solution if you do it right. Next, buses. Then rail: trains, trams, el-rail, etc. If your problem still persists, subways. I have problems waiting for these things to take affect, as larger cities slow down my computer.

If your city is still becoming abandoned, rename it Detroit and start over with a whole new region.

[Humpty 0]

Thanks for the advice guys. So basically start in the middle of the map and sprawl outwards, and as the city grows, throw more transportation at it than it can handle. I actually dreamed about the game last night (weird huh?) and a nice pattern for a highway system hit me - a few rings in the middle of town and then stretches of highway coming from all 4 neighbors, intersecting in the middle of town. So I'll try that.

What about buses? Where should I place bus stops?

[Raysfan16 5]

What you have to do is connect the spots where sims go. Real life city planners have to juggle retail areas, schools, stadiums, and jobs as places for bus/transit stops. But all you have to worry about is commute times. You have to link the major areas of employment with the major areas of residence. Connect your downtown with the urban neighborhoods, as well as major industrial areas, your airport, and other places that employ lots of people.

[Humpty 0]

What is 'CBD?'

[SC4BOY 20]

central business district.. usually the area where most people strive to get CO$$$ to eventually grow. Also, rings really don't work very well in SC4.. you may certainly use them to "look right" to you.. it is a city modeling game after all. Instead of asking everyone to repeat info that has been repeated 100000 times, look around here and on other sites and on YOUTUBE for tutorials.. they exist for virtually every stage of the game.

[Loney 22]

Originally posted by: Humpty

Thanks for the advice guys. So basically start in the middle of the map and sprawl outwards, and as the city grows, throw more transportation at it than it can handle. I actually dreamed about the game last night (weird huh?) and a nice pattern for a highway system hit me - a few rings in the middle of town and then stretches of highway coming from all 4 neighbors, intersecting in the middle of town. So I'll try that.

What about buses? Where should I place bus stops?quote>

Bus stops can be placed up to 10 tiles away from each other in low density area, but it has to be 6-7 tiles or less in dense area (such as CBD) since a single large skyscraper can easily overload a bus stop.

[Simaddict1000 1]

I think the best way to plan cities is to have chalenging terain so that you are forced tobuild paths for ur sims to follow.

If you have grids the trafic usualy gets super concentrated in intersections and slows down trafic alot.

And if you pu comercial in middle and then residential and then industrial it just doesnt look realistic.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

As you can see in his CJ.

[LKMarcus 3]

If you're new to SimCity, it might be a better idea to start off with grids and basic city building concepts, before moving into realism when you're more comfortable with the gameplay, just my 2 cents.

[flyatl 4]

I usually have 3 different districts for commercial, residential, and industrial and just connect each of them together with subways, highways, and monorails. This is pretty unrealistic though.