Little help: How would you finish a riverside avenue?

[cromabianca 158]

Hi, guys: how's it going?

I'm stuck on the riverbank! So I'm here for a little help!

How would you finish this?

I tried adding trees, walls, flower gardens... all that jazz! But still I dobn't like the results.

Any ideas are welcome!

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Look on the STEX for one of the various sea-walls designs. I can see you have a real problem due to the height of the bank. I have a feeling you would be more successful on the LEX.

[Cefien 361]

Seawalls would be great for that riverbank. But at least you must do something with the terrain.

[city89 147]

Make the hold area a downtown cbd shops tall highrises a police hq courts post office you know things such as that a downtown area but not a mid rise are low rise a hige rise downtown like newark jersey city la nyc ps let me know how it turned out and post piks

[cromabianca 158]

Thanks for your answers.

Yeah, I was thinking of making that area (and the ajacent) the downtown area and also I tried the sea walls, but they looked too... cement-ish.

I don't know, probably I have to experiment with a different set of seawall (right now I'm using the «Shore Conforming Seawall 2007» pack).

Back to work! I'll keep you posted

[cromabianca 158]

Don't mean to double-post, but...

What do you think?

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Oren 4]

Elminate the sea walls and plant trees all along the cliffs.

It does not make any sense for the street along the river to narrow from a 4 lane to a 2 lane road in the middle.

It should be a 4 lanes road contiguously like in the first picture.

Those bus stops are a waste of space. You could replace them with the RTMT stations which can be placed directly on top of streets.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Just fix the avenue. There is no need for the constrictor road, and it will be trouble. Don't worry about clobbering the adjacent properties.

I am not sure the seawalls are much of an improvement over the raw land, but whatever floats your boat.

[lhrob 213]

If I may be a little critical...

Get rid of the seawalls. They look worse than the original cliffs. Just line the edge of the riverbank with trees and small parks, or line it with flowers.

[cromabianca 158]

Right!

I'll experiment some more...

[Cob92 360]

Just plant trees on the slope, and put back the avenue. Maybe you could put in a few waterfront properties, or you could have a line of parks along the shore. With a cliff that high it's never going to look great.

[His Divine Hand 244]

The cliff side is ugly, and trees won't hide it. I would suggest getting Marrast's sea walls or Jay Stimson's walls for that section of river bank.

[lhrob 213]

Cobhris96 is right about that. I made the mistake of creating a river bank that's too steep, and now I can't do anything with it. So the only thing I could do was to create a waterside boulevard that runs from the edge of my map to the CBD, and line it with trees, small parks, and flowers. If I tried to lower the land to make a smoother gradient, then it would totally mess up what I've already built.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

I would also strongly recommend or seawalls (Marrasts are easier to use as you don't have to do the SetSeaLevel cheat code).

[Odainsaker 2,137]

Although I get the sense you don't really want to do this, I would suggest to move the waterfront avenue much further in land, opening up much more space along the waterfront. You can then more easily slope this land down to the waterlevel in a way that looks more natural, and perhaps redesign the waterfront into a picturesque waterside park with trees and trails.

To do this, you will have to accept altering the grid or blocksize along that waterfront avenue, but in truth, there should be no hard rule that the blocksize must be some arbitrary size there. Even if this will eventually become a downtown center, even downtown blocks can have varying sizes and alignments based on immediate geographical needs. Most real cities are like that anyway, and you can get different, unexpected opportunities by just accepting such deviations, even if that means a not having some specific, pre-determined skyscraper of a given lot size grow at that location.

In the real world with a more realistically even river edge topography, that watefront strip probably would have been a waterfront warehouse district for small shipping and boating, which overtime might have been redeveloped into a warehouse loft district or urban riverwalk. Riverfront property has its own desirabiltiy depending on the historic use. That also allows for the idea that you can, after pulling the waterfront avenue further inland and then resloping the riverbank, you might actually develop both sides of the waterfront avenue. Perhaps it it a riverbank strip lined with residential lofts, mid-rise hotels, and cafes, all of which have a their facade entrances along the avenue, and then patios and terraces facing the river, all transitioning down to a tree-lined, riverwalk park.

Oftentimes, when the waterfront served as shipping and warehouse district, a rail line or spur would also run parallel along the waterfront, faciliating the transfer of cargoes from river transport to land distribution. They would often try to put these lines in such that they are as close as possible to the dock edge for more expedious cargo transfer, but still skirting just outside some projected river flood zone and ground high enough so that you didn't lose the tracks in floods. Before a city grew rich enough to afford flood control systems on its rivers, they often tried to developed the riverbank such that relatively expendable buildings, like warehouses and docks, lined the riverbank, while the more expensive actual commercial shops or rail lines which were more costly to reconstruct were further inland out of potential flood danger. A growing cities eventually afforded more sophisticated flood control mechanisms like upstream dams, channel bypasses, and retaining walls, they reduced the flood risks of their riverbanks, opening up potential other uses, like hotels, trading houses, or residential lofts. Often, the old rail line or spur that once handled river cargo remained as a obsolete right-of-way, perhaps becoming a future path for light rail or streetcar systems serving the new land uses.

Gosh, so many possibilities...even if the desired end result is towering skyscrapers all the way to the water's edge, pretending to replicate the historic process leaves us with an interlacing of so many opportunites in between, such as unique building sites, a future linear park, and a mass transit path serving those towers. Even better, some of these might even be "read" by back reverse-analysing a city layout, adding an extra dimension in appreciating the growth of a showcased city.

Remember, the game allows multiple saves, so we can try all sorts of variations. High seawalls strike me as heroically over-engineered and self-limiting...aside from perhaps Byzantine Constantinople, I don't know of too many real cities that do them the way we often see in SimCity, let alone do them well.

[IAMSHOO 3]

Move the avenue back and make the riverside look natural. If its too high for the seawalls or you dont like the look of them, then the only other option is to make it look natural.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

You can use hole digging lots to lower the land a bit more precisely.

Although the Seine seawalls would work here quite well IMO, try downloading them and experimenting. These look well on high ground because they have multiple levels on the one lot.

[cromabianca 158]

Wow! How many replies! Thank all of you, guys!

You know what's weird? This is the London map included with the game, so it makes me wonder: is River Thames really that... below? I mean, I've been there a couple times, and I seem to remember that there was some height between road and river; so, what they probably did is something like the last seawall posted by ROFLyoshi (the Seine ones).

Anyway, this is kind of a sandbox city I'm working on, so I'm free to experiment and do pretty much whatever I feel like!

Thank you for your help, I'm going back to work... or, as a friend of mine would say: «It's clobbering time!!!»

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Remember that the Thames has tides.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Wow! How many replies! Thank all of you, guys!

You know what's weird? This is the London map included with the game, so it makes me wonder: is River Thames really that... below? I mean, I've been there a couple times, and I seem to remember that there was some height between road and river; so, what they probably did is something like the last seawall posted by ROFLyoshi (the Seine ones).

Anyway, this is kind of a sandbox city I'm working on, so I'm free to experiment and do pretty much whatever I feel like!

Thank you for your help, I'm going back to work... or, as a friend of mine would say: «It's clobbering time!!!»

Some cities do have somewhat high differences between the river and city. There are maps on the STEX that you can have a look at. Drunkapple (goes by the name of dobdriver on other forums) makes very high quality real world maps, so maybe he has a London map made that is of better quality than the in-built map. Failing that, you could request a map.

Anyway, you've got some clobbering to do! Eager to see your results.

[cromabianca 158]

@Moose: Gee, I didn't know that!

@ROFL: I clobbered. Boy, I did!

[Superbacon 380]

I would also strongly recommend or seawalls (Marrasts are easier to use as you don't have to do the SetSeaLevel cheat code).

I second this. Go with Marrast's on those slopes. It's a lot simpler and will looks miles better.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Must say, that looks great. Glad it fits well!