Creating Realistic Looking Cities?

[FantomPhox 0]

Just curious how one is to make a realistic city. I saw the show me your downtown/CBD in the concepts forum and they just look so good. I remember way back in the day that SC4 use to have threads on how to make realistic looking cities but I am struggling to find them. I'm hoping to slowly build a huge city while having fun and making it creative while yet still looking real.

 

Thanks for any replies!

[iviaarten 533]

Best tip I can give you is to develop slowly, and DON'T plan ahead too much. Just go with the flow, build as you go. Your towns will have little quirks that will later become nice natural features as the city grows. Check out the Skylines City Journals forum section to see how some others here on the forums go about creating their towns.

[FantomPhox 0]

Thanks iviaarten. Been following forkton. It's wonderful.

[Defecto 44]

Maarten is right about not planning too much. My CBD evolved from the first built blocks actually. And not building your CBD too big also helps. Flow is important.

[xonedl 341]

Often people use some gamey trick just to solve their future traffic problem - yes that will "win" the game for you, but it's not going to looks "normal", as our real world isn't perfect either - traffic problem everywhere!

Even if the info view shows red- actually zoom down to inspect. If the flow isn't that bad and everything moving, then it's nothing to worry about. But if they jam for miles and often not moving, then you got a big problem to solve.

Currently the game sometime have issue with traffic only using ONE lane of those big roads, hopefully that got fixed soon.

 

I think the best harmony of planning is semi-grid, semi-curvature depend on the terrain. However since this is the first city game I played that can build road as curvy as I want... I think I often went over do... 

Sometime I went take a look at Google map, study a bit how real world planning works out.

[BorisS1990 27]

Yes, if you want a US style city, the grid is pretty much a must. But don't make it just a big monotonous grid like most of Manhattan. Switch up the direction and orientation of the grid. Essentially creating separate patches of grids. More like Brooklyn. And then just try to throw in some oddly shaped blocks and curved streets to mix it up a bit.

 

Another tip is mix up your zoning. Alot of people zone just a separate big blob of residential then a separate blob of commercial, and a separate blob of industry. I usually make my city mostly residential and just pick some random street and zone commercial along it. Then pick out some individual intersections and zone for a couple commercial shops and offices right in the corners. The industry does kinda get it's own neighborhood and area mostly to itself but it's still very much connected to the rest of the city. Not just a completely separate island all by itself out in the corner of the map somewhere.

 

Also just try to have some real city in mind to use as inspiration. Not necessarily copy it, but just take some hints from it. For example I use NYC for my town of Belvedeere. Mostly because I've lived here for 15 years now so while I try to not rip off of it too much. All the cities I build still just end up looking like NY by default.

 

Now, this thread would be useless without some inspirational examples. So let's see your realistic cities to help the OP out.

 

 

An overhead view of Belvedeere:

 

 

 

Neighborhood map:

I do mark out some neighborhoods before I actually develop them just because it helps me remember a cool name I might have come up with at some moment.

 

 

Zoning map:

 

 

 

Traffic map:

To better see the street grid

 

 

And some glamour shots for fun:

 

An interchange that pretty much just serves the freight terminal. Took  alot of adjusting before I made it flow well and look clean. But still gets clogged up a bit when I have to empty out several landfills since the incinerators are right there. So the conga line of garbage trucks can cause a mess, but it was MUCH worse before.

 

 

A freight rail line hugging the coast of the Auburn District. Coming from the freight terminal and will lead to another future terminal and seaports.

 

 

 

Just a weird way of having the highway cross the elevated rail tracks. Don't always design with absolute, straightforward efficiency in mind. Sometimes it's nice to just make things a bit more complicated than they need to be.

 

 

And a pretty scenic shot:

From a rooftop on Railroad Hill, overlooking Old Belvedeere, and the Auburn District.

[FantomPhox 0]

BorisS1990, that is awesome pictures. That's kind of inspiration I need! I love how you planned it out a bit and then laid it out. Sometimes I just can't lay it out the way I want to. I guess that's why you kept playing with the intersection until you had it flow right.

 

I remember an old article on how to use the different roads to make the maps flow as well. Obviously, main highways gets you from city to city and then you have your access roads and main roads. Something like that. I think I'm looking to get something like that and then going from there. I'll be playing around later today and maybe I'll take some pictures to share!

[Snugies 91]

Maybe not building roads through previously placed buildings. I mean realistic how often in your city you live in do you see the city bulldoze straight through an established neighbourhood to build a 6-lane road?...where I live not often. I think this applies to city building in general lets admit it some cities plan ahead but not much. So I prefer not to build roads through established areas I think this helps with realism. If you do it must be carefully done just like in real life, homeowners will be resistant to road building....so have a pretend NIMBY.