What do you think of this neighborhood?

[diego 14]

This is a neighborhood I just finished in one of my cities, what do you think?

[Micah 16]

Well, it needs just a little bit of improvement... in real life, you wouldn't have a large farm next to a neighborhood with huge mansions. But anyways, it actually looks pretty cool. Perhaps you could show more photos of the developement.

[xfile1014 0]

Date: 1/19/2006 10:37:49 PM
Author: Micah
Well, it needs just a little bit of improvement... in real life, you wouldn't have a large farm next to a neighborhood with huge mansions. But anyways, it actually looks pretty cool. Perhaps you could show more photos of the developement.

quote>

Micah, im not sure where you live, but i'm from central jersey. i live in a fairly affluent area dotted with million dollar homes (sometimes called mcmansions)clustered together just a few blocks from sprawling acres of corn, potato, and pumpkin fields, as well as plant nurseries and horse ranches.

diego i'm not sure if your shooting for realism but if you are, imho, i think the res zones should be expanded around the road bordering the res/farm zone, and the farm should only be accessible via the avenue, perhaps set back a tile or two so as to prevent loss of jobs from traffic pollution from future res expansion. also, the commute time for those people would be kinda long unless thier jobs are in that closeby com district. perhaps a single road with a nice grassy area running along the water, with streets branching off of that road

[Jasoncw 11,940]

It's realistic that low density development borders a farm (the city and farm have to meet eventually, right?) but it isn't realistic for there to be a big building next to so much open space. It would be cheaper and more profitable for developers to build shorter buildings but more of them.

Also, if you're going for realism, those hills are incredibly steep. Sim City exagerates the slopes to make them visible in game, but in real life your hills would be 100 times worse than san fransisco once you develop them. Right now most of your roads are flat, which is realistic, but the farms being on a hill is not. Building or farming on slopes is incredibly expensive, and it would only be developed if it was the last bit of open land left, and the least steep, or if the area was a really valuable area in a decent sized city. Also, it's not good to build so close to water, since eventually erosion will make the buildings fall into the water, but then again, it's still realistic for that to happen since most developers don't care about those things .

It looks like you have alot of overlapping police coverage. Unless your're doing it for looks, you should bulldoze anything that overlaps, since overlapping coverage doesn't combat crime (or anything else) more effectivly than normal coverage.

But this is the wrong forum for that kind of stuff, although I'm not sure where people post advice for city journals.

[DuskTrooper 314]

Wrong forum...

[Shinagawa 0]

Phew! Glad I know it is the wrong forum!

You must get so tired pointing that out to everyone all the time.

 

Keep up the good work!

[diego 14]

Thanks for the replies, if this is the wrong forum for this which is the right one??
About realism: I was not looking to be realistic with this development, just thought it would be awesome to live in a great house next to a giant orange field and so close to the sea.

[Nardo69 51]

Date: 1/20/2006 12:08:32 AM
Author: Jasoncw
It's realistic that low density development borders a farm (the city and farm have to meet eventually, right?) but it isn't realistic for there to be a big building next to so much open space. It would be cheaper and more profitable for developers to build shorter buildings but more of them.

Date: 1/20/2006 12:08:32 AM
Author: JasoncwAlso, if you're going for realism, those hills are incredibly steep. Sim City exagerates the slopes to make them visible in game, but in real life your hills would be 100 times worse than san fransisco once you develop them. Right now most of your roads are flat, which is realistic, but the farms being on a hill is not. Building or farming on slopes is incredibly expensive, and it would only be developed if it was the last bit of open land left, and the least steep, or if the area was a really valuable area in a decent sized city. Also, it's not good to build so close to water, since eventually erosion will make the buildings fall into the water, but then again, it's still realistic for that to happen since most developers don't care about those things .

It looks like you have alot of overlapping police coverage. Unless your're doing it for looks, you should bulldoze anything that overlaps, since overlapping coverage doesn't combat crime (or anything else) more effectivly than normal coverage.

But this is the wrong forum for that kind of stuff, although I'm not sure where people post advice for city journals.

quote>

About the High Rise next to the farm:
Depends on. I know quite IRL some places with high buildings (> 10 floors) close to farms but these buildings would be R$ or R$$

About the sloped farms:
With the slopes, well, in southwest Germany you can find farms hills almost everywhere since it IS almost everywhere hilly. Of course there is not so much open space in small Germany than there is in Big USA / Canada.
Just - as far as I know some of the best white whines of the worlds are growıng ın the valley of the river Mosel where the whineries have a slope of 45-60 degree!
FYI: 45 degree = 100%

About the erosion at the water I do agree though ...

Bernhard

[DuskTrooper 314]

Date: 1/20/2006 9:34:50 AM
Author: Shinagawa

Phew! Glad I know it is the wrong forum!

You must get so tired pointing that out to everyone all the time.

quote>


No, actually.

[diego 14]

Here are two more pictures of the same city, the first is a close up of the neighborhood and the second is a view of most of the city, btw, it was planned to be an industrial city to provide jobs for the res and commercial neighbor city, i'll post pics of it later.

[sim1234 62]

Nice Work!  I think the right forum for this would be City Building Concepts so a moderator might move it for you when they see it. 

[Micah 16]

I live in Spring... which is just north of Houston.

Anyways, the rest of your town looks very realistic. Seriously! The trees dividing the homes from the road look real. The volcano makes it look even better... adds great detail. Hopefully you will show us more developement on the developing section.

[Odainsaker 2,136]

Very picturesque and charming city.  For some reason, I am reminded of my home island of Oahu...must be the glassy block towers backdropped by the hopefully extinct volcanic crater!

But let me suggest something different for your little development.  None of this may hit what you are aiming for, but it may offer a different way of looking at the picture.

 

Notice that you have a prominent hilltop which is currently farmland.  Jasoncw has already mentioned how odd that would be for agricultural uses.  Instead, the topography suggests a prominent point, so perhaps we should but something prominent there such as a landmark or point of interest.  A similar rise in San Fransisco caps a residential hill with the monumental Coit Tower, creating a centerpiece for that area.  That may or may not be a little grandiose, but the idea is sound, and could work here.  A natural promontory is a good place for visually striking water tower (hilltops are in reality the best place for them, as the greater rise adds to their gravity driven pressure).  Perhaps more down to earth would be the neighborhood school, church, or other civic structure that would visually benefit from the symbolism of a higher site.  Important civic buildings in visually symbolic places is an aesthetic way of laying things out in that goes beyond game simulator functions.

 

Should you have good landmark on top the hill, you might connect it to the rest of the city by extending the strong avenue coming from the left all the way to the hilltop structure.  Such an avenue terminated by a landmark or civic structure again reinforces both the aesthtic symbolism of the landmark as well as the avenue, forming clear focal points.  This avenue would make the perfect visual gateway into the development.

 

You might then branch small residential streets off this avenue or radiate or loop them away from the hilltop landmark such that you can get enough access around the sides of the hill to fit in as many residential lots with as you can.  With that terrain, they should have great views.  The street layouts should probably not be a ridge grid or slashing line, but instead weave and work around the slopes so as to use a few tiles as possible while maximizing as much lot frontage served by the street and preserving the best and most dramatic plots for development.  For a more picturesque look, you might fine tune and adjust some of the slopes to really pack in houses in unique spots.  My own preference would be for densely packed small low-rise homes (I'm thinking San Fransisco again), rather than sprawling mansions with huge empty yards, but I'm starting to see a village cluster like some old Mediterranean town.  Notice the prominent hilltop isn't symmetrical, but instead has a long spine with some minor corner ridges...these would be the places for the most expensive homes with the best panoramic views and homes with the most dramatic sites (think Russian Hill in San Fransisco).  It might look visually cool to have houses cluster really tightly around whatever landmark we have at the hilltop as well as along the cliffedge.

 

Along the extreme cliffedge into the water, rather than extending home lots to the very edge, you might plant dense trees along the cliffedge to make a cliffedge walking park (lol, imagine a neighborhood bikepath skirting the edge of a rocky cliff!).  You may even smooth out the slope at the cliffedge to fit in more trees, giving the sense of a broad belt park several tiles wide, with park amenities or community lookout terraces sparsely sprinkled along it.

 

On the opposite side of the development away from the water, you might continue the treeline around separating the lower farmland from the homesites.  The edge where housing becomes farmland is important, and I am not convinced it would be defined by a road with homes on one side and farm land on the other.  More likely, the road closest to the farm edge would serve homes on both sides, and the farm edge would meet right up to the backedge of the housing lot yards.  Because houses on this side of the hill will not have the dramatic water views of the cliffside, it may not be a critical to pack in homes, so you might allow the lots to gradually become larger and more spacious, planted with more trees, until it seems like the tree-filled home lots gradually blend into the greenbelt or farmland.

 

lol, I think I just remade your city in my mind.  I really should put as much effort playing my own cities, lol.  Hey...there is a beach at the extreme right of the cliff development...opportunities, opportunites...

 

Oh, give this development a name...whatever the name is, it will help clarify to ourselves what we envision this place being.  I think mine is already screaming Promontory Point.

 

If you read this far, I hope this was at least interesting.

 

[diego 14]

Thanks a lot for the tips, I will definitely consider all of them.

[aaronperry 0]

The reason i tera form is so that when i build an new housing complex it doesnt look like all the houses are on Stilts, Maybe u could consider this?

Visit Tazious, search Tazious on the forums and click archeiving realism, some of my pics may help explain this.

[Compromise 1]

Certainley a good attempt. Work on the realism and you should be doing well.

[AlexNielsen7 2]

Yeah, maby you could have a look on all our great CJ's. They have inspired me a lot!

 

Especially 'Caddot Bay' by Barnatom.