Hi! I am one of the thousands of people who heard all the chatter about SC2013 and jumped to download the re-released Aspyr port. I don't really have much of a story or narrative, although I have followed some principles (I am an urban planning/real estate professional and often build a city or two after work):

-New urbanism: mix of housing types and zones within neighborhoods. Although I have suburbs, I have no sprawl, regional malls, or cul-de-sacs and most of my communities are compact.

-Little cheating: the only "cheat" I use is a money park that I only use during construction. Almost all of my cities are currently in the black.

-Flat terrains: with one exception, none of my cities have been terraformed because I want my planning, not the landscape, to be the focus.

-Multicultural BATs: I use buildings from all over the world, although I try to pick buildings that are harmonious with one another. My loose "theme" is imagining that the Filipinos of 18th century New Orleans (no lie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Malo,_Louisiana) got their own country in the American great plains, so I have a mixture of European, Asian, Yankee, and Latin American architecture with some Near Eastern and African influences. The city above, Fouye, has a Haitian name and is intended to have a mild African influence.

I don't just do rural, though.