Tutorial for Building Your First City in a Brand New Region
City Startup Economic Gameplay - A recipe for happy sims!
Last night I had to rebuild my first city tile in the region, Breezy Point, New York, and I realised that I build all my early gameplay for each city on a recipe. This recipe also works for the first city in a brand new region, which has a more fragile economy because it has no Neighbour Connections.
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( observe my OWR-4 ferry loops in the region picture @Cyclone Boom and @CorinaMarie ... what fun! ) 
Last night's work verified that my years old recipe for cooking up new cities, works just as well using the NAM, as it has done in all my years of vanilla SimCity 4 gaming without any mods at all, so here I am noting the recipe down for posterity. In some respects, this post is a little tutorial for beginner and intermediate players of SimCity 4, with or without the NAM. For a more exciting tutorial, and my reminiscing on hidden economic gameplay dynamics in vanilla SimCity 4, check this one out.
For those of you who already know city startup and region startup game economics well, there won't be any big surprises here. This is actually one of my more boring posts, but essential to new players in the game. For those of you who routinely use mods that alter the economic gameplay, likewise feel free to skip this one. This is just economic gameplay basics, though you might still find it a useful checklist when creating the first city in a brand new region.
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Tutorial for Building Your First City in a Brand New Region
While you can zone residential, commercial and industrial in SimCity 4, you cannot explicitly zone for:
- Residential wealth levels: R$, R$$, R$$$,
- Commercial offices CO versus services CS,
- Commercial wealth levels: C$, C$$, C$$$,
- Dirty industry (I-D), manufacturing (I-M), or high tech (I-HT).
These more detailed zonings can only be controlled through gameplay. In this tutorial, I'll be covering city startup game stages, taxation, and desirability.
There are other factors, too, such as proximity, but I won't be explicitly covering that here. There's also neat things you can do with mods, but I likewise won't be covering that here. This recipe works for vanilla SimCity 4, or for SimCity 4 with the NAM, without needing any cheats or other mods. It even works without my usual downloadable cheat (Ctrl+X moolah). 
Of course, there are many variations on this First City recipe. One way to change this up big time is to build two neighbouring cities together, with commercial zoned along your road Neighbour Connection, but this tutorial will be focused on creating a single solitary self-sufficient city. This first city won't be super pretty ... you can do more pretty cities as you progress in developing your region. There's also many variations on timeframes for game stages. The 5 sim-year intervals below are only a general guide.
Taxation
Taxes are one of the more powerful game stage features in the game, and I'll be making occasional reference to it. Here's my initial taxes for Breezy Point:
WHAT!!! That looks so backwards, doesn't it! 20% tax for Manufacuturing Industry (I-M), and only 9% tax for Dirty Industry (I-D).
This relates to game stages in the economic gameplay. I don't want manufacturing buildings (I-M) to grow in my dirty industry (I-D) area. 20% tax rate helps prevent it. 
In a similar way, I don't want any high wealth (R$$$) citizens initially, so I use 20% tax on High Wealth Residential (R$$$). I also only want a limited number of medium wealth citizens (R$$) for the first ten years, as plant supervisors, teachers and such, so I use 9.5% tax on Medium Wealth Residential (R$$), to discourage them a wee little bit. Most of my population in the first ten sim-years will be low wealth R$ factory workers.
9% tax on Commercial Services and 6% tax on Commercial Offices relates to my long term economic choices for Breezy Point. Commercial Offices provide more employment than Commercial Services, so I'm keen to encourage them.
City Tile Preparation
I prefer to do all these initial steps with the game on pause ...
- Police – Plop initial one or two police stations. If you're still relatively new to SimCity 4, just stick with one police station initially. Do make sure to only zone and plop inside the police protection radius in your Crime view. Roads work fine outside your police protection radius, just don't zone along those unprotected routes.
- Zone your residential around the plop of an Elementary School, saving space nearby for High School, Hospital and Library. These spaces will come in handy as you go through the gameplay stages.
- Industrial zoning for Dirty Industry (I-D) only, with Landfill in it's most remote corner, and plop one Small Fire Station and Power Plant nearby.
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Freight Neighbour Connection – This neighbour doesn't have to be a developed city tile, but you need to have some method for exporting freight from ALL your industrial zones. That can be a road Neighbour Connection, a rail Neighbour Connection, or a Sea Port. Whichever you choose, make sure it's near your industrial precinct, as proximity makes your factories more economically productive.
Weirdly, rail doesn't interface with the MaxisSea Port!
EDIT: Correction, there is a way to interface rail to a Maxis Sea Port, see comment below.
- Power Station – If you're doing some Dirty Industry (I-D), which creates many low wealth jobs and brings in lots of tax money, then a moderately polluting power station, Natural Gas Power Plant, or Oil Power Plant, are good choices. Nestle them in among your Dirty Industry (I-D) zones, so that all your worst pollution is one area. If you'd like to understand all the power plant options, my Economics of Clean Power post explains.
- Water Pollution Management – Set aside a 6x7 space for your first Water Treatment Plant, but don't plop it yet.
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Airport – Set aside an area for your Airport, but don't plop it yet. Near your dirty industry (I-D) area is a good spot, because Airports don't mind the pollution at all.
- Low density commercial zoning for plenty of low-wealth C$, using 1x1, 1x2, 2x2, 1x3, 2x3 lots along arterial Avenues, leaving space to expand the heaviest traffic areas to 3x4 lots later in the game. Arterial avenues should take your sims from home to work. In the early stages of the game, these arterial avenues lead to big civic employers, such as Police Station and Airport, as well as to your industrial precinct. Commercial zonings will only grow where there is road traffic. Schools and Hospitals are also big civic employers, but they are harder to use for driving commercial traffic because they are usually slap bang in the centre of your residential neighbourhoods. If you have multiple Elementary Schools, leave a little space between the education radius of each school, to zone commercial along the arterial avenue running between them.
- Set aside areas for 2x2 Medium Plaza and 3x3 Large Plaza plops in a 15 tile radius across the heaviest traffic areas, but aiming to leave arterial avenue frontage for your commercial zonings. I use a combination of 1x1 Street plops, Signposts, palm Trees, and Labels to indicate which is which. Keep in mind that sims cannot walk through Plaza plops to get to work ... which is kinda weird!
- Bus Stops – Ensure everyone has ready access to Bus Stops, near all areas of home, business, and industry. Bus Stops are much more important than they seem, as I cover in this other post of mine, The mysterious powers of the SimCity 4 Bus Stop.
- Ferret out little spaces for 1x1 Small Plaza and 1x1 Small Park Green plops among the commercial zonings, again in a 15 tile radius across all your commercial Avenue throughfares, but not near your R$ low wealth residential areas.
- Water Source – Plop a small Water Pump in a very, very clean location. It can be next to the sea, weirdly, but it must definitely not be near any of your initial dirty industry (I-D) zones.
- Water Distribution – Lay your water Pipes across the entire area covered by your police protection radius in your Crime view.
- Taxation – Set initial taxes (see screenshot above).
IMPORTANT NOTE: Hospitals, Schools, Libraries, Airport, Sea Port, all have individually adjustable funding levels. You won't be able to balance your city budget unless you learn to monitor the individual funding needs and funding levels of each of these civic plops. Because of these adjustable funding levels, Airports and Sea Ports don't cost nearly as much as you might expect! On a related note, I typically use §0 funding for Ambulance and School Bus services, which are a waste of precious monthly expense ... except in the rare case that I want to fine tune residential zoning size inside that radius in Health and Education views.
EDIT: See also Quick Tip #3 Do you want to eyeball your Health & Education Master Lists? for a really amazing technique for managing Health and Education budgets building by building.
https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/758813-show-us-your-SimCity-4-quick-tips-twitter-style/?tab=comments#comment-1725498
Here follows the gameplay stages ...
January'00 — Civic Plops
- Plop the Hospital, High School, and Library in R$$ medium wealth residential area, but not yet in the R$ low wealth area. These civic plops affect land desirability more than you would expect, and are likely to cause richer sims to move in and take over your undeveloped R$ low wealth residential zones before your low wealth sims get an even chance. If you're only doing one residential area initially (which I strongly recommend if you're new to the game), then stick with an R$ low wealth residential area first, as your starting place.
February'00 — Ordinances
- Turn on initial set of City Ordinances in the Monthly Expenses section of your budget. I've four favourites at this stage:
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Free Clinic Program – A mobile health service which improves health of all sims city-wide, at minimal cost. This is worthwhile in any city tile where you are getting regular influx of new sims in relation to higher density residential growth or new residential zonings, as new citizens usually arrive in extremely poor health! This also partially makes up for not having a Large Medical Clinic (aka Hospital) or small Medical Clinic in your R$ low wealth residential area at first.
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Neighbourhood Watch Program – The best way to beat the crime war is to not let crime culture start in the first place.
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Junior Sports Programs – This is another ordinance to reduce crime, focused on the younger population.
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Pro-Reading Campaign – Similar to the Free Clinic Program above, but for education (EQ) instead. In a very similar way, this is worthwhile in any city tile where you are getting regular influx of new sims in relation to higher density residential growth or new residential zonings, as new citizens usually arrive with extremely poor education, too! This also partially makes up for not having a High School in your R$ low wealth residential area at first. Incidentally, a better educated populace are also less inclined to commit crimes!
January'04 — Check the health of your roads and dirty industry area:
- Check on your dirty industry (I-D), to ensure that it's developing nicely.
- Bulldoze any manufacturing (I-M) buildings that have inadvertently grown in your dirty industry area. Given the rising pollution levels and 20% tax on manufacturing (I-M), it's rather unlikely that they'll grow again. If they do, a second bulldoze usually does the trick!
- In Traffic view, make sure that sims can get from home to work! This is also an opportunity to check that you have enough Bus Stops.
January'06 — This is the start of light C$ commercial development:
- Put in your first Water Treatment Plant, situated between your dirty industry and R$ low wealth residential area. Do make sure to connect it's central sprocket to your city's water pipes!
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Swap to Water Pollution view to see your Water Treatment Plant work over the next couple months!
January'10 — This is the start of serious C$ commercial development:
- Put in your first Airport.
- Reduce taxes on R$$ medium wealth to 9.0%.
- Put dirty industry (I-D) tax levels to 20.0%. Yes, dirty industry is probably the only sector that tolerates 20% tax rate well. It won't grow at 20%, but any factories in place are very likely to continue production.
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Plop a Waste to Energy Plant among (or next to) your dirty industry area, to keep landfill from getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger!!!
- Put manufacturing (I-M) tax levels to 9.0%, so that you can control where manufacturing lots will grow.
- Zone manufacturing (I-M) areas, making sure to put in Bus Stops, too.
- Make sure to plop Radio Station and Lighthouse rewards when they are offered to you, as they both lift demand CAPS for manufacturing (I-M), resulting in many more manufacturing lots growing buildings. Don't put the Lighthouse near your R$$ or R$$$ sims, they don't like it!
- Dezone 2x2 and 2x3 residential lots that have subdivided to two 1x3 (or 1x2) lots, with one of those not having car access, and re-zone them back to the larger 2x3 lots again. Look for the No Car Zots to identify them.
- Dezone 2x2 and 2x3 commercial lots that have subdivided to two 1x3 (or 1x2) lots, with one of those becoming vacant, and re-zone them back to the larger 2x3 lots again. Look for the blackened commercial buildings to identify the vacant ones.
January'15 — The start of serious C$$ commercial development
- Activate the Clean Air Act in the City Ordinances , within your Monthly Expenses budget.
- Check your Water graph! With all that manufacturing (I-M) growth, you might need a second small Water Pump.
- Plop a Hospital for the R$ low wealth residential area.
- Use Traffic Volume view to analyse traffic patterns.
- C$$ growth – Locate selected commercial buildings that are already established, with high traffic and high employee levels, and rezone to medium or high density commercial. Rezoning to higher density doesn't demolish the buildings, as long as you keep the same shape, and don't dezone them!
- Medium Plazas – Plop 2x2 Plazas to increase desirability for those selected commercial buildings.
- Keep all the plazas well away from your low wealth R$ residential area for now.
- Dezone 3x4 residential lots that have subdivided, and re-zone them back to 3x4 lots again.
January'20 – More C$$ commercial growth
- Plop a High School for the R$ low wealth residential area.
- C$$ growth – Zone some more selected commercial lots in the highest traffic areas for medium or high density.
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3x4 C$$ lots – Dezone some of your most successful commercial lots to resize them for 3x4 lot area, starting with low density commercial to begin with. This might feel sad, but sometimes progress is hard!
Do this very selectively. If you dezone too many commercial lots at the same time, it can be quite detrimental to your growth, because each dezone and re-zone temporarily reduces commercial road traffic. It can backfire badly if you move too fast with 3x4 commercial lots, especially several along the same arterial avenue.
- Start letting high-wealth residents into your city with a 11.5% R$$$ tax rate. These are your company executives. Note that they'll be wanting some 3x3 and 3x4 residential lots, so you'd better provide them, otherwise they'll buy up many adjacent small lots for building their palatial homes! See also my post, Preserving the character of low-wealth R$ residential neighbourhoods, for more techniques to protect your R$ and R$$ areas.
- Big Plazas – Plop a few more 2x2 and/or 3x3 plazas near your highest traffic areas, even in the commercial districts near your low wealth R$ areas.
- Parks, yay! Start plopping high desirability parks in your medium wealth R$$ areas to increase residential desirability, but not for your R$ areas.
- First Church – This is the time to plop your first Church reward, in your R$$ area, not for R$ sims! The Churches are basically like Parks with wide desirability radius, and they lift your R$$ medium wealth residential CAPS, encouraging more middle-class people to come live in your city.
IMPORTANT: Don't plop a Country Club until you're ready to provide high wealth R$$$ sims with both executive employment and many palatial neighbourhoods. This plop is offered as a reward early in the game, and it's a trap for new players! 
January'25 – Improving commercial growth potential through education (EQ)
- Plop a Library for the R$ low wealth residential area, in preparation for more widespread commercial growth.
- 3x4 C$$ lots – Judiciously dezone a few more of your most successful commercial lots to resize them for 3x4 lot area.
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You might want to consider plopping a University. Like the Airport and Sea Port, this is a major civic employer, so traffic of workers from home to the University is a C$$ commercial opportunity along those arterial avenues! Furthermore, a highly educated population provides a more productive C$$ office workforce. The educational benefits of the University are city-wide, but you'd do well to plop it right near a brand new Deluxe Police Station, as Universities are breeding grounds for petty crime! Even better, you might consider downloading Modern Police Station, by Mattb325 , which solves the "organised crime bug" that plagues large plops like the University, Airport, and Country Club.
EDIT: https://wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:Crime_Bug
Incidentally, University students don't contribute to traffic at all! Only the civic workers at the University contribute to road and mass transit traffic. Airports are similar, the inter-city commuters by air being a fictional number that contributes to city-wide commercial demand, NOT traffic! 
January'30 – High tech startups
- Bring High Tech (I-HT) tax rate down to 4.0%, and start zoning some industry near your R$$ and R$$$ residential areas, just outside the radius of your elementary school. These are excellent for taking advantage of areas that don't have high traffic (which is vital for commercial), and can't be used for residential. Of course, do consider whether it might be better to plop a 3x3 park or plaza in that spot instead!
- Resist the urge to gift your R$ sims with parks! If you do that, R$$ and R$$$ sims will move in and take over, and you'll completely lose the low-wealth population. Of course, it's okay to do that if you actually do want to gentrify your neighbourhoods, but be prepared that it will affect employment at your factories. See this other post of mine, Thoughtful reflections on Oompa-Loompas (aka Where are all the workers?), to help explain some of the mysteries behind sim unemployment.
Now, you are well and truly past time for setting up a neighbouring city. Neighbour Connections are the most powerful economic force in region development, particularly with C$$ and C$$$ commercial zoned along the high traffic avenues leading to your road-based Neighbour Connections. Enjoy! 
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Putting this recipe to the test ....
The proof of the pudding ... I just ran this process on my first city tile in my newest region, with no Neighbour Connections at all. Here's an image from the centre of my medium wealth neighbourhood, as at simdate January'30. Other neighbourhoods are looking good, too. Not perfect, but very healthy. This neighbourhood looks like it's in flux, with a curious mixture of low, medium, and high wealth all in the same few streets.
- §9,781 monthly income
- §9,760 monthly expenses
- §1,040,426 spent to reach positive monthly cashflow
- 25,298 population (with residential tax payers: 900 R$$$ • 9500 R$$ • 900 R$)
- Average EQ 110
- Average life expectancy 71 years
- Water pollution 27
- Air pollution 162
- Mayor rating 72
- Mods: NAM36, and Modern Police Station, by Mattb325 .
- Ctrl+X you don't deserve it , used to obtain 1 Large High School, and 1 Large Elementary School, during city planning stage.
Breezy Point is supposed to be a tourist town, but the ferry terminal gates are always swinging empty. It really is time to set up a few neighbouring cities!
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