Automatic row house zoning

Contributor/author(s): ElBart0, Kyle D.J.

(The buildings named in this article are from the standard building set. Using the "European" or "Asian" buildings sets will produce similar results, but of course with different buildings.)

There are some zoning developments in SimCity 3000 that appear "automatically" when the proper conditions are met. Residential estates and farms are two examples. Another is row house developments, and to produce these, do the following:

1. Zone a 6x6, 6x8, or 8x8 block of medium-density residential. Surround it with roads.
2. Raise the land value of all tiles in the zone to at least medium. (Adding parks in the surrounding area is the easiest way to do this).
3. Once the land value is ready, demolish all buildings in the zone to force new development. What you want to see appearing is a formation of 2x2 buildings under construction around the entire perimeter of the zone, with a formation of 1x1 filler tiles in the middle (specifically, "Concrete in Trees" and "Lawn in Concrete"). It may not appear right away, so keep demolishing the entire zone as required until the above pattern appears. You'll know it when you see it. (You may want to speed up the simulation during this process as it could take many tries).
4. Once the pattern has appeared and all the buildings are completed, pause the game and set all buildings to "historical" using the query tool. If you do not, the development may not remain there forever, just like estates or farms.

Note that this row house development produces two buildings that will not appear in any other way in the game: "Middletown Row Houses" and "Brownstone". (These buildings are actually just different colours/orientations of "Kevin's Way Row House" and "Row House".) Also note that all corner buildings and all buildings on the northeast and northwest sides of the zone will be "Pinky's Plaza". Thus the variety is not great, but it is still something different to look at compared to the usual "scatter developements".

See also
How to develop farms
Estates: getting them to grow
Zone development rules