binobi

Great looking city. The suburbs are really well planned out and reflect real life brilliantly. Also the transition from city to rural has been accomplished seamlessly with your use of mini industrial estates and clusters of warehousing, as well as the increasing distance between houses. Maybe a few villages and small towns to come? The down town area and the peninsular also look great, I was wondering how come there is no bridge between the two? Seems like it would make sense, especially with the port beyond, just a thought. Keep up the good work, hope to see more soon.

It's a very interesting point, and I'm not sure one the creators ever envisaged when building the game. The purpose of the Mayor is to facilitate the accumulation of funds to allow the continuing growth and development of the city through construction of a limited number of public services. These are; Transport, Health, Utilities, Education and Safety. Furthermore, how each of these sectors of public investment are funded and used dictates the direction the city takes. If the Mayor decides to limit investment in any of these he/she can guide and mould city development to their choosing. To this end we can compare the economic-political landscape of SimCity to many of the city states around the world. Singapore, Hong Kong (until 1999) or Monaco. The government in each of these states takes a back seat and only interferes where necessary, however when they do interfere in their citizens lives it can be to a far greater degree than perhaps in more democratic nations around the world. There is usually a trade off to be had here, people move to Monaco for low taxes, but they have little say in the political running of the state and are governed by a monarch. Singaporeans enjoy a fantastic standard of living but have to live under what many of us in the west would consider tyrannical laws. And Hong Kong used to enjoy one of the most free market economies anywhere, but the government controlled the sale and zoning of land thus creating the fantastic skyline Hong Kong has today. This argument does have some flaws however, things like the federal jail, which could only be offered if there was a higher government. I'm sure we can use our imagination on that though, such as some foreign power renting a piece of a nearby island to keep undesirables off of their mainland. And there are countless countries around the world with foreign army bases on their land offering military protection for a tactical advantage. As for trade, well it may not be visible, but the construction of Ports and Airports boost industrial and commercial demand in the city and those boats and planes must come from somewhere, so I can only assume that this is an over simplified representation of foreign trade. Those are my thoughts on the subject.

The concept is very interesting and seems to have got everybody talking. I believe that this notion of "the tower in the park" was adopted by many western governments for social housing in the 50's and 60's and it doesn't seem to work in real life but we're playing a game here and so should try to construct whatever image we want of a city. How it is put together will take some experimentation and work but i think it could be done in a style that is both true to the concept and pleasing to the eye. As mentioned above, varying what breaks up the gaps between towers will add a lot to the overall plan and varying the heights of the towers will make a big difference too. For an idea that relies so much on the visual appeal it may be easier to show what you're trying to create by using the towers you would use in a real city rather than repeating the same ones over and over. Good work and I look forward to seeing more as you develop the idea.

To continue what DavidBrown said here in the UK city is a legal definition, until fairly recently settlements were classified depending on if they had key civic amenities, thus; A village must have a church and therefore be the centre of a parish, if there is no church it is considered to be a hamlet. A town had to have a marketplace, think medieval square not high street. And indeed to be a city it was necessary to have a cathedral and therefore be the administrative centre of a diocese. This however is no longer the case as many large towns have now been given city status, Brighton and Hove springs to mind as it is where I live, no cathedral but now has city status. I believe that Wells in Somerset is the smallest city in the UK with a population of only a couple of thousand, but being the centre of the diocese of Bath and Wells it has the status of city. This old method of classifying settlements was probably rendered useless when the Church of England was formed, this meant large cities often had two cathedrals and overlapping diocese of Catholic and Protestant which weren't allowed to have the same name. I am most familiar with Bristol which has it's own cathedral for Protestants and another one in Clifton, a suburb of Bristol for the Catholics, but nobody would suggest that Clifton was a city in it's own right.

Sounds like an interesting turn of events here in Franklin County, how will this dispute be resolved!?! From real life experiences some governments with golden shares in corporations just cave when that big wodge of cash is waived in their face, let's see how the East Valley government stands up to the corporate raiders. On a lighter note, the ground work for the proposed expansion looks good and I can't wait to see the transformation of Hanging Cliff.

Looks like a winning plan to me, I say go for it. I noticed a few no job zots near the proposed development so the extra commercial zoning should help to stop any emmigration!

great updates. with that lab blowing up and the research into where the meteor came from maybe Franklin County should build itself a giant telescope of some description, seeing as it can't research the meteor any more, the Franklinites could explore the cosmos to understand better where it came from. The new developments look great, are the houses going to extend all the way to the road?

The last couple of updates have been great, especially enjoyed the meteor video. Does this mean there'll be some new development around the crash site, maybe some secret government research centre. I was also just thinking about how there is no airport in Franklin County, any plans for this? Keep them coming!

I seem to have missed loads, although I swear I was looking at this last night. Any who, love the last few updates, the avenue in North Franklin should help with all the traffic, just wondering if there should be a roundabout at each end because of the long distance between intersecting roads making it hard for sims to change direction. The Admirals street layout looks good, maybe some more commercial along the railway tracks and another train station to keep that pesky congestion down. Looking forward to more as always.

good to see that north franklin is getting a look in. maybe there should be an interchange where the road crosses the highway just to encourage a bit more traffic and growth, i'm sure those north franklinites would love to have a bit of out of town shopping action on their doorstep. keep it coming, it's all looking great.

I didn't mean it didn't look good before, just that it's really developing and growing in an organic manner, like real life cities do. The new frontage roads increase the urban feel of Central Franklin. Also the new condo building fits in really well, can't wait to see some more vertical growth in Franklin County. And one more thing.... ....the region shot is really helpful, allows us to see how all the development fits in together, and how the metro area is merging together. As always looking forward to seeing more.

Excellent 50th update. I particularly love the mosaic of downtown Franklin, it really is looking better everytime we see it. The new rail line should certainly help with development all over Franklin County. Do I sense in what you've been saying that we'll be seeing some hi-rise residential soon. I hope you're able to maintain the right balance between suburbs and apartment blocks. As always can't wait to see where you take us all next, keep it up.

the jobs for farms come from the buildings on the farm "block" ie the farm house, so it doesn't matter if they plant stuff or not, i believe that the fields around the buildings are generated randomly and have no impact on actual game play. if you want some more interesting farms download a few from the stex, they are much better than the original maxis ones, just search for farm, simgoober has made plenty of interesting ones, as well as numerous other people. as for an optimum size? it as explained above, it's the buildings not the fields that provide the jobs, so in theory once the farm has developed you can de-zone all the field to just leave the building and still get the jobs. I would say that the optimum size is the size that most suits what you're trying to create. if you want giant corn farms a la american mid-west go for huge fields, if you want loads of small holdings zone smaller farms, it's all entirely up to you.

Loving the cj, Virgin Shores is certainly coming along. I especially like the new resort built over the river, I think the balance of development and remoteness has been found well, and the hotel will fit in perfectly once there are a few more high rises in the city proper. On a separate matter your chosen model of decision making seems to be making the development of this city more realistic than one could ever had hoped, with different parties arguing their own corner, and people insisting on rules being followed to the letter. Maybe this could be used as an exapmle of how hard government can be! I hope this all continues for some time, I find it all very interesting to follow.

the highway upgrade is looking good, much more fitting for the growing downtown area than the old RHW. will we be seeing some more building development soon, or is franklin county still waiting for a new developer?

As other people have said here the NAM would certainly help out with increased capacities and improved path finding. However I believe that a large part of the problem may be your road network layout, because you have such high density housing with relatively little transit for the sims to use that which you do have becomes far more congested. If you think of real life cities the density of roads increases close to the centre where the population and traffic density is highest, what you have created here is a city with high population density but relatively sparse transit density leading to high levels of congestion. You therefore need to increase transit capacity on all fronts, road, rail, subway and monorail. Or at least that is how it seems to me.

hadn't viewed your cj for a while due to work and such like, but have very much enjoyed catching up from where i left off. i notice you've started to get a few high rises developing as well. glad to see you managed to rebuild hanging cliff it would have been a shame to lose this cj as it really begins to take to life and clearly has a very loyal following. keep up the good work, i look forward to seeing more and more.

loving the last two updates, the growth of franklin county is really starting to take shape now. is it all gonna be fairly low rise stuff or are we gonna get some gleaming skyscrapers at some point?

excellent story, i shall have to keep an eye on this cj to see how it all develops.

how patronising do you wanna be alexzero77!?! city2themax merely gave his opinion based on real life experience, i don't believe age has any bearing on this! on a lighter note, i think germany is an incredible country, the bits i have been to anyway, near the rhine valley and down in the south near switzerland. a stark contrast to over here in the uk, despite us having common ancestors.

looking good, interesting use of robots, but hey why not!?! i think those master plans for the huge man-made islands in tokyo bay would be awesome, and give nthe japanese governments love for grandiose civil engineering plans who says it'll never happen