Hambone52891

And now what we've all been waiting for, downtown St. Christine. From the beginning, I've had this idea for downtown. Several tall buildings surrounding a central rail station and large park. Development begins. The station in detail. The art museum pokes out from between buildings towering over it. And at night... I had to change the highway off ramp into downtown. Originally this was just an avenue T intersection, but outgoing traffic just bunched up at the light. One ways made the transition much smoother Close up of the stock exchange. A view of the government district. A shot before the stadium was built Before and after photos for the minor league stadium and sports complex, across from the university. Downtown in it's current state. A quick look at the high tech industrial park between downtown and the airport. And finally, all of St. Christine. Thanks so much for viewing my CJ!

This entry will see residential expansion and the addition of more highway. Forgive me for the U-drive it icons This is how I currently build my subdivisions. Many of you on here are fantastic at this. For me, I generally start by creating a box of avenues. Inside that box I'll randomly wind streets to mimic what can be seen in real cities. I also don't butt my zone directly to the avenues, instead spacing one square away. Though this might promote bottle-necking, the low density and population keep traffic lower. This design helps alleviate congestion on the avenues. Instead of sims just hopping onto the avenue directly from their houses, they're forced to take their closest exit from the neighborhood. A completed subdivision prior to being zoned. In these areas I also zone low density commercial peppered with some medium density residential adjacent to the 'burbs. My hope is that some smaller apartment complexes will spring up, though some of these are taller than I'd like they look pretty good here. A pocket of medium density residential next to the college. One thing I've noticed the more cities I build in this region, the less useful elementary schools are. It seems like most of my sims are of age for either college or utilizing libraries. It just seems elementary schools are very short lived and get cut out of the budget quickly. The more I play, the more I like these single cell apartments. They house 30 sims, twice a normal house, don't take much space, and tend to build together as a larger unit. Shot of the golf course and surrounding developments.I wish I could turn off those movie theaters to the upper right, they might be the most repetitive building in the game. More apartments bordering the industrial sector. I wanted to develop a block of those single cell apartments, something common in cities. Here's the original area... Leveled... Zoned and under construction... Finished. It seems like once one of these structures is built, they duplicate until the block is full. Pretty handy if you want to create a repetitive complex. A better angle. The next few shots will cover the addition of more highway for future development. As stated in my first post, the slope mod I got from the STEX made things interesting. Highways, streets, ect. are fine on their own, but when they cross a railway it becomes a challenge. But it's well worth it in my opinion. The avenue intersection here will eventually change with the elimination of the north-south route (with the tunnels) It looked ok, but wasn't used by a single person. I originally built it before the highway, and figured it could be used as a bypass to alleviate some traffic. This cloverleaf heads from midtown to downtown, and from midtown to the airport across town. It dumps into an avenue that will make up the main entry into downtown. Whoever developed the NAM is a godsend for creating a transition between the elevated highway and the avenues. The exit to the airport. Again. I know most people have moved to the RHW at this point, but I don't quite have the patience for it yet. Stay tuned for downtown!

After playing SimCity 4 for years, I decided it was time to finally create a city Journal! What I wanted for this city was an attempt at realism, and to work harder with more forms of transportation. As such this city won't be full of sky scrapers, instead having a dedicated downtown area, industrial area, and suburbs. Unfortunately the block this city was built in is medium, so it won't be as detailed as I liked, and somewhat "squished" together. I am really happy with how things turned out, though. So without further delay, here we go: This is where we begin, lots of trees, two connected cities, and some hills to the right. The hills will present some challenges in the future, due to slope mod I've added. Early Industrial development. The city directly linked to St. Christine has a population over 100,000. Part of the problem with starting a city next to a large city is that sims from the residential areas of your city will immediately go next door for work if it isn't already available, causing commute concerns from the get go. So in this city I started with Industry which was already in high demand. As you can see, traffic from an adjacent city is using the new development as a bypass, represented by the green traffic arrow moving to the right. High traffic volume from the connecting cities necessitates a highway. I know many people use the RHW instead of the Maxis highway, but I currently prefer Maxis for its simplicity. The highway will become more important to the city over time. Early residential development. These suburbs won't really change. One thing I've learned over time is the importance of zone density. Eventually it can be tempting to zone up everything once it has developed. However, selecting zone density helps with many things, including traffic and added realism. A slight change to the train station. My hope with this being the station on the residential side will be used by outgoing Sims, and the other station on the industrial side will be used by incoming Sims. It didn't really function as planned. But the right side station will eventually become the second busiest in the city. More industrial development And that's all for now! More to come!