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Expand your University with the TCC College of Urban Planning. The College of Urban Planning prepares your Sims for rewarding careers in urban and city planning-related fields. Undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs are offered in areas such as: Urban Planning Community Development Environmental Studies & Planning Transportation Planning Real Estate Development Urban Economics and Finance Urban Health and Safety The main building of the college is connected to a smaller annex building via a 3-story skybridge. Ground floor retail outlets include Starbucks Coffee, Pita Pit and the University Bookstore. The version available for download here sits on a 4x4 lot and is available via the Education menu. To use, simply extract the .dat file from the attached .zip into your already overloaded SC4 Plugins directory. Dependencies: RDQ HD Prop Pack BSC Mega Props - SG Vol 01 [EDIT] Missing Dependency links added: PEG MTP Super Pack v1.02 BLaM Glenni Prop Pack BSC Parks BLS Pack 3 Enjoy!- 4 Comments
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Apparently, there is a solution to San Francisco's housing crisis besides upzoning historic neighborhoods. I just learned that most shipping has moved to the east bay, leaving San Francisco's industrial ports (its entire southeast area) underutilized. If these ports are not completely eliminated, then they can at least be concentrated in Hunter's Point, leaving everywhere north of there ripe for redevelopment just like Miami Beach's new luxury highrise residential district.
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From video game to day job: How 'SimCity' inspired a generation of city planners
Haljackey posted a submission in News
Jason Baker was studying political science at UC Davis when he got his hands on “SimCity.” He took a careful approach to the computer game. "I was not one of the players who enjoyed Godzilla running through your city and destroying it. I enjoyed making my city run well." This conscientious approach gave him a boost in a class on local government. Instead of writing a term paper about three different models for how cities can develop, Baker proposed building three scenarios in “SimCity,” then letting the game run on its own and writing about how his virtual cities fared. He ended up getting an A. Playing “SimCity,” Baker said, "helped remind me of the importance of local government, which is what I ended up doing for a living." Today, Baker is the vice president of transportation and housing at the nonprofit Silicon Valley Leadership Group. He served as a council member in Campbell, Calif., from 2008 to 2016, a tenure that included two stints as mayor. Thirty years ago, Maxis released “SimCity” for Mac and Amiga. It was succeeded by “SimCity 2000” in 1993, “SimCity 3000” in 1999, “SimCity 4” in 2003, a version for the Nintendo DS in 2007, “SimCity: BuildIt” in 2013 and an app launched in 2014. Along the way, the games have introduced millions of players to the joys and frustrations of zoning, street grids and infrastructure funding — and influenced a generation of people who plan cities for a living. For many urban and transit planners, architects, government officials and activists, “SimCity” was their first taste of running a city. It was the first time they realized that neighborhoods, towns and cities were things that were planned, and that it was someone's job to decide where streets, schools, bus stops and stores were supposed to go. By Jessica Roy (View full article at Source.) Discussion Topic:- 4 Comments
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I was an active member of the PixelActive website, the company made a software product called CityScape which was an interactive tool for creating large 3D environments for realtime rendering. CityScape has all the capabilities that you need to create robust 3D environments for video games, simulations, GPS navigation, urban planning, visualizations, etc. Anyway a full demo version was provided free-of-charge to any person that set up an account on the PixelActive forums in 2010 the company was sold to another company owned by Nokia at which point the forums were deleted .... a few months later this company was merged into another Nokia company, after than I lost track of who owned what, but CityScape as a product ceased to exist. Anyway the point of this post is since PixelActive company and its website ceased to exist back in 2010 I have had the demo, manuals and a traffic mod file over at the CityBuilders website, as my site is going to be closing down later this year ... is this something people want to have saved and if so how. Demo is 140.3mb in size zipped, manual is 20.3mb in size (279 pages) the quickstart guide is 6.8mb and the traffic mod file is a few bytes in size ...
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-------------------------------------------------------- [AUTHOR'S COMMENT] -------------------------------------------------------- This is the fourth and last entry of Project Haussmann. I hope you enjoyed this development in 4 stages: briefing-proposal-construction-result For the next entry we leave for a while the Urban Planning stuff and we start a new section in this CJ. The next entry will be something that you have already seen in Simtropolis, but I will be changing a few pictures to match the new storyline. It was posted several years ago, so probably it will be new for many of you. See u!
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-------------------------------------------------------- [AUTHOR'S COMMENT] -------------------------------------------------------- It's been quite a while, but I'm back :-) I hope you will like this new entry. For those of you who are new to Antarctica, check the previous 3 entries, or at least the preface, to understand what this City Journal is all about. Cheers!
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zoning 2. Infraestructure Planning pt. 1
matias93 posted a City Journal entry in Ciudad del Lago in the making
Whew!! Those were a really strenuous two weeks; RL is still eating me alive, just at a slower rate, so that means I can add something here. But first: The replies! -- + * * * + -- Chapter 2. Infraestructure Planning, part 1 This entry, as the one before, is basically more map-fueled descriptions, but now there is a bit more of interactivity. With the same satellite images shown, I did some zoning and transport maps, that will allow you to see the potential expansion of the city. First is a decontextualized transport map, that is also incomplete. Not really useful, right? I'm posting it anyway because the JPEG compression made the other images a bit less than visible. Here the yellow lines represent avenues or widened roads, the orange ones highways (or motorways, I have to decide from which side of the Atlantic I borrow my words...), the purple lines are railroads (maybe you already recognised that curve from the ascent to the Piedra Roja mine), and the rose one (here, strangely also purple), the BRT line. Last, the parts where the lines are dotted are tunnels. Now, let's put this into its context: Much better, no? Also, it is more evident that a lot of work is still waiting to be done, both on tracing already built networks and on building them! Here, the main obstacle is to decide what to zone on the non-developed areas, to get an idea of what would be the best network design for it. Or not! To keep with realism, not everywhere transport infraestructure has to be good: I plan abstractly on underserved poor neighbourhoods, conectivity problems around the port (too much close to the city centre), and suboptimal solutions to the not-very-friendly terrain. The point is to decide where those good and bad solutions will be. So let's go to the zoning: I did some work on this, and already covered more than the currently built terrain, but there are still relevant portions without adequate zoning. Let's make this a bit more understandable: see that long stretch of orange that looks like a bicycle pump? That's the Central Station, with the terminal building on the left. Just under that (or south of that) is the Historical Centre. The pink zone at its west is the Government Quarter, and north of the station is a non-zoned area, that corresponds to the old harbour (guess which custom will be used there...). Those dark blue shapes will be the CBD, along the main north-south highway. I think most of the map is very self-explanatory, but something escapes from it: those suburbs on the northwest corner cannot be more different to the ones on the south, simply because of class: Now it's more evident: the darker the shade, the poorer the residents and workers. As it is predictable, the port sorroundings are the poorer ones, as the local workers live there, and the rich people flies from industrial pollution. Remember, this is a Latin American CJ, there ought to be urban segregation. In general, I plan for rich people around the Calfú river (the one at the northwestern portion of the region), and for poor people on the nearby of the port and the mine, with the middle class located either at the city centre (soon to be gentrified, sorry) and the more dull areas of the northeast and north, acting as a buffer between rich and poor people. In any case, don't be surprised to find some places where just a tall fence separates a resort from a slum: that's as realistic as you can get, and the overall geography almost asks for it. More detailedly, there are a handful of places where some unconventional development will alter the general distribution of zones and wealth. The Still-Unnamed-Island will be a nature reserve, destined to be MMPed with a very diverse range of flora, to simulate a Fernandezian Cloud Forest. As is the case with many temperate regions around the Pacific, the native flora has been displaced by silviculture and "feral" forests of introduced species: expect Cascadia redwoods on everything but this tiny island, as the shipbuilding industry demanded long and straight trunks, not huge ferns and leaves to feed dinosaurs. The second canal from the Colorado lake (it has a name now! its because the algaes!! now there aren't red algaes anymore there ). I projected it as being built some years after the dawn of the container era, when the increased ship traffic encountered a bottleneck on the original Desaguadero canal. I have to work on its sorroundings: will they be just tall rock walls, or some kind of lowland to give continuity to the port area? It will depend on: The bulk port area: I projected here a bulk port, to reserve the original port to containerised loads, but I'm still doubting if doing a dock on the west side, around the new canal; or on the east side, to avoid the factories on that side to cross the river to ship their output. It can be both? Maybe, but I would need to more more earth, to widen the water area. One of the still unnamed peninsulaes, which is an alternative location for the bulk port: mostly flat, it can be good as a fuel port too. Remember that Santa Clara literally sprouted from a cracked tectonic plate, so it has metal ores, nitrates and silicates, but no old minerals: neither gems, nor uranium, nor fossil fuels; so, every vehicle and almost all power plant on the country has to run on imported fuels, and there has to be a place to unload all that petrol and gas. Conveniently, that place would be hidden from this nice touristic shoreline. Hit by the westernmost winds of the Humboldt current and populated by the hard rocks that avoided the Loberías sound to go even deeper, this beaches aren't safe to bath on them, but are nonetheless a very attractive destination for relaxing: expect some Copacabana-styled locals enjoying the clean water and the marine breeze (much colder, in any case), and several condos crawling on the hills. How to connect the place with the rest of the city? I don't know exactly. Going back to the historical element, this little estuary is the placement of Puerto Viejo (literally 'Old Port'), a small fishing cove that was once the original seat of the Santa Clara capital (or more precisely, only) town. My problem with it is related to their environment: there are agricultural fields at its west, and a copper mine to its north (place 8). How to justify it to be still a small coastal town instead of an industrialised port? Or should I abandon the idea of a small cove and to overhaul the place? Consider that the trend to have UNESCO protected areas is very recent, so a relatively poor nation could have been already tempted to destroy their heritage to reduce costs... This other place is more justifiable as preserved: Quiñenco is a small lake just dammed up before the estuary of the Blanco river, and its fresh waters help a micro-climate to bloom between two big hills. It is the perfect place for a touristic site, and that's what I'm planning there. The problem is: to make the place as protected as is, the northern hill has to be terraformed and grow to a scale where the planned airport to its north is on a very absurd (or dangerous) placement, so I'm thinking on moving it to place 9. Now there is the Piedra Roja Mine: I want it to be an open pit mine, even if it is really difficult, just because is also more flamboyant, as a CJ has to be . It already has it's own very toxic tailings dam, but the terraforming is due. I'll probably dedicate a whole entry to decide where to mine the hill. This plateau looks like a better option to build the airport, but as the area is not flat, some earthworks will be needed. This is maybe the biggest project of the list: a full secondary city to connurbate Ciudad del lago with. Of course it won't be as important, but I want it to have its own centre, structure and history, for which a full entry will be needed: I don't even have a name! Well, this ended being a really long entry, and I guess you'll have a lot to tinker with. I'm eager to read your opinions, suggestions, critics and proposals! -
Identifying the vertical-lift bridge from Inception
former_member 665840 posted a topic in General Off-Topic
(Spoiler-free) At one point during the main dream sequence in Inception, the driver of a van is pursued onto a vertical-lift bridge that had just started rising. One aspect I remember about that bridge was that it had retractable bollards built into the road for blocking traffic as a safety feature (one of the pursuer's cars had an entire wheel ripped from its rear axis when it drove over one of the rising bollards). I feel dumb for asking this, but I can't seem to find out what the name of the bridge is, or even its location (I was thinking it would be somewhere in the northeast United States). Does anyone have an idea? -
Advice | How to build a Chinese city I've been playing SC4 for a very very like time, I got it for my 13th birthday, and I'm now 26! 99% of what I may is a hybrid between US And British styles, but I've never tried anything different. I've been looking at a lot of big Chinese cities and want to have a go. I know my custom content will all need changing, but other than just changing the building style, what else can be done? Are there any CJs which follow a chinese style city? I want to make a modern style city etc.
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Entry no.32 - Valhalla Park & Woodside
TakemeThere posted a City Journal entry in Pretoria Metropolitan Area
This update will cover the last two neighborhoods of Dresden; Valhalla Park & Woodside which are located towards the central & southern portion of the city. These neighborhoods are largely suburban in nature with only a few small pockets of commercial, institutional or industrial development. How the cites areas/neighborhoods of Dresden are divided up; First some colorful closeups of Valhalla Park, arguably the nicest suburban area in the entire region. These photo's beg the question, is there such a thing as too much tree cover? 3 4 5 Places of local interest (by 'places of interest' I mean visual interest, not landmarks for tourist) Located near the center of Valhalla Park and nestled in between two rail corridors is Our Holy Grace Catholic High School. With 593 students(2015), this is the largest of Dresden's 4 high schools(2 public, 1 catholic & 1 private). The school has extensive sports facilities and is home to the popular Red Back's highschool football team. There is also a chapel and numerous footpaths for students to take. 7 Russ Jasckson Elementary School and the adjacent Kensington Park in Woodside. 335 total students, one of 5 elementary schools in Dresden. 9 The park has multiple tennis & basketball courts, an outdoor swimming pool, a racket court and a nearby community garden. Dresden Main Water Reservoir With a total capacity of 50,000 cubic meters of water, or rather 5 million liters! this is the largest of Dresden's 10 water towers/tanks. When full there is enough water to fill up two Olympic sized swimming pools. Thankfully there are no olympic sized swimming pools to fill in Dresden. 11 12 If your interested, 'TMT Inc.' can build a a water tower for your city(with your city name on it), though it will cost you a 'like' Jamison Ford Elementary School & Valhalla Park PD at the intersection of Middleton Rd. & Genosha Blvd. 14 A small industrial park near the underpass Rd. Interchange. 15 Commercial development at the edge of the downtown district/Woodside neighborhood. There is also a plasma gasification waste disposal plant nearby seen in entry 29. Local Transportation connections This area of Dresden is largely car dependent due in large part to the barriers created by the highway and railway corridors cutting through the area. Still community connectivity is an important aspect for creating a cohesive and desirable suburban environment. In recent years Dresden city council has spent much time and effort on improving the pedestrian realm by building new footpaths and bridges. So rather than showing the roads first I'll cover the pedestrian network instead. Valhalla Parks pedestrian footpath network; 17 One of most important links in the network is the recently constructed pedestrian bridge over the Fastraxx & GWR lines an otherwise major barrier. 18 The bridge was partially built over BioHazrd Inc. property. The old route, the footpath that lead to the Genosha Blvd. tunnel remains in place but the tunnel is not very pedestrian friendly. 19 From here the path goes under the IRC line and then highway 702 20 Other parts of the network include the pedestrian bridge over Station Rd. 21 A long flight of stairs leading to Industrial Sector G, it's good exercise! 22 In case your wondering this route is TE enable and heavily used. It's also not as bad of a climb as it looks, only 130 steps to the top which is 90ft/27m higher. and footpaths along Middleton Rd. Roadways For Valhalla Park, the main roads leading out of the community are Genosha Blvd. (west) which leads to downtown Dresden which as you can see is typically very congested. 25 Middleton Rd. north to Orchard Heights 26 Underpass Rd. and Milldeton Rd. south & west to Woodside and of course the 702, to points further south or north. For Woodside, aside from Underpass Rd. & the 702 seen above there is Esna Parkway which is used by many to reach downtown Dresden. The Hope Springs Eternal Church is at the top of the image. 28 And Indigo Rd. which runs along the north east edge of mount Tokiko. west to downtown Dresden. And now once again it's time for my favorite part, the mosaics! 30 31 32 Angles 33 Probably my favorites, from Genosha to the 700 34 ...and back 35 That brings to a close another long entry. As much as I've loved building and covering Dresden the next entry will likely be the last one of the city. For one most of the city has been developed and shown but secondly it has also become oh so frustrating to work with. Less than a month ago it took only about 80 seconds to load the city, now it takes nearly 3 minutes plus the game freezes for another minute shortly after it loads. Also the city crashes almost every time I change a zoom level, even with the CPU set to 1. I'm guessing it's because of all the mmp'ing and new lots I've used, some of which I haven't extensively tested like I normally do because I wanted expiate the city building process.- 23 Comments
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Entry no.30 - Looper Junction, vers. 2.0
TakemeThere posted a City Journal entry in Pretoria Metropolitan Area
Over the past year I've rebuilt the entire highway network as it had previously had been almost entirely maxis-highway based. The hardest and most time consuming part of that process is rebuilding the major interchange between highways. Just when the rebuilding process was nearly done, the NAM team goes out and gives us NAM 33/34. Because of this I've had to rebuild several of the major interchanges, yet again. Thanks a lot NAM team... for being so DAMN AWESOME! because building interchanges has always been one of the things I love the most about playing sim city 4. RHW constructions can be a times frustrating but overall I enjoy the challenge of building an interchange in as compact of a space as physically possible while maintaining smooth curves and grades, I liken it to playing a logic game and probably nothing else I do in my day to day life makes me think as much I have to in order to 'solve' the problems that I encounter when building RHW interchanges(not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing ) Looper Junction was one of the more difficult rebuilds, because I had to join a diagonal highway with an orthogonal one in middle of a city on uneven land. The end result of the original RHW rebuild using NAM 32, shown in entry 20 and seen below, required me to create a custom piece in order to compete the vision of the interchange I had in mind. But as cool as that interchange looked, from a real word perspective it had numerous flaws most of which weren't correctable until the release of NAM 34. I did a minor rebuild with NAM 33 which was shown as part of entry 26 but I'll skip those changes here as they only correct a couple of the many flaws described below. The main issues; - 10 slow speed turns(numbered T1 to T10) that is a 90 degree turn within 2 spaces - 4 slow speed merging on ramps - 2 slow speed off ramps - 3 hairpin turns - 2 unnecessary ramps - 1 weave zone - and 1 very unrealistic tunnel One of the biggest issues was with what I called the "secret ramp" noted above as tunnel 2. The ramp runs underneath the entire interchange and connects the NB702 with the SB 700 which takes commuters into Downtown Dresden. A long tunnel built underneath an interchange like that is not realistic. I'm quite sure that if I didn't show what that tunnel was for it's purpose would not be clear. It looks more like it's connecting some other road from off the screen to the interchange then the ramp it actually serves. This ramps as well as the corresponding return ramp, where sharp turn 8 is located, were added to make the interchange fully accessible. That is you can connect to all possible routes going into the interchange from any direction. In the past I used to think more ramps are better and missing ramps makes an interchange incomplete. It's easy to think that way when building interchanges in a self contained perspective rather than observing the network as a whole. Turns out this ramp is completely unnecessary and actually an exercise in bad urban planning. Sims in SC4 inherently only want to travel short distances to work, that is either within the same city or travel to the next city tile, it's rare to see them go further than that. This is why I originally designed the RHW highway network with multiple options to travel to the same location. Most of the sim's in the city want to travel downtown for work, where the densest concentration of commercial jobs are. But the amount of jobs available within the next two large tiles amounts to 20 times the number available in Dresden. In real life commutes of 20, 30 or more kilometers are quite common and most sims in Dresden should be traveling further north to Central Pretoria for work. I've been redesigning the highway network with that in mind, which means curtailing the number of interchanges and eliminating duplicate ramps. There already are two highway exits off of the northbound 702 connecting to high capacity roads(avenues) that can take commuters coming from areas south of Dresden into the downtown area. Sims traveling from the neighborhood of Valhalla Park would reach downtown via Genosha Blvd. while those traveling from Woodside would likely be split between Esna Parkway & other local roads. The larger concern is for those coming from points south of Dresden the population of which is 3 times as much. They would likely be split between the two existing exits. From the city boarder the Esna park route is 2.6km and has 7 intersections, while the Genosha Blvd route is 3.1km with only 2 intersections before arriving at downtown Dresden. Considering the above, a third ramp at Looper Junction to route traffic to the same location for the population catchment area is completely unnecessary. Especially so when as mentioned above, most sims from these area should continue down the 702 towards Central Pretoria. The elimination of this ramp(NB 702 to SB 700) and the corresponding ramp going in the opposite direction(NB 700 to SB 702) eliminates the unrealistic tunnel, a short merging ramp and one tight turn. This also eliminated the the weave zone. A weave zone is as an area where the highway entrance and exit use the same lane and the entrance and exit are quite close together. These areas require caution and cooperation because vehicles share the same lane to slow to exit the highway while other vehicles are using it to increase speed to enter the highway. Planners try to avoid building modern interchanges with weave zones. The other big change was courtesy of the new NAM. Thanks to the improved flex fly pieces, 8 of the other 9 tight curves were eliminated as were all the slow speed merging on ramps. While I didn't have the space to build full acceleration/merging lanes, the curve were smoothed out allowing vehicles to at least enter the highway at speed. Vehicles in the right lane are still expected to slow down for and yield to these vehicles if necessary or otherwise face being fined. Also drivers in Pretoria are thoroughly trained to use the proper techniques in these types of circumstances One of the 3 hairpin turns was taken out(#3) while the other two remained as is(#1 & #2). There just wasn't enough space to replace theses with any other type of ramp but aside from that I like how they look, they're part of what gives Looper Junction it's name. the end results of the NAM 34 rebuild: slow speed turns - 10 before / 1 after slow speed merging on ramps - 4 before / 0 after slow speed off ramps - 2 before / 0 after hairpin turns - 3 before / 2 after weave zones - 1 before / 0 after Time for some screens, Looper Junction now has a 3-level stack. The level 2 ramp is the SB702 ramp to downtown Dresden via Baker St. The parking lot next to it is the overflow lot for Lacross Stadium, cars enter & exit the lot underneath the ramp. The southern terminus of the 700 before it turns into Esna Blvd. and downtown Dresden. The highway grounds are keep clear of weeds and well manicured in this section to give the core a clean image and attract business. These are the new higher speed on & off ramps from the 702 The NB 702 to EB 700 ramp runs below extensive mmp work also helps to make the interchange look more realistic, also much improved from the previous version. The hairpin curve on the WB700 to NB702 ramp remains... ...but the entry curve onto the 702 has been smoothed out allowing vehicles to accelerate and enter the 702 at a decent rate of speed. Where's a weed wacker when you need one? Tunnel entrance The three curves section One purely aesthetic feature was added inside the interchange... Dresden's new city council wanted to beautify the appearance of the interchange and so they added what they called the "A Tribute to World Peace". Really it's just some manicured bushes & weeds made to look like a large peace sign. Though at 240 feet in diameter it's said to be the largest peace sign in the world. Peace & weed's Now let's see what she looks like in her entirety looking South central section - day looking north central section - night looking south, entire area - night looking north, entire area - day looking west - night looking east - day A couple of higher resolution cuts below. You have to save the image if you want to see the finer details as you can't really see them on ST looking south - day looking north - night I'd like to say this will be that last time Looper Junction will be rebuilt, but you just never know what the NAM team has in store for us next.- 15 Comments
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-------------------------------------------------------- [AUTHOR'S COMMENT] -------------------------------------------------------- Imagine that you're part of the City Council and this is the first project update that you receive. What would be your feedback? Anything you don't like, you think would not work, or just does not make sense? Feel free to shoot!
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MIT Urban Planning Software Will Help Build Future Cities
SteveMSim posted a topic in Architecture & Urban Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has released an open-source urban planning software, Urban Network Analysis, which it hopes city planners will use to solve the problems of city growth around the world. The software will help planners with all aspects of urban planning such as infrastructure, transport, zoning, population density, and so on. Until now, no such software was available for free. One reason that MIT created this software is that the world's population growth now occurs primarily in cities. Already over half of the world's population lives in cities and that number will continue to grow. But 70% of the world's urban growth occurs outside the formal planning process, leading to problems such as slums, pollution, traffic gridlock, and so on. This software is hoped to help resolve this problem. The Urban Network Analysis software is by no means a city simulation program and was designed with city planners in mind rather than gamers. An article on the new software is at Co.Exist: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678493/mits-free-urban-planning-software-will-help-build-the-cities-of-the-future -
Texca University: Department of Urban Planning and Design - Lecture 1 - Breaks
jrnavid posted a City Journal entry in Great Kingdom of Texca Hills
Great Kingdom of As a great institution of learning and culture throughout our history, Texca University continues to be the leader in prestige and education throughout the Simworld. Today, the university proudly presents to the public a new lecture series from the College of Urban Planning and Design. Welcome to the Texca University Public University Lectures Series. We hope this program will bring insight to your mind and some new learning of things or places not before thought of. In our lovely campus we have several colleges. This series will be led by the College of Urban Planning and Design. Enjoy! Welcome to Lecture 1 of the Urban Planning and Design department. We have several lectures that will be coming from this department. Today's lecture will focus on the urban design phenomenon known as Breaks. The following lectures will available in the coming weeks: 1. Breaks 2. Nodes 3. Edges 4. Urban Renewal 5. Urban Sprawl Once past these lectures, more will be posted. Lets begin! We will first begin with defining what a Break is. You have seen these breaks everywhere in your maps, many times. As city enthusiasts, we study the city, we define the city, we design the city. In this design, we have a certain grid pattern. In Downtown Texca Hills, the pattern looks like this: This pattern is typically known as Gridiron or Grid, as it's commonly called. The grid pattern is very square and whether facing north-south or north-west to south-east, the pattern is always in a box like shape. There are curves and cuts here and there, but most of the pattern is similar. How do we identify a break? A Break occurs wherever any street pattern is broken and the grid or any other pattern changes dramatically, as done by Avenue of the Hills: Avenue of the Hills acts as a break in downtown. South of the street, the pattern is north-south. When those streets reach Avenue of the Hills, the grid pattern changes to east-west. Remember, in order for a street to be a break, the entire pattern must change, not just one street's change. So on this map, here is an example of what is not a break: Crossfields Blvd is a diagonal street that cuts through downtown but is not a break. With the exception of one street, Crossfields does not "break" the street pattern, neither does the grid change dramatically. Even if the street is diagonal, it can still be a break, but not in this case. As you continue to design your cities, keep in mind this natural phenomenon. It is not just designed. Breaks are usually in place where a town began to grow dramatically and altered its course. Most cities began along shores, but when they grew inland, breaks began to occur to accommodate for this growth. Take a look at any city maps, and you will find breaks. Can you spot the many breaks in the Central Quadrant? Thats all for breaks! We hope you learned something valuable in urban design today. Reply with examples of breaks from your cities, as proof of your Break awareness. See you next lecture. Class dismissed!- 2 Comments
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Every once and a while I like to pull back the curtains to show you what I'm doing behind the scenes. Lately I've been alternating on working on three Zones. The first is Avalon which I've been working on repairing for months. Avalon is the only Zone that has survived the move over to my new region (Ionica) and I don't want to start from zero because I think it has some distinct features that are part of Ionica's identity. In the GIF below you see Avalon in 4 stages of development. The first one, with a lot of beaches, is Avalon c. 2058. The second is from 2198, right before the bicentennial. The beaches have been replaced by rocks and retaining walls and there is an updated version of the bird's nest stadium. The third is from around 2238 in which substantial changes in the upper 3rd of the Zone and the core have been made. The final image in the GIF is from 2250, and that is what Avalon currently looks like. I am very close to being able to press the play button and am almost itching to do so, but I have to do a few final checks. One of the biggest improvements which I haven't shown here are the subways. It would be too embarrassing to show you what a mess they were, but that has been sorted out. I also changed the Bird's nest stadium because I intend on using it somewhere else. Best to click on this GIF to know which image is the first. I forgot to put a date on each pic. The island in the lower third of Avalon has been totally changed. For a very long time I had a Maxis airport there but it doesn't make any sense to have an airport in the middle of dense city so that has been replaced by two heliports. As you can see the roads used to be a total disaster so I've attempted to bring order. Shout out to Bipin for the Turbo Roundabout which I am using for the first time here. Older versions of Avalon had huge problems of roads crossing rails but now i've used either elevated roads or underpasses to improve the flow of traffic. The waterfront has also been improved with two shipping ports and the coast guard. Again, the convoluted network of avenues has been simplified and rails have either been elevated or directed to subterranean lines. A highway that cut across the city has also been removed because it was redundant. This is the newest Zone I'm building called Walden II. It is on a medium sized tile connected to Pater (the blitzball zone). The canal you see is the continuation of the canal that runs through Pater. They are moonlight Downtown Canals. This is a picture from Veritas. I'm currently remaking the Zone from scratch starting with City Hall, which you see below, and the government buildings I want to have at the center. Terring: Impressive as always Thanks for staying tuned in. TekindusT: I love the magical and mysterious aura everything has on this CJ... Thanks. Kind of going for that Wally Pfister Dark Knight look. Ace❤: The reflection of that cruise admist all those skyscrapers is hauntingly beautiful. Amazing work! Thanks. It wasn't originally my plan to have an entry featuring Photoshopped yachts, but after I tried that one I was like: "Eureka! This is it." simcityplayer15: Wow, what amazing sites you've built here . It looks so active. Great city and job good sir I'm glad you like it. Thanks. sejr99999: thank you for this tour of your splendid city at night Love it! Thanks. 80sreject: You are an artist, beautiful! Yes, go ahead, stroke my...I was going to say ego. Thanks. Lord Branham: Marvelous!!!! I still adore your mastery of this game! Love the last picture!!!! Once again Bravo!! Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks. sri2: amazing. and the last pic- just stunning. is that actually a stadium, a lot you got somewhere? seems very nicely integrated here. nice job! Thanks. It is the Zanarkand Blitzball Stadium. Schulmanator: VERY cool! Nicely done and looks AWESOME! Thanks. KonstantinII: Where did you get those boats? Unfortunately the are Photoshopped in there. Hazani Pratama: Beautiful! Thanks. tankmank: Amazing once again, love the use of the canals in your city, it breaks up the urban expanse and skyscrapers. One suggestion would be to download a different train for your railway, i think it would look a lot better Thanks for your input. I've been meaning to get a new train for my railway but just kept putting it off. Your comment gave me the right kick in the butt I needed. This pic is for you. RepublicMaster: Everything fits nicely! I like the canals and the photoshopping brings out feel of the update! Thank you very much. ThomasSimpson: Fantastic! It looks really good, I like the way you built the city up around the cove. Thanks. It was something I was planning for a while but didn't know how to do until my 'skills' reached a certain point. CorpusDei: That 2nd to last picture, with the curving RHW and SimPeg Parks (IIRC) doesn't even look like SC4 any more - it looks way more amazing. What a fine compliment. Thanks a lot. I think you are looking at a simple avenue. Unfortunately I don't have RHW and I don't think I can install it right now. Sylvio Jorge:SO beautiful! Like CorpusDei said, it doesn't even looks like SC4 anymore. Awesome. Thanks. kalsim23: Is that the Zanarkand blitzball stadium from Final Fantasy X? It is indeed. SimCoug: Great work - I really liked the last image with the moon reflection. Thanks. I almost wanted to go with the boy in the moon logo from Dreamworks. It didn't work as well.
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I've been meaning to start working on some cities with more of a European feel to them, in particular Germany. I downloaded an Autobahn mod for RHW but that's about it other than some Euro landmarks and such. So far most of my cities have been very block-oriented and square, something typical of most American cities, and I still utilize much of the original Maxis in-game buildings in my cities. If there are any suggestions to urban planning, mods, BATs, really just anything to give an authentic European look, feel free to give them below. I am especially looking for buildings to replace the Maxis ones, since they too are heavily based off of American architecture. Thanks!
