One of the most common questions I see here is "How do I break up the monotony?" or "How do you all create neighborhoods of all one building type from custom content?" or "How do I make realism in my neighborhoods?" or "How do I stop medium and high wealth from taking over?"
Fortunately the answers to all these questions are the same or at least very similar. All of those things can be solved by this tutorial or by parts of this tutorial.
You will need:
SC4PIM, the link: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2260
And any custom content you want to grow.
Video Tutorial Part one: Altering your custom content's tileset. This video will show you how to change the tileset your custom content grows on. This will give you an extra degree of control of what lots will grow and when your lots will grow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Czvtj7cLDc
Video Tutorial Part Two: Now that you have changed the tileset your custom content grows on you can now control where they grow by using the "Make Historical" box in the query window of each lot. This will show you in game how to apply the tileset and make your target buildings grow where you want them to grow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqpv2eCtHgk
A note: This tactic can be employed to stop medium and high wealth from taking over your cities as well. Once a lot has been made historical it will not change, this will keep it from being absorbed by medium and high wealth as your game progresses.
I hope this helps you guys.