You have to put the buildings in yourself. It takes quite a long while to do it (and do it well). However, you'll soon find the apartments (the higher buildings which fit into corners and along streets - I have the German version and they're "Blockhäuser") work well and then also groups of tower blocks, placed artistically and then landscaped with things like trees and vegetation really look quite authentic. It's not like Sim City where you have to zone things. I'm doing a very large map and it DOES take time to do. But I am loving being creating and imagining "OK, what WOULD be located here? Does that look REAL?". Remember that people need places to live, places to work and places to shop/have fun. It's actually a completely different concept to the transport part of CiM as you have to build the cities and the infrastructure OUTSIDE the transport network. But have fun, be creative, create the city YOU want...