I have to strongly agree with Will Steel in this one. Citizens should not flee because their dead neighbour has not been collected by the coroner or you are prevented from building a certain infrastructure because you lack 2 citizens in your town. The biggest problem arises, when the town mutates into a luxurious utopia. And we all know - where such structures are...look around them to see slums, favelas and other unwanted, crime and poverty-ridden areas. Look at Las Vegas, Rio de Janeiro, New York.
Managing and planning a city is about balancing stuff. Especially balancing needs and taxes.
Every citizen wants some things and contributes by paying taxes. I want to share some of my views here without the ability to say how such a thing can be achieved. I like simulations and feel more immersed, the more depth they offer, so I am pretty immune to looks or 360°- views which feel like dead weight to me. To the point: I do not want to paint my city like in a Bob Ross episode but to plan and execute and watch my plans unfold and tweak them a bit more. Just free up more RAM and CPU for number-crunching and simulating my city and not to make my water glitter in the sunset (which is nice, but unnecessary). So my views will mirror these personal preferences so do not be offended, if you like another style of play.
Actually, you are playing a mayor/city designer with almost god-like powers. So...what is the main purpose of a mayor or city council? Running the city of course, but what is that?
As told before, it is about the needs of the citizens. Why do people settle down and build houses? Answer is somewhat simple: Security and food which translates to nowadays 'have a job there and to be able to meet my needs to stay happy'
And we could try to do something that has been done in the Tropico games: The citizens there had education levels, but also needed certain stuff and if not met, they revolted or left the island.
Your task is to provide an area, where the CIMs can find a job and live happily and this does not mandatory mean be rich and live in luxury.
I will try to sum up the needs:
- job quality reaching from nil meaning no job and thus no income to max which means having a well-paid job
- sanitation access meaning plumbings from fresh water taps to sewerage and waste water treatment
- electricity and web access with the last reflecting needs of modern times. I have seen houses staying empty, because no one wanted to move in because of lacking internet access there.
- shopping reaching from basic foodstuff for sustenance over commodities to luxury goods. I think you agree that you would be annoyed, if you had to live somewhere you won't get basic food and basic stuff like toilet paper, soap for every-day's life. You would not care about driving to the next town for shopping clothes or electronics but be offended, if it were 100km away from you and rather look for a job elsewhere. Luxuries is nice to have, but frankly, no one buys them regularly and they need a large population to be supported.
- Police and Firefighters. You fear crime. You fear your house burning. I'd rather not live in a law-free area where mugs and thugs rule and the police is far away.
- Medical services. Sometimes you need a doctor and luckily and rather seldom, you need a hospital with emergency units. The farther you live from a hospital, the higher the chance is that you are dead before the ambulance arrives. There are people seriously considering this, when moving somewhere like elderly people.
- Education as it is the key to a good job. Not every city has a university and frankly, this is nothing, a city besides a metropolis can cope with. Mostly they are private or federal funded. Education is very important and should be treated with proper respect.
- Recreation. Work is not everything. A walk in the park, a swim in the public pool or visiting a museum or sports stadium can help to blow off some steam as well as using services like visiting restaurants or bars.
- Culture. The mind needs to be nourished as well. While there are some who just enjoy TV trash, there are some, who might enjoy an opera, art or reading a good book. Culture could attract certain kinds of tourists
- Spiritual needs. Not everyone is an atheist but still we all might have the need to flee from the every-day's life once awhile. Be it the silence of a church, wandering in nature or partaking in a religious community - it helps keeping our minds clean.
- Traffic and infrastructure. I do not want to live somewhere without streets leading elsewhere. I have target destinations and I want to reach them quickly, stress-less and safe.
- Pollution and Nature. I do not want to drown in trash and also not have the sky have a funny brown color and the local river being pink or glowing in the dark.
So...basically spoken: Having a simulation game about cities is about simulating the CIMs living there. You have tools like zoning and placing props. Sometimes you can choose what
will emerge from a zone, sometimes you need to find the correct combination of surroundings. But it is not a paint-job.
Going in detail would take pages of posts, so just some basic ideas.