When to build high density buildings and offices

[deanwebb]

Grid cities can work fine, and they are fine for learning - or for building the most massive cities possible.

Feel fine with building a city, seeing what goes wrong, then trying to build that city again with what you think is a solution. I've learned how to do traffic, services, parks, mass transit all from successive failed cities. Then I learned that I don't like pure grids for taking pictures and then I started to experiment with different maps with slopes and hills and stuff to see what looked the prettiest.

 

[Silvayr]

As you build more cities you will (probably) get better at it.

I hope so.

 

[Silvayr]

Grid cities can work fine, and they are fine for learning - or for building the most massive cities possible.

Feel fine with building a city, seeing what goes wrong, then trying to build that city again with what you think is a solution. I've learned how to do traffic, services, parks, mass transit all from successive failed cities.

Will do, thank you. I am already building a new one, without grids this time, i need a lot more experience but now i know how the things work so i will take it slow and see how it goes, if something goes bad as you said i can fix that problem in my new city with the solutions i found either myself or from the internet.

 

[dj97]

The "OH MY GOD! GRIDS! UGLIEST CITY EVER!!!" mentality this community has garnered is really sickening. Sure, it would nice to have a few curves in your city, but the game's archaic GRID-based zoning system doesn't allow that to be efficient as there are no curved buildings. Thus, you have those ghastly gaps between buildings, ruining your "aesthetic." Even building diagonal roads can lead to some unsightly results.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

If you wanna create grid cities, then I suggest play SimCity 4 instead. There you are only limited to building grids. This game is completely different from SC4, so grid cities are not good on this game.

Is that even an argument? Sorry, but that's totally wrong. Grid is the only way to maximize land usage because of the way zonable land is determined. Any other methods create unusable space.

 

[Emre Yigit]

I'm all for grids, but I'd suggest going for staggered blocks leading to a brick pattern with three-way intersections rather than one with four-way intersections.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

I use underground/overhead highways to mitigate congestion at the center of the city, so that long-distance traffic don't flood the surface roads

 

[Maaloc]

Dear God, that is the UGLIEST city I've ever seen! You are obsessed with grids! The road layout just looks like the same identical square pattern repeated for all eternity. It's actually hilarious that you stopped the grid right at the city limits instead of buying a new tile and expanding further.

I took some time off my busy schedule to remember my credentials here just to log in and say: you're a jerk, sir.

 

[OBXandos]

I'm all for grids, but I'd suggest going for staggered blocks leading to a brick pattern with three-way intersections rather than one with four-way intersections.

I would absolutely hate driving in a city laid out like that. It would be a nightmare on my senses. It might look pretty from the air though.

As for people who don't think grids are a good design choice I would invite you to check out Barcelona and their Superblocks initiative. With properly sized and signaled roads grids and well designed public transit, you can make a very workable city with some very dense structures.

 

[Person012345]

Avoiding the hyperbole, one of the big problems with a grid layout like that is that you have no arterial roads (roads are either overbuilt or underbuilt for the traffic they need to carry) and the constant intersections forces constant starting and stopping, both of these things are terrible for traffic. In real life, this is actually one of the benefits of the layout, everything drives really slowly so it tends to be safer. It's also easier to navigate. Neither of which are a concern in a videogame like this. The grid layout does have significant downsides, as mentioned it handles traffic poorly (this could probably be mitigated with proper traffic light timing, if you have TMPE or equivilent), it's relatively expensive and, as others have said, it is rather inelegant. A bit of a brute-force solution to city planning. I also find it inoptimal to blob the entirety of your zones in one place. This may just be personal preference but I find traffic a lot easier to handle if you have numerous residntial, commercial and industrial areas dotted around.

 

[Glitcher]

I'm not against spreading things out, but:

One way they complain is to hop in a car and create road traffic instead of walking.

Ever heard of "bike paths"? Those are really useful for long trips without adding to road traffic. You can create a whole network of bike paths to make your city friendly to cyclists when you spread out your development. Take a look at my city:

My entire city is laced with bike paths and it's possible to cycle from one end to the other without using roads. I've seen it done! If you combine this with the 'encourage biking' policy, you can get your citizens to make long trips without using cars, so you don't need to jam your development together.

The "OH MY GOD! GRIDS! UGLIEST CITY EVER!!!" mentality this community has garnered is really sickening. Sure, it would nice to have a few curves in your city, but the game's archaic GRID-based zoning system doesn't allow that to be efficient as there are no curved buildings. Thus, you have those ghastly gaps between buildings, ruining your "aesthetic." Even building diagonal roads can lead to some unsightly results.

Is that even an argument? Sorry, but that's totally wrong. Grid is the only way to maximize land usage because of the way zonable land is determined. Any other methods create unusable space.

Is that a joke? Please tell me you two are joking. In case you missed my earlier post, let me repeat it in large font for you:

YOU HAVE LOADS OF SPACE TO BUILD!!

Unlike SimCity, the maps in Cities Skylines are the size of a small country. You can afford to waste space! You don't need to jam everything together into a tight grid pattern to fill ever single tiny little cell on the map. That's a rookie mistake I see far too often in Let's Plays and I suspect you've fallen into the same trap. I've been building my city for two weeks straight, often leaving large stretches of undeveloped land between districts, and I'm not even halfway through filling the map! So don't give me this crap about optimizing development by sticking to a grid because you will always have room to build!

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Ever heard of "bike paths"? Those are really useful for long trips without adding to road traffic. You can create a whole network of bike paths to make your city friendly to cyclists when you spread out your development.

I do that with walking paths. I've often thought that if I used bike paths, all the walkers would have nowhere to go. (Unless they all get bikes!)
Cyclists do use the walking paths.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

YOU HAVE LOADS OF SPACE TO BUILD!!

Yeah... until you don't.

Well, technically, there was one more square available... this was only eight. (This was the tornado scenario.)
Not crazy dense either. About 260k population. This is an older city, from early last year.

Above you can see a lot of pedestrian walkways. I really should try out the bicycle paths.

Above is my current city, a Trains scenario from "Mass Transit", but has been under construction a long time and now has content from "Concerts", "Green Cities" and "Parklife".

This is also 8 squares mostly full (a few spots not quite filled in yet). Only the ninth is still (mostly) empty. (Where the bridges cross the river at middle right, going to nothing.)

My point is, it is very easy to keep going and fill the whole thing.

 

[Glitcher]

I do that with walking paths. I've often thought that if I used bike paths, all the walkers would have nowhere to go. (Unless they all get bikes!)
Cyclists do use the walking paths.

I don't prioritize walking paths as much because that's what sidewalks are for. Creating a wide network of bike paths encourages cyclists to make long trips, which is a huge relief on traffic when spacing out development. Pedestrians occasionally use them too. Basically I only use walking paths to cut through long blocks or to cross highways.

Yeah... until you don't.

There are mods to expand beyond nine tiles, you know. And if you've filled up all 81 tiles on the map, your framerate will be too dead to continue building anyway. For what it's worth, I like the look of the city you've built so far and how you've integrated different forms of transportation. It's a good example that the OP should learn from to break away from grids.

 

[Person012345]

I would point out that with the addition of a simple extra tile unlocker, you're going to run out of allowed things before you run out of physical space to put said allowed things in. Implying that grids are needed because that's how you fit the most stuff into your city isn't really true. It is true that the nature of the game is that building space tends to fit best into a grid, but having gaps hardly ruins the aesthetic. Most cities have green space within them and there are tools in the game that specifically allow you to create and exploit such green spaces. It's not like most modern cities are typically a solid sea of concrete. Plus, not using a grid layout doesn't necessarily mean you can't use exclusively straight roads.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Even 25 tiles would make a lot more room. I do find it hard to not keep going until everything is full. I might break myself of that habit with more space.

This one was from "Mass Transit"... Ferry Scenario. One of the few that I never filled completely up. Still a little dense though.

While I do use a fair bit of grid, I do also use curvy stuff. Most often following terrain. (Above, and in a different city below.)

 

[Black_Shade]

YOU HAVE LOADS OF SPACE TO BUILD!!

Unlike SimCity, the maps in Cities Skylines are the size of a small country. You can afford to waste space! You don't need to jam everything together into a tight grid pattern to fill ever single tiny little cell on the map. That's a rookie mistake I see far too often in Let's Plays and I suspect you've fallen into the same trap. I've been building my city for two weeks straight, often leaving large stretches of undeveloped land between districts, and I'm not even halfway through filling the map! So don't give me this crap about optimizing development by sticking to a grid because you will always have room to build!

I disagree with most of your post. There really isn't that much space to build, because the extra tile unlocker is actually useless. The game can't even run the simulation for 9 tiles, let alone 81, it runs out of assets somewhere around 7 tiles.

Further, real cities use grids. Nearly every modern city is based on a grid design, with deviations for natural terrain. Only in cases where cities were large and developed pre-industrial revolution do you get crazy looking road designs, so this mostly effects European cities. Take a look at every major american city- it's going to be a grid unless the terrain is terrible (Seattle, San Francisco).

A lot of cities will do things like this to give them a more natural feel:

You can see my downtown area near the river is grids, as are my industrial areas, while the low density residential has avenues surrounding it (still grid) but the neighborhoods themselves are spaghetti madness. I have that kink in the middle to adjust to the rivers path. It creates an awkward 5 way intersection that's causing a some traffic problems- sadly a roundabout actually made it worse, so I'm probably going to have to nuke that area of the city. If I could have kept to my square's it would have been fine!

 

[Person012345]

Further, real cities use grids. Nearly every modern city is based on a grid design, with deviations for natural terrain. Only in cases where cities were large and developed pre-industrial revolution do you get crazy looking road designs, so this mostly effects European cities. Take a look at every major american city- it's going to be a grid unless the terrain is terrible (Seattle, San Francisco).

lmao no. This game is made in Europe and not everyone is an american and most cities aren't american. Unless you mean "modern city" as in "planned city" but that's not what that means. Grid layouts were used for a while in the US, but were largely dropped by urban planners in the 60's. European cities don't look the way they do simply because they are old (though it is part of it). From a design perspective there are upsides and downsides to each.

 

[Black_Shade]

lmao no. This game is made in Europe and not everyone is an american and most cities aren't american. Unless you mean "modern city" as in "planned city" but that's not what that means. Grid layouts were used for a while in the US, but were largely dropped by urban planners in the 60's. European cities don't look the way they do simply because they are old (though it is part of it). From a design perspective there are upsides and downsides to each.

The bit about American city planners dropping grids isn't really true. Some examples:

NY: https://www.google.com/maps/search/google+maps/@40.7311023,-74.0068349,14z
Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/search/google+maps/@41.8474314,-87.6728575,13z
Phoenix: https://www.google.com/maps/search/google+maps/@33.457928,-112.0790704,14z

Phoenix in particular is quite a young city, it's population having exploded in the past 30 years or so as retirees flock there, but if you fly over it it's one of the most perfectly grided cities you will ever see.

Heavy grid use is also not exclusive to the States:

Tokyo: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@35.6930211,139.8005414,15z
Mexico City: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@19.4635149,-99.1266739,14z
Santiago: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-33.5167903,-70.6483372,14z

look at all those beautiful grids!

The main benefits of grids are efficient use of space and ease of navigation. In densely populated areas where mass transit can be cost efficient (most of europe), there's less pressure for the later as car use is much less. But that still doesn't stop some of the most densely populated cities in the world (the 3 non american ones i linked up there) from using grids quite a bit.

 

[Meesmoth]

But that still doesn't stop some of the most densely populated cities in the world (the 3 non american ones i linked up there) from using grids quite a bit.

Manila is the most densely populated city in the world, with 71,000 people per square kilometer, but it does not use grid-like patterns if you look at Google Maps. So no, it is a lie, also Tokyo is not very dense at all, it has only 10,000 people per square kilometer, times 7 that of Manila.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_density