I decided to make a new city in a new region. This one I think looks better than my old city since its downtown is centralized a bit and has a far more downtown feel to it. My last city, if you look through posts, had skyscrapers all over the map. Not in this one ... yet, anyway.
I started the city last night and it's grown pretty quickly even though I've only played a few hours here and there.
This was my city in the beginning stages of its development. Not very large at all and mostly filled with small commercial, retail and residential.
But soon it began to grow and I added a City Hall and, apparently, an educational building. Both dominated my skyline for what I can only guess was a few years.
The growth continued and I built a university that proved popular to the region.
An aerial of my city from the University area. You'll notice the skyline is starting to form on right of the image. That's where the major skyscrapers will develop over the next few years.
Finally, my city sees its first tower - a residential high-rise right in the middle of what is turning out to be the downtown area of the city (I had planned it around the city hall, but I guess it decided to develop a bit east of it).
The tower is complete and, as you can see, it dominates the skyline. That would change soon enough.
As my region grew, I found my residential exploded and I saw a skyscraper boom. This all developed really fast. Far faster than my first city.
Here is one of the main downtown drags. Not very busy right now, but you can see the construction taking off.
Most my skyscrapers are on this street, which, as I said, gives it a more 'downtown' feel since they're not spread out over the entire region map. But you can also see how the development outside downtown remains considerably non-dense.
A night shot of the skyline from a residential neighborhood.
I decided to change the filter because the one I had it set on made it look a bit too cartoonish. So, most every other photo will look a bit different for that reason.
Here's the skyline from the high school area.
The skyline from another residential neighborhood. City hall, the once tallest structure in the city, now appears dwarfed by the high-rises.
Yeah...my city has suburban housing just outside downtown.
I like this photo solely because of the skyline in the background.
As you can see, there are a lot of smaller apartments outside the downtown area.
Here's one of the main streets that I plan on running light-rail down in the future. You can see the first water tank the city ever had - back when it was just a tiny town. I'll keep it there for historical sake.
Downtown at night. The small building next to the bus depot was one of the first constructed in my city. I remember this because, when my town had only a few hundred inhabitants, I thought it looked like one of those old west saloons. It's survived all these years and who knows, maybe it'll remain well into the future.
To give you perspective of the growth I experienced...
Here's the skyline as the downtown really started forming, but lacked any real height.
And here's the skyline during the construction boom from the same area.
Here's an older photo of my city from the University. You'll notice it's mostly just small developments, as even the mid-rise residential tower, the first in the city and at one point one of the tallest structures (I don't think it was as tall as the city hall dome), doesn't make too big of an impact on the city's skyline.
But today, the town's growth has completely altered the area. This is from roughly the same spot, looking in the direct location as the other photo, and you'll see just how radically the city has changed in such a short period of time.
Finally, here's a distant skyline shot from a neighboring city. Since my city sits up in the mountains, it can be seen all the way down by the river valley.