SimCity 4 Region Building: Starting your first city

Let me start this off first off by saying, I'm no expert at this game, to be perfectly honest, this game frustrates me to no end due to the fact that everytime I start getting my city built up, I start loosing money and go bankrupt and get ~voted out of office as mayor.  But I have picked up a few tips along the way of playing, both from reading/watching what other players do to have a successful city, as well as things I've learned on my own just from playing - trail and error, seeing what works, and what doesn't work - So in the end, this might not be the best way for you to play, but I thought I'd share how I get things going so that it might help someone else who's frustrated about not being able to get a successful city. (I'm determined that this one will have skyscrapers. It will, just watch.) 

First off for those of you that might be unfamiliar with the game, SimCity 4 is a city simulation game. You can build any city you want, just one city, or an entire region. The only thing limiting you would be your imagination, for the most part. There's several things in the game to add to your city, you lay down the roads, supply the power and water, anything that comes along with running a successful city, you get to do it for the population of the city. The cities rely heavily on each other, you can buy water from the neighboring town, sell garbage to the neighboring town, etc. One of the things I find hardest about the game, if starting an entirely new empty region, and building it up from scratch. It's easier when there's other cities around as the demand in one city helps to raise the demand in the new city. But, let's get started! 

I couldn't get good screenshots due to the button used to get the shots on my screenshot program. I realized quick it needed to be changed. 

 I started my city on the large empty plot of land right in the middle of the region. To start off with, the only thing you'll want to give your citizens is power, thats the only that we need to get started, and that's just what I did. You'll want to get by with spending the least amount as possible is why we do this. Later when demand is higher and we're making more money, we'll give them schools, water, police, fire station, etc. All the civics are not needed to get the city to start growing though. I started mine off with a small grid of industrial (dense) and a small grid and dense residential. At this point, there was no demand at all for Commercial. So we don't zone it. 

Industrial zone in upper left corner, Residential zone on right side.

 Things are starting to fill in a little but, not much though. There's little to no demand for anything at this point. We need to fix that right? We will. It'll just take a while. 

You'll need to watch this graph closely. It'll tell you what you need to add to your city.

 In this graph we see we have plenty of low wealth residential demand, and we also have sky-high agriculture demand. I don't want all those ugly farms taking up space in my main city though, so this is where neighboring cities will come into play. The closest neighboring city plot is a medium sized one, I'd prefer a small one, but this will work. 

Farm city!

I established the new city, and added nothing but some roads and low density industrial - farm land. Nothing else is being added to that city at this point. You'll also want to make sure this city, and the main city, are connected by road, avenue, highway, etc. Any sort of connection so your people can travel between the two cities for work. 

 Back in our main city, we seen quite a boost from people moving in to take the farm jobs in the neighboring city, still not much demand for any other industry though, or commercial. And the residential people aren't moving in too fast when zoned - even though there's a high demand for them. I think it might be time to add in some water, and maybe an elementary school. 

Residential and Commercial zones. Unemployment is a problem in this city. 

 People are still without jobs! Ugh, another frustrating part of this game. People complain about unemployment, even there there are PLENTY of jobs they could take. Why? Because the commute is too long. How to fix that? I still have no idea, I've tried everything, every single tip I've read or seen anywhere, and nothing helps. Hopefully this will fix itself over time because the only thing I can do to help at this point, is zone in more commercial but there's no demand for it, the zones I've already put in still haven't fully filled in.

demands are still a problem

As you see, we still have a HUGE demand for Agriculture, and Dirty industry. BUT I don't want the ugly farms in my city, at least, for the moment I don't, I need to first figure out exactly where everything will go. And I also don't want a lot of Dirty Industry in the city. Why you ask again? Air pollution. Dirty Industry pollutes the air and makes land value fall really low, then people don't want to move in. We don't want that right? No, we don't. It's bad for the city's population growth.So what do we do to fix this problem? We go back to our neighboring city of course! As well as raise taxes on both Agriculture and Dirty Industry in our main city - this makes them more likely to want to move into the second city. 

Industry corner of the main city. I added a couple farm plots to it, just to help meet the demands of the city a little bit. 

Our industry area isn't filling in very well. Why? I actually have no clue, the demand for it is there. but they're not coming. 

There will be highway in the spaces between the two areas eventually. 

 Eventually, this entire area will probably need to be re constructed. It's a very large city, in order for everyone to get around efficiently a highway will be needed. Right now, it can't be afforded, but I am attempting to leave space for it, which I suggest you do as well. While you might still need to redo zoning, (residential shouldn't be right next to a highway as people won't move in, at least not high wealth people. Commerial though, will.) you won't have to completely tear don't roads and everything and redo the entire city, just rearrange zoning, which is a little easier to do. 

Another residential section across the way from the industry

 We're trying to fill in space - but keep things fairly close together. People need jobs, People need to be close to those jobs, otherwise they'll just complain that there is no jobs and they're unemployed, even though there are plenty of jobs. Also, bus stations. Lots of bus stations at every block. Public transportation helps keep traffic down as well as helping sims get to and from their jobs. Wealthy people don't like buses though, but they do like subways. So eventually, the buses will need to be upgraded to subways, or at least some of them.

Farm city!

and for this installment I leave you with what our neighboring farm city looks like now. I added in some industry, but apparently the demand for it wasn't as high as it kept telling me as they didn't really fill in. But as you see, we mostly have farm land in this city, and a little industrial so far. but no people. That means all the jobs are open for people from out main city to take as long as they have a connecting road so that they're able to get back and forth between cities.