The guide that opens your brain to the whole wide world, instead of just building grids everywhere you can.
Introduction
This guide is all about cities layout from cities we’re living in. Many players are still struggling with building road layouts and hierarchy, grids or no grids. Why there’s only grids in your brain? There’re tons of cities for us to figure out and take as an inspiration for your build in Cities: Skylines, then why you don’t? Here we are going to travel all around the world and discover which kind of layout is your favorite!
What is City Layout
City layout is an organized arrangement or laying out (as of the streets, parks, and business sections) of a city with a view to general convenience, attractiveness of appearance, and the encouragement of healthier living.
As for Cities: Skylines, city layout just simply means how the road looks and where buildings and trees located. Nothing special, but just make sure no traffic congestion and look nice when zoomed out.
Planning city layout is important not only the expansion of residential areas & urban sprawls, but also ensures good transportation, health care, urban design, sustainable development by means of master plan. Thus, the city will grow rapidly without having negative impacts on its built environment, economy and citizens.
| I’m keeping this guide as simple as possible.👍 |
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American Grids
Let’s start with the Great American Grids. They’re simple, just as you thought.
American grid contains of grid-looking local roads with each ends connected to the collector road border. Most of the arterial roads are parallel to the collectors, but there’re some that go across all the grids at a different angle, or just follow the terrain or shoreline. Here’s a diagram 👉
Advantages:
- Provides easy and orderly layout for services
- Better public transport coverage and accessibility
- More organized zoning for each plot of land
- More easier in managing and navigating
- Lower cost with more zoning tax income (sometimes)
Disadvantages:
- Driver friendly, not pedestrian and cyclist friendly
- Too many junctions everywhere, slows down traffic
- Cause gridlocks in smaller grids (sometimes)
- Cause traffic problems if too many high density RC around
- Simply looks boring
Cities that are Utilizing American Layout
Below are cities that are using this layout (click on the link to Google Earth to take inspiration):
New York City, USA
Los Angeles, USA
Melbourne, Australia
Kyoto, Japan
Hong Kong, China
Johannesburg, South Africa
European Sprawl
Now we’re heading to Europe, it really just a mess.
European city layout usually contains of messy-built local roads that simply connected to the collector roads in any angle. Dead end roads are quite often to see in some part of a European city, mostly are cul-de-sacs. Some parts are looking like grids but not exactly grids. Collector roads are simply straight all over the city and connects to the straight arterials. Last word, mess. Here’s a diagram 👉
Advantages:
- Less junctions on wider roads
- Pedestrian and cyclist friendly
- Lower traffic using local roads
- Shorter routes for vehicles in some cases
- More green spaces available in the city
Disadvantages:
- Hard to plan and build
- Cost more but low taxes(sometimes)
- Hard to plan public transport routes
- Hard to build larger buildings
- Simply looks like a mess
Cities that are Utilizing European Layout
Below are cities that are using this layout (click on the link to Google Earth to take inspiration):
London, United Kingdom
Paris, France
Berlin, Germany
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Rome, Italy
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Asian Blocks
Welcome to Asia, where Europe meets America.
Asian city layout always contains of semi-grid looking residential zones everywhere and a few connections connecting to the collector roads. Because of higher population density, collector roads usually look like arterial roads. However in the city center, the road layout is almost the same like European city layout but with messy local roads connecting to messy collectors and arterials in a specific angle. Here’s a diagram 👉
Advantages:
- Wider roads, lower traffic
- Public transport friendly
- Higher green places availability
- Lower traffic inside residential area
- Higher connection to arterial roads
Disadvantages:
- Cost much much more (sometimes)
- More harder to plan and build
- Large junctions might cause traffic
- Highway all around the city, noise pollution
- Simply more like a mess
Cities that are Utilizing Asian Layout
Below are cities that are using this layout (click on the link to Google Earth to take inspiration):
Shanghai, China
Chongqing, China
Beijing, China
Singapore, Singapore
Seoul, South Korea
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
African Remote
At last, don’t forget about African outskirts villages layout.
African villages are mostly dirt everywhere with narrow dirt roads, no traffic congestion and noise pollution at all. A bunch of green spaces in every corner of the city; not city, village. Houses are all low residential and farming fields everywhere around the village. This is how your starting city looks like. Here’s a diagram 👉
Advantages:
- Very very very ecological
- Very very very low cost
- Very very very pedestrian friendly
- Flexible road layout for buildings
- No traffic congestion at all
Disadvantages:
- Low speed limit, not driver friendly
- Hard for services to do their job efficiently
- Low economic value
- Low population growth
- Simply looks ‘dirt’-y
Cities that are Utilizing African Layout
Below are cities that are using this layout (load a new save and there’s it):
Your City, PC
View Map – [steamcommunity.com]
Hope you enjoy the post for Cities: Skylines Building Tips for Cities + Layouts, If you think we should update the post or something is wrong please let us know via comment and we will fix it how fast as possible! Thank you and have a great day!
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