Politician Archive
Thread: Novel Idea
Not too many Real Life or Star Wars cities were perfectly laid out.
Look at the public cities. They have extractors in middle of towns, homes everywhere,
and civic buildings placed in clumps rather than zones. Why not just let it grow and be unique. :-D
Ah...beloved Temenos Island...urban sprawl at its finest!
Our city planning consisted of looking at the overhead map and squeezing in our civic structures around our citizens' houses.
We had a vote and our citizens like the sprawl, so that's how we did it!
I really don't like visiting those sprawl cities, mostly because I love driving!Trying to manuver a speedy vehicle in an areawhere you have to dodge 20 houses toget to one specific vendor is a pain. Older cities may have more RL charm, but for in-game convenience I'll always prefer a nicely laid out city with no traffic problems!
Plus (and this is just the Virgo in me, so you'll have to excuse me) nice layouts just seem more professional. I like our city because it's obvious that work went into the planning. We've had many nice comments from residents and visitors about our layout, so I guess it works for us. Of course, I'm sure fitting civic buildings around existing homes took a lot of work too! But the difference between the various styles of towns are what makes them all much more interesting! 
http://swg-de.com/community/attachment.php?s=&postid=37595
Yea I agree I hate going into cities with all buildings in neat rows. Our town is just growing with a few small organized areas. I explore cities more that are less organized. I just blow through the ones that areall organized. I grew up in the ineer city of Chicago so I like the back alleys.
Ecco Ton
Our city is highly structures and with two 'main' streets in a cross format with the center of the cross being city hall. We have received nothing but compliments on our design, although those who don't care for it are probably like the above poster, just zooming through with nary a comment. /shrug. We like it and that's all that matters.
The original poster is looking for 'uniqueness' which is a good thing. However, the system has some basic limitations thatprevent much of what could make a city unique. One of these is that buildings can only be placed in a grid orientation (N-W-E-S).... no angles allowed. This is unfortunate because this would let you build streets that actually "windaround" the city. You could have curves and arcs (like many of Boston's central streets). Instead we're left with Manhattan grids.
Still, there is much that can be done with the N-W-E-S structure beyond a plain grid. Variety is the key: rows, squares, stars, striations, etc. I think it's these cities that stand out the most, especiallyif the city hasunique geography that breaks it up and you can form around (rivers, mesas, cliffs, canyons).