Cities: Skylines II: City Planning Guide v2

What you need to know

You will be building and managing your city, and traffic management is crucial to its success. Understanding road hierarchy is key, with highways, arterials, collectors, and local streets working together to keep traffic flowing. You'll also need to consider public transportation, districts, and industry specializations to create a thriving city. Effective city planning will help you avoid common pitfalls like gridlock and unhappy citizens.

Step by step

1. Plan your road network, thinking of it like a tree with highways as the trunk, arterials as major branches, collectors as medium branches, and local streets as small twigs.
2. Create a hierarchy where local streets feed into collectors, collectors feed into arterials, and arterials feed into highways.
3. Use roundabouts to keep traffic flowing, but avoid creating chaotic messes with too many exits.
4. Implement public transportation, starting with bus routes and adding metro lines as your city grows.
5. Create districts to carve your city into neighborhoods with their own rules and policies.
6. Assign operating districts to define service areas for police, fire, healthcare, and education.
7. Develop industry specializations, such as farming, forestry, and mining, to create a self-sufficient production chain.

Tips

• Avoid upgrading congested roads to wider roads, as this often doesn't solve the problem.
• Use dedicated bus lanes and keep routes reasonably direct to encourage citizens to use public transportation.
• Combine neighborhood districts with operating districts to keep services local and citizens happy.
• Consider the orientation of buildings to create a visually appealing and functional city.
• Zone commercial and residential areas separately to reduce noise pollution and increase citizen happiness.
• Place service buildings, such as fire stations and hospitals, on well-connected roads to ensure quick response times.