Natural Growth Approach?

[Axiom]

So, back in the days of SimCity 4, I was greatly inspired by a city-building philosophy known as the Natural Growth approach. The concept is basically that you aren't overly planning out what you intend to do with your city, but instead developing in a way that is natural to the demand, and the resources available to you.

Many people credit the Natural Growth approach to a user "CSGdesign" (sc4devotion.com), and here is one of his first posts on the subject (keep in mind, he is referencing SimCity 4):

Originally posted by CSGdesign:

This method of city development has only a few key rules to follow:

1) Don't plan ahead any more than generally, and in a role-playing state of mind.
For example, you can plan that nice cleared area over on that shore might make a good new settlement, or that the hill off to the north might be a lovely place to build a quarry because it's rich in Bauxite, or this dense patch of woodlands here won't be cleared because the SimNation Government has declared it is a natural resource, so Sims must build around it, and so on. But don't plan to the level of "that peninsular will be my new industrial zone, from there to there" or "I'll put my airport over there, and some harbors in here, and a big seawall all the way along this shore, with low-density covering that quarter of the map". That's too over-view. You have to think down several levels - right down to a small-scale two-or-three-block development. Smaller even. Think as small-picture as you can with every step you take, and FORGET about what else is around that area.

2) Do EVERY move as though you were a developer, not a mayor.
Mayors might want everything all pretty and nice and organised and grand, but at the end of the day it is the developpers and contractors that do the work, and they don't do a damn thing unless it's cost-effective. Even though your coffers are paying for everything, things must be as cheaply done as possible so that the developers can make the biggest coin out of it.

3) Everything starts off small. And grows as demand requires.
This means that a path from the CBD to the other CBD two regions away starts as a tiny winding street (or even a dirt track) and then as demand requires, it gets upgraded at intersections, then entire stretches until it's a road. Then as demand out-grows that, it becomes an avenue, and eventually is either upgraded or completely bypassed by a massive network of highways and rails. River crossings start off as pedestrian ferries, then if the river isn't too wide a street bridge, then a road bridge next to that or a bit upriver. Everything is done only as demand requires it, and with absolutely no "but in the future I'll want a huge highway crossing here" in mind. How often in your local town do you see a huge dual-carriage bridge go over a creek because in 50 years the roads will require it?? Never I'll bet - things are always upgraded as required, or LOOOONG overdue.

4) Keep a realistic balance of Sims in your region.
Don't try to keep all your sims super-educated and super-healthy. Let large swathes of suburbs sit in squalor and even have rolling black-outs from time to time until you get around to upgrading that pesky Diesel Generator to something a bit larger. If you have a lot of low-wealth sims then your city will grow rapidly and randomly and dirty, just like the real deal. Then developers can come in and tidy up that nice little coastal out-cropping and sit some parks in it, offset by the cost of selling off the housing areas to medium-density residential.

5) Work only small amounts at a time in any one map or area.
Then save and move on to another area, and keep doing that, working your region bit by bit, then coming back and re-working it. This not only keeps things interesting because you've got such a massive area to play with, but allows the entire area to grow and develop together, maintaining a realistic development to the region.

If you follow those ideas when you're developing a region, then it should look very natural and random and realistic pretty fast, and keep it no matter how you develop later on (unless you abandon the technique and bulldoze whole areas and rezone and start again, of course).

TL;DR - Do you find yourself building your cities with a Natural Growth concept in mind? Where you let the demands, the land, and your available resources dictate what you do?

If so, what are your ideas about how this building philosophy applies to Cities Skylines? How can one go about developing a city like this? I love this approach, but I'm finding that it may be difficult to apply it CS, because we actually START with highways and railway connections already on our maps, which really doesn't make sense. I'd love to see different game "modes" of a sort, where there is a progression from small farming village, into booming metropolis.

[Tarot1970]

Yes.

Even a small farming town has access to a highway (albeit a 2-4 lane) and generally rail too.

Just pretend that the highways already on the map are smaller. (Odds are, you're going to end up bulldozing the entire thing a few times anyhow.)

[Cat]

Geez, so glad some random CSGDesign dude told us all how to play a game, else we'd be all confused and never understand citybuilders or pretty much anything. I would have personally never came up with the idea of building without design, it's such a genius breakthrough I mean I played thousands of hours on citybuilders and never thought of just building things.

Uhm.
Yeah I do that. And the fact you get to unlock new things slowly in this game as you get population does support your idea of progression, though it's a bit clunky in some aspect, my main problem is how late you get incinerators.