Town Layout and Planning

[milidh]

I was wondering how people plan and layout their towns.
I tend to start with a central residential block, then have shops and citizen services to one side and rail station to the other side. Then have out lying industry.

[tea_bush]

I start with the industry, because it needs a lot of space and is much harder to plan. Then I calculate how many people I need and look for a place to accommodate them. I don't build all houses at once because probably most factories won't need to be operated at full capacity, therefore some houses won't be needed.

I usually add one more big house for people, who will work at stores and schools, or two, if it's a town with a university.

[pmredbear]

I use the mikroraion and raion principles.
1) Plan roughly what industries will be where, budget physical area and estimate number of workers.
2) Designate a large area as residential and build the main trunks for transport (including public), electricity and heating.
3) Add smaller roads to create a grid pattern.
4) Start building mikroraions by filling in the gaps between roads, where every residential building is close to all amenities needed. Typically every 9 blocks amenities can fill maybe 2 or so.

This allows proper city building, but the limitations of allowing only 1 minute transport stop wait time and 5 minutes travel time (with no corresponding acceleration of traffic speed), as well as 8 minute workdays means scaling up is still extremely challenging.

[Ernst Cornell]

my usual go to plan is to make an industrial complex served by one bus stop and connect it to a town/microdistrict roughly 1 km away.

the microdistrict itself is a square of roughly 300-350m width where two sides of the square are made by apartments and the inner area is all kinds of services.

initially there was a central road intersecting the square and connecting most service buildings but lately i been moving all services that require vehicles (shops, bus stop, hospital) to an outer side of the square (perpendicular to the apartment sides) and those services who don't actually need vehicles (schools, cinemas, kindergartens) i just connect them with an inner web of footpaths to everything else.

at the end this mean that i avoid to make bigger cities and instead make a network of industrial sites and small self-contained towns.

[JimBarracus]

I usually place the train station first and place all the services around it.
Then I push the walking range to the limit with the houses.

I do the same with my industrial area.
Bigger things like the oil refinery get placed first and then comes a train station in max range.
Then I fill the gaps with smaller industry like chemical plants or clothes factories.

No estimations how many people I need. Whenever I produce 21+ again I create a new town and find jobs for them or connect them to an existing industry.

[Breaker]

I usually pick something I will start to export for cash and build off that. Example. Ill drop a few logging camps and a saw mill. Then add enough residential to run it and give them amenities. Far enough way to not lose chopping area. Then I start exporting that once its at 100 production and go from there.

[MG83]

check my screenshots . you will find it useful.