Guidelines to go through with your students before they begin their creating a city project.
Believe it or not, I rewrote the follwing materials from the instructions found in the orginal Simcity computer game..... ( I told you that you would not believe me)

The Creating a City Reading
Factors that Affect City Size
A) Age of the City
B) Location on a River or Ocean (good natural harbor)
C) Communications Center (TV, radio, newspapers)
D) Transportation Center (railroads, harbor, airports, highways)
E) Technological change (elevators, light steel beams, air conditioning)
Other factors that affect city size include:
A) The landscape a city is built on; gently sloping land is the best, but some cities like San Francisco have been built on steep hills and succeeded.
B) Climate influences city shape. Cities with large rainfalls will have sewers and some cities in deserts will have none. City planners often take into account prevailing winds and when aligning streets. The amount of sunlight and temperature will affect the architecture of the buildings.
C) Cities need an adequate water supply. Large modern cities have outgrown their water supplies and must bring in outside sources of water. Often, these sources will include aqueducts or underground tunnels such as New York City's water supply.
D) Cities must serve an economic function. All Cities have an "economic base". Cities serve as center of storage, trade, and manufacture. Cities cannot grow or sustain themselves if they don't provide services to their hinterland or other cities. The city must create products that other cities will purchase. If cities cannot bring in money from outside sources, it will slowly die. A large part of every city is devoted to creating supplies and services that people from inside the city and beyond will purchase.

The physical aspects of a city are divided into three categories:
Networks -- Buildings -- Open Spaces

Networks
A) Networks are pathways that allow people, goods, products, ideas, energy, information, sewage and water to move from one place to another.
B) Transportation networks for people take up the most space in a modern city. Modern cities rely on everything from 8 lane highways to sidewalks. In the USA, most people get around by car, but some large cities have subways or railways for commuters.
C) In cities where most people drive to work, the living areas for people are generally found in spread out suburbs far from the central business district.
D) Cities rely on a complex system of utilities. Modern cities need electricity, gas, sewage, water, and information networks like phone lines, cable TV lines, and even in some instances, computer network lines.
Buildings
A) In modern cities, residential structures take up at least half the land. Buildings and their architecture give the city its unique character.
B) Residential structures can range from single family homes up to large apartment complexes where there are several apartment buildings close together.
C) Generally, commercial buildings (skyscrapers) are clustered downtown (Central Business District). Farther from the center of town, you will find buildings that use up more of the land. Buildings such as shopping malls and manufacturing plants are normally found far from the Central Business District on the outskirts of town.

D) City planners try to arrange the types of buildings being built so that they are compatible with each other. Generally speaking, commercial buildings and residential are close together. Manufacturing or industrial buildings are usually found near the power and waste treatment facilities in a city.

Open Spaces
A) Open Spaces come in two forms: Hard and Soft
B) Hard open spaces such as plazas, malls, and courtyards are often found in the CBD areas of large cities.
C) Soft open spaces such as parks, gardens, lawns, nature preserves, and golf courses are often found far out from the CBD in the suburbs. These spaces serve as places for members of the community to recreate and relax.

Modern Major Cities are divided into two broad zones:
The older inner city and the modern suburbs
Older Inner City
A) The older inner city is often the CBD of American cities. These CBDs serve as centers for information processing, finance, and administration buildings rather than manufacturing centers. White collar employees now work in these areas. These White Collar employees commute in from the suburbs to work.
B) Any construction in these urban centers involves the demolition and rebuilding of the old city to include new office buildings, convention centers, hotels, and sports complexes. Forests of tall buildings now exist in the CBD of modern cities.
C) Surrounding the CBD area, are a large band of old mixed used and residential buildings housing the urban poor. Often, these areas are called ghettos.

Modern Suburbs
A) After World War Two, Americans built larger and larger highways. These highways provided greater access to the suburbs. Many people fleed the urban centers for the suburbs. Today, more people live in suburbs that live in the old urban cores. Manufacturers have moved their businesses to the suburbs to take advantage of railroad and freeway access.
B) Most major cities are no longer focused on their downtown. Now, because some suburbs are so large, they are developing their own CBD. These subcenters of the inner city's CBD, supply most of the daily needs of its citizens. People who live in the suburbs, now work in the suburbs, and shop in the suburbs. They never have to make their way into the inner city.

What makes for a successful city?
A) A successful city provides its citizens with a safe place to do all of their activities at the lowest cost.
B) A city must be vital, it must fulfill the biological needs of its inhabitants
C) A city must be sensible, it must be organized so that its inhabitants understand the city.
D) A city must have a good fit for its citizens. In other words, it provides the networks, buildings, and open spaces the citizens need to do their job.
E) A city must be accessible. It must provide an easy way for all of its citizens to get the goods, services, and information they need.
F) A city must have good control and be arranged so that it is easy for its citizens to manage the city well.
G) Lastly, a city must do this at the lowest cost possible.