Greetings, mayors! Today your in for a treat as we have set up a "Ultimate Simcity Guide" telling you what every building does, the benifits and downsides and the effects it does around it. Also we will be looking into what makes people happy and what can benifit from neighbours. Today we will be looking into the city view panel.
City View
This is the city view that you will come across when you start your city. Let's look into the roads panel. (Zoom if you have to)
There are 3 tipes of road, High Density, Medium Density and Low density. It's best to start off with low density roads as it's pretty much impossible to get traffic and high rises first thing. Your region connection features an avenue. It's best to use these in the center of your city, but not all over. You can upgrade roads by clicking the button under "Road types". This will upgrade the roads to a higher density, or lower if you prefer. You cannot upgrade roads into avenues. There are certain road types you can choose. Straight road, Curved road, freehand road and circular road. Hold shift on curved road settings to make an arc. It's pretty easy to lay out a decent road system and you will get the hand of it. NOTE: Eventually with high density roads, you will start to see building development. On bridge avenues, you can select from certain types of bridges.
ZONING
If you want a working city, then you need to zone correctly. Your advisor will help you along the way. There are three types of zoning: Residential, Commerical and Industrial (RCI). The zoning will grow depending on the road density. Residential provides homes, the more dense, the more capacity. Commercial offer jobs to the residents so there isn't unemployment and sell freight made by industrial factories. Low wealth residents will shop at low wealth shops, and medium wealth will shop and medium wealth shops, and so on. So you need to make sure even the 1% get their shops! Industrial makes freight to sell and satisfy the commercial. Industrial and commerical provide workers. Industrial makes you profit, however causes pollution, which can anger residents, especially high wealth, and cause health risks and germs. Your RCI panel tells you what sort of demand you have for a certain type of zone, seperated in wealth types. Make sure you spread out your zones evenely, as it can cause traffic problems and no nearby shops for neighbourhoods.
TIP: Hold Shift while zoning to zone an entire block.
Power
You can't make a city without power. Everything needs power. There are 5 different power types you can choose from. It's best to start from a wind powerplant, as it only needs wind to generate. You can't really stick with a wind power plant for long, unless you research the advanced windmill at a university. You can buy power from neighbours in region view, we will look into this in our 3rd post. The Coal power plant needs coal to operate and it causes pollution. You can build a trade depot to buy coal from the global market or mine some of your own coal from the ground (If you have any). Without coal, your powerplant will fail to generate and you will go into blackout! You can upgrade every powerplant at a cost for it to work better. The oil powerplant is the same principle, but uses crude oil. The solar farm is expensive, but offers clean, safe power to your city, however takes up valuable space. The nuclear powerplant offers alot of energy, but needs educated sims that have been to an advanced school or it might let off radiation. Any zoned building in contact with radiation will be abandoned. Each powerplant reduces land value from nearby residential and commericalbuildings so it's good to make parks by it or place it in your industrial center. 
Water
Every building needs water to stay open. Water needs power to stay open. There are two types of water pumpers; the water tower and the water pumping station. Water towers are good for small cities as they pump a decent amount of water, but not enough for a high population. In Simcity, there is a Water table, which will run out once all the pump has pumped the water out of the ground. The water table normally refills once it rains. A department of utilities is needed for the water
pumping station. Make sure your water isn't polluted. Check the water table view to make sure your water isn't polluted by polluting buildings, otherwise sims will get sick. You can buy or offer water to neighbouring cities in region view.
Sewage
Sewage can be a pain in your city. That's why you need sewage treatment! Placing down a sewage outflow pipe will get rid of some sewage, however reduces land value drastically and makes alot of ground pollution, so put it out of the way of your housing. A sewage treatment plant doesn't take much of a toll off your land value or cause much pollution, however you need a department of utilities to plop it. You can upgrade this and it can handle a whole cities sewage up to 100k population.
Government
The government panel shows the wealth of the city and approval rating. The more approval rating, the better. Sims grant you rewards for your work if you do good in your city. The Town hall is essential in your city, as it unlocks the main parks and can be upgraded to control bonds and taxes. The town hall can be upgraded into a city hall at 5,000 population. Upgrades can be given to enhance the cities services for a price of 15,000 simoleons each. On every upgrade you can pick from a new department. (Finance, Utilities, Tourism, Safety, Mass Transit and Education) The mayor's mansion only comes at 40,000 population with 75+ approval rating. Each government building sets land value around it up drastically.
Waste Disposal
Ew, what's that smell? It's your garbage dump! Without a garbage dump, your city will be polluted by garbage. Every building in your city produces at least some garbage. Without waste facillities, garbage will overflow and people will abandon and find another city to live in. Garbage causes ground pollution and is a big pain for mayors. You need a decent amount of space for waste disposal. Ways to deal with waste is to build landfills and then destroy them to get rid of garbage. This causes ground pollution which reduces land value drastically and causes health issues by germs. Another way is to build garbage incinerators. This causes air pollution but at least gets rid of some garbage. (1.5 tonnes p/h). A recycling center is handy for high-tech cities, collecting alloys, metals and plastic. This does not replace a garbage dump but is handy for creating processors with a processor factory or making profit off the global market. The recycling center requires the department of utilities.
Police, Fire and Health
Everyone needs help when needed. When there's a crook who's stealing, when there's a fire in someone's home, or someone has fallen sick. Without a Police station, fire station and clinic/hospital then there's nothing to do when something goes wrong. In order for development and happiness, Fire, Health and Police stations are needed in your city. It's best to start off with a fire station, as fires can break out at any time. Once you have a fire station, then your sure that your city won't burn to the ground. Next you should put a clinic so no one drops dead. Then a police station. Renember you can upgrade your Police, fire and health services before you build advanced ones or another of the same type. Advanced stations help your city twice as much, and give a boost to land value and happiness. Advanced stations are expensive, so place one only when you truly need to. Advanced stations offer high tech gadgets, helicopters and patrol vehicles. Air pollution, radiation, garbage, ground pollution, sewage and polluted water can cause germs and make people fall sick. It's best to prevent the issues instead of building a hospital. A department of safety in the city hall is needed for the advanced services.
Education
Education is vital for development in your city. Without schools, no profitable high tech industry will grow, and high wealth housing won't grow at all. Educated sims use less power and water, fall sick less often, it's rare for them to start a fire and it's rare for them to become criminals. Educated sims are happier and will encorage the growth of high tech industrial. High Schools offer better education, Colleges increase the skill in workers, and a University attracts students from all over the region. Universities are expensive, however each department added in a university do their job in the city. A Department of medicine reduces germ levels, a department of education unlocks HazMat firefighting technology, and If you plop a department of law, the crime drastically drops in the region. A University doesn't only benifit the city, it benifits the region. You can also set up a research project to unlock new ploppables to enhance the region even more. A department of Education in your city hall is needed for a High School and a university.
Mass Transit
Mass transit is not essential to be added in your city, however improves tourism, a visitor population and prevents traffic jams. A high population city deserves a bus system to help sims get around. Some mass transit can reduce land value, eg: Streetcars, trains and airports, as they make alot of noise. A train connection is good for trading. Trains can be loaded with freight from your industrial buildings and sold on the global market via train or airport. An airport in the region is needed for a International Airport great work. Trains, planes and boats need a department of transportation in the City hall.
Parks
Parks are essential in your city for keeping your sims happy and increasing land value. If you want a skyscraper city, these are essential. Keep checking your land value map to see where abouts your city is likely to develop. If you have buildings that reduce land value, placing parks by them can really help increasing the land value. Parks also do their bit in preventing some of your air pollution levels. Tree rows and planting trees can do a big part, even if you haven't noticed. There are 5 park types; Basic, sports, nature, plaza and formal parks. Basic, sports and nature parks do not increase land value to high wealth. Basic parks are good for low wealth, Sports and nature parks are good for medium wealth, and plazas and formal parks are good for high wealth. Parks also increase visitor levels. It saves you power, water and money by adding a module to parks instead of building another one.
Disasters
Unlocking disasters:
Dug too Greedily and too deep - Mine 100 tons of coal or raw ore in your city, which unlocks the earthquake disaster.
What comes up must come down - Have 200 tourists coming into your city via airport to unlock the meteor disaster.
Laboratory outbreak - Add a diagnostic lab to a hospital and still have 15 people dieng per day to unlock the Zombie disaster.
What's Cookin'? - Burn 100 tons of garbage in an incinerator in a garbage dump to unlock the big lizard disaster.
Blowin' in the Wind - Have 24 Wind Turbines at Wind Power Plants in your city to gain access to the Tornado disaster.
We Are Not Alone - Ship any resource to a Space Center Great Work to gain access to the UFO Encounter disaster.
Disasters can happen randomly in a non-sandbox region. You can unlock disasters for you to activate on your city.
Tornadoes are quite short, and can destroy medium density and below buildings, and can destroy any type of ploppable building, except from tall landmarks and HQ's.
The big lizard can destroy anything in it's path and breathes fire, making buildings around it burn down. It is attracted to garbage dumps and eats the garbage there.
A meteor strike can destroy anything in it's hit zone and can let off radiation and rarely drops ore deposits. Normally the first meteor strike in a region lets off radiation.
UFO's can take residents from their house and can destroy anything they attack.
Zombies cannot destroy buildings, however they can eat the brains of residents and make buildings go abandoned. Zombies can be stopped by the police.
An Earthquake destroys anything in it's hit zone and rarely causes fires.
