Zoning
Zoning tells developers what they may build on land. Choose a zone type and density, then paint land beside a road. Place City Hall first to enable zoning; you can zone while it is still under construction.
Choose a zone type
- Residential: homes for your residents. Keep them within reach of jobs, shops, schools and parks.
- Commercial: shops, restaurants, services and places to stay. They need customers who can reach them.
- Office: workplaces that need suitable staff and transport connections.
- Industrial: workshops and factories. Give them road connections, but keep their noise and pollution away from homes.
Zoning is free. Buyers develop the plots as private property, so using that land for a new road or city service later means paying to buy it back.
Density
Low, Medium and High density permit different building forms and plot sizes. Higher density allows larger or taller projects, but does not force developers to build them. Demand, rents, land and construction costs, available workers and site conditions determine which project is viable.
In Arcade mode, Medium density unlocks at 10,000 residents and High density at 50,000. Simulation mode offers all densities from the start.
Reading plot sizes
The tables show the plot footprints offered by the development catalogue, measured in map cells. A 2×3 plot is two cells by three cells; it can also be rotated to 3×2. One cell represents 16 metres, so a 4×4 plot is 64 metres by 64 metres.
Minimum and maximum refer to plot area, not height or the number of homes or jobs. The other supported sizes are listed too: the market does not use every rectangle between the minimum and maximum. Yards, setbacks, landscaping and parking can occupy part of a plot.
Residential
| Density | Minimum plot | Maximum plot | Other plot sizes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | 1×1 | 2×2 | 1×2 |
| Medium | 1×1 | 3×3 | 1×2, 2×2, 2×3, 2×4 |
| High | 1×1 | 4×4 | 1×2, 1×3, 2×2, 2×3, 2×4, 3×3, 3×4 |
- Low: detached houses, narrow houses and clusters of small houses.
- Medium: small houses and clusters, flats, fourplexes, terraces, brownstones, walk-ups and courtyard apartments.
- High: also permits narrow apartment blocks, denser mid-rise apartments and towers. Smaller homes remain possible where they are viable.
A terrace is built as one project with several homes along the street. Terraces, brownstones and courtyard blocks need suitable street frontage; rotating an empty rectangle is not enough if its street-facing side is wrong for the design.
Commercial
| Density | Minimum plot | Maximum plot | Other plot sizes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | 1×1 | 2×3 | 1×2, 2×2 |
| Medium | 1×1 | 3×4 | 1×2, 2×2, 2×3, 2×4, 3×3 |
| High | 1×1 | 4×4 | 1×2, 2×2, 2×3, 2×4, 3×3, 3×4 |
- Low: street shops, restaurants and service centres.
- Medium: also permits shopping-street blocks, market halls, showrooms, entertainment venues, retail centres, inns and supermarkets.
- High: also permits department stores, hotels and malls.
Higher-density commercial zoning still permits small shops. A large plot does not necessarily produce a tall building: a supermarket uses a broad site with few storeys, while a hotel can build upward.
Industrial and office
Industrial and office zones use the same plot sizes, but produce different buildings.
| Density | Minimum plot | Maximum plot | Other plot sizes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | 1×1 | 2×2 | 1×2 |
| Medium | 2×2 | 3×3 | 2×3 |
| High | 2×2 | 4×4 | 2×3, 2×4, 3×3, 3×4 |
Industrial development ranges from workshops to factories; office development ranges from small offices to blocks and towers.
Unlike housing and commercial zoning, Medium and High industrial and office zones do not offer 1×1 or 1×2 projects. A one-cell-wide strip cannot fit their minimum 2×2 plot.
Leave room for development
Every plot needs road frontage and enough connected land of the same zone type and density. For a 4×4 project, leave a continuous 4×4 area beside a road. Breaking it up with another zone, a road or an existing building reduces what can fit.
If zoned land stays empty, the Development map layer shows what is holding it back: demand, workers, access, building rules or project costs.
See Development and construction for the market's decisions and building-code limits, or Transport and parking when a site has road frontage but poor access to jobs or customers.