** I also avoid doing things that in IRL would be seen as cruel or just plain stupid. Contrast this with having a rectangular loop with the government buildings inside the loop and the houses around the outside. ** I put the "undesireable" necessary buildings, like the Firehouse and the Bazaar, off in one corner of their neighborhood, surround them with "nice" buildings like Water Supplies and Temples, and then the housing itself off to one side. ** I tend to avoid culture parks because in real life, after you provide a sufficient number of accomodations in an area, additional venues don't really offer any added improvement FOR THE PEOPLE LIVING IN THAT AREA. ** In one city I needed a major boulevard so people could get from one area to another - there was LOTS of traffic going back and forth, so I made it two roads with a strip of gardens down the middle, one side for one direction, and the other side for the other. ** I look at the entrance to a neighborhood or other district and sometimes put statuary by the entrance, so that's what people see when they first arrive there (even if they're not needed to add desireability to nearby housing). ** The Festival Square should be within a reasonable distance to most of the housing - people don't want to spend a major portion of their time off just getting to where the fun is. ** Temples and shrines to the SAME god are separated by some distance - someone wanting to pay homage to Bast, for example, would have no need to have a number of Bast structures all together. I can't say what would make a city attractive, because like rugle said, that is very subjective, but I can tell you some of the things that I throw in to make a city more "realistic":