	I built the enclosed city after reading the two-part series on Simcity 2000 written by Robert L. Hayes, Jr. and published in the April and May 1994 issues of Computer Gaming World. I highly recommend these articles to anyone interested in this game. If you don't have a copy of them, a text-only version is available in the Computer Gaming World forum on Ziffnet (available through Compuserve).

	Following are some comments to explain some reasons why I built the city as I did. I hope that you find it interesting and useful. I would like to hear from anyone with comments or suggestions. Although I prefer to receive e-mail at Compuserve account 71052, 1323 (71052.1323@compuserve.com), you can send e-mail to my AOL account if you wish (achandra@aol.com).

	4x4 Blocks - In the second part of the series, the author recommends building a city using a 4x4 block. In one of these blocks, one can build a 3x3 building, three 1x1 buildings and four blocks of park or trees. For example, I built many blocks with a 3x3 building on one corner, three 1x1 commercial buildings on the opposite corner and four open blocks on the remaining two corners. As Mr. Hayes pointed out in his article, you can dramatically reduce the amount of traffic generated by mixing the zone types within these 4x4 blocks. For example, assume that the 3x3 building is a large apartment building and the three 1x1 buildings are commercial buildings. As Mr. Hayes explains the trip generation system, when the residents of the apartment building start a trip, half of them will go looking for a commercial building and half will go looking for an 
industrial building. Those looking for a commercial building begin and end their trip without ever getting on the roads. This greatly reduces the amount of traffic, and as a result I have not found it necessary to build highways or any sort of mass transit. If you do decide to build a mass transit system though, this building block approach would make it easy. You can run subways along the roads relatively easily, and intersections are available to put in subway stations (which do better at intersections). I built four of the 4x4 blocks so that the 3x3 buildings would be on opposite corners of an intersection, creating 2x2 squares, which form the pattern for the entire city. (To see the pattern best, view the city in map mode with zones selected.)

	Parks vs. trees - The presence of parkland in the unoccupied squares of the 4x4 blocks helps to increase the land value of the buildings, again as pointed out by Mr. Hayes. However, I like to see lots of trees, so I start my cities by painting trees very densely everywhere and then leaving trees on every open square. I don't know if I would do better by planting parks everywhere, instead.

	Power plants - As many people have noted, hydroelectric power is generally the most cost-effective solution. Mr Hayes suggested that the most efficient approach is to raise one tile up one level and then build waterfalls on all the slopes. Therefore, in a 3x3 block, one can get eight hydroelectric plants going, which will produce 160 MW in nine squares. I 
found that in one of the 2x2 squares described above (which are 9x9 blocks of tiles), one can build nine of these 3x3 squares of hydroelectric power, which will produce 1,440 MW of power or 17.77 MW/square.

	Water works - I used a similar approach to develop a water supply. I placed a pond in the middle of a 3x3 block and surrounded it with water pumps. I also built nine of these 3x3 water plants in one of the basic 2x2 squares. The space needed for water production is minimized, but every water pump is adjacent to a water square. An alternative that I haven't 
explored in this city is to build the water pumps on top of the 3x3 power plant blocks. These water pumps are adjacent to water on eight sides, and therefore produce a substantial amount of water on land that's otherwise wasted. The only disadvantage is that the dams make it difficult to run water pipes to the top of these 3x3 blocks.

General comments -

	I placed both the power plants and the waterworks in between the industrial and the residential zones of the city. Since they aren't populated, they served as pollution buffers.

	I didn't connect the city to its neighbors at all. I always found that when I did so, the other cities grew much faster than mine, and I always wanted to be the biggest city on the block.

	You'll notice that the main part of the city is located on one shore and another part of the city is across the river. I built across the river in such a way that this part is almost self-sustaining. Aside from the airport and seaport, everything is on both sides of the river. You really don't even need to build a bridge if you do it right.

	I never got around to building the amenities, like the mayor's house or the city hall. Put them in if you want.

