note: left = north, right = south
alright so i finally bought the game and my first city is a huge mess:
1. half my city is in danger of flooding and i had to raise the terrain into an earthen dam because i was producing so much sewage
2. all my powerplants are safeguarded from said flooding by me building a 10 meter tall canal wall around them
3. it took me a really long time to realize the north half of my city was completely disconnected from the south half of the city. then it took me a bit longer to figure out how to build elevated crossings. of course since there's only 4 lanes connecting two halves of the city, it immediately became super congested
4. built bus stations, lost a lot of money. built taxi stands, lost even more money. then i built a metro system with 3 stops which goes between the north and south parts of the city. it's ridiculously popular and manages to break even.
5. giving my health department a higher budget meant my cemetarys could handle 10 deaths at a time instead of just 3. that helped a lot
6. the north half of my city is dense and high-tech. the south half -- the original half, is pretty shitty if i do say so myself. actually i'm pretty sure half of the businesses in south-city shut down after i built office buildings and educated everyone
7. there is literally like 8 elementary schools right next to each other in north city
8. somehow managed to dry up two entire rivers while trying to pump enough water into my city
