You'll notice that it took a ridiculous number of Police stations in order to keep crime low in a few areas. Also if you look to the small peninsula on the east side of the map directly to the right of the Police station there are 2 small gray squares, that's my airport. I crashed a plane into it a few times to achieve the non-polluting version of itself. Once it was as small as i could get it without totally losing it, I removed the power lines to avoid any unintentional plane crashes. Despite being horribly mutilated and powerless, it still brings the same required commerce to the city. I also crashed a boat into the seaport and built a tree on top of it to reduce pollution.
Another tip is to leave a lot of park between the outside industrial zones and inner commercial zones so that the commercial zones fully develop. Once they are fully developed the land value will be so high that when you fill the empty park space with industrial zones the commercial buildings wont regress. You'll notice that most of the commercial zones butt right up with industrial zones and still grow into high land value buildings. Also note that I build right to left, so the lower west side commercial buildings are newer, and less developed (with the exception of the top buildings which were built before the industrial revolution). This is a good example of what happens if you build industrial and commercial zones too close together simultaneously. Also fill all your unused space with park. It reduces pollution, increases land value, and decreases available land area to maximize the reception of the landfill gifts. I think I got 9 total.
Im gonna try SimCity 2000 next, but it looks pretty involved. The basic nature of the original SimCity is what I find most charming.
