Gameplay:

The player starts with a plot of land – equivalent to a 2-by-2-kilometre (1.2 mi × 1.2 mi) area – along with an interchange exit from a nearby highway, as well as a starting amount of in-game money. The player proceeds to add roads and residential, industrial, and commercial zones and basic services like power, water, and sewage, to encourage residents to move in and supply them with jobs.

As the city grows beyond certain population tiers, the player unlocks new city improvements, including schools, fire stations, police stations, health care facilities and waste management systems, tax and government edicts, mass transit systems, and other features for managing the city. One such feature enables the player to designate parts of their city as districts. Each district can be configured by the player to restrict the types of developments permitted or to enforce specific regulations within the district's bounds, such as only allowing for industrial sectors devoted to agriculture, offering free public transportation to residents of the district to reduce traffic, raising or reducing taxes for the various classes of development, or, with the Green Cities DLC, imposing a toll for fossil-fuel vehicles entering a district while excluding hybrid and electric vehicles, akin to some forms of congestion pricing.