jaunty radish
Diagram attached below. I am fully aware that the current game circa late 2023 is not really in a state to introduce huge overhauls to city generation like this, not to mention if current game performance would be able to smoothly handle buildings larger than what currently exists. But something like this would be such a cool thing to see far into the games future. Consider it more wishful thinking than a realistic suggestion.
The main idea is that during city generation, multiple adjacent blocks are chosen at random to become linked together to form a larger building. Each large building can only ever be comprised of two blocks, causing there to be vertical large buildings (far left of the diagram) and horizontal large buildings (far right of the diagram). This is to keep the craziness of the large building shapes down to a minimum to allow for easier generation of interiors. Whether or not large buildings could form could be toggled on/off during city creation. Certain buildings like hotels, and city hall would not be able to become larger buildings for obvious reasons.
The buildings themselves, in practice, would essentially serve the same purpose that apartment buildings do in the current game, just with higher density. They would house around twice the amount of apartments, and twice the amount of business. Security presence would remain roughly the same, with each business handling their own surveillance while a larger central security system surveys the various lobbies. Black markets may not want to stick around to areas with such high foot traffic, and may prefer to stay with the smaller buildings to retain secrecy.
polar plover