When I was younger I remember creating maps of fake cities. As a child I had no real sense of city/ urban planning, so most of my maps depicted sprawling cities that had everything thing you could think of from 5 professional sports teams to the largest park in the world. Rarely did my maps include places for people to work (like ship yards, factories etc.).
Now I realize that cities and how they developed are really influenced by their narrative. By that I mean: The cities natural landscape, what brought the first settlers, the cities relationship with surrounding neighbors, and the cities history in general. This type of narrative is what really gives a city its structure and shape. Though it is not necessary to create a full narrative/history of an imagery city it important to keep the narrative in mind if you want to create a semi realistic city.
While it can be fun to create large cities that resemble New York or London it can be just as interesting to create a city that is ordinary. I came across a project by Neil Greenberg called "fake Omaha". Greenberg's project is creating a city that is average. Not only did Greenberg hand draw a map of the city, but he created a narrative of the city. Now "Fake Omaha has become a place to test new planning and development ideas. If you interested in urban planning or jsut creating a Realistic fake city I suggest checking out this project.
Links to check out relating to "Fake Omaha"
Interview with Neil Greenberg
An article with examples from Fake Omaha
Official Fake Omaha website
