Of course....
A LOT OF WORK!!!

But seriously its just like any other Isometrics game, just the game play structures is set out differently. User structs a lots to keep up with your data. Also good books to check out are any dealing with Isometrics and/or RTS Real Time Stimulations/Strategy. Also instead of combat focus more on city building. Same for your backgrounds, and just blit a tile to a place on the map for your buildings units etc...

One nice thing about city games is they don't have to run at 60fps to look good,and play good generaly. So you can get away with more layers ect.

Um...I have to argue that last point Zenroth. Ever played SimCity 3000 on a PII-233? It's slow! And it's tiled based. Reviewers recommend a 400mhz for the game. That's quite pathethic.

Does anyone know how to program and/or design city building games like SimCity ir Caeser II>

SimCity3000 runs just fine on my P-200MMX!!!