a lot of the barber shops, beauty parlors etc are for customizing your character beyond the first screen and then grocery store is for the life sim element

Okay, then put those on your list.

i got like a list but my issue is kinda creating boroughs and then putting districts in them and deciding which buildings should go where

I would suggest approaching this as an organic problem solving task, and start with an empty trial landscape.

Build tools within your code base to let you 'paint things' while moving around in a stripped down version of your final project. Begin at a starting point, and expand out from there with various tasks in hand.

Take up your list of buildings and interaction types you want within your game, and then work through that list while trying to think as a player in various situations.

- You're at your 'house' or starting point, and now you want to get to the supermarket. Start traveling and laying down road markers, then place your supermarket somewhere that feels good.

- Where do you go from supermarket? Maybe you'll go find some other store, or an objective site. Look around your world, and decide where to put it.

- Keep things flexible. Keep moving around and placing 'sites of interest', and then modify roads to be more interesting but logical.

- Start to build up districts. Find things that don't work or feel awkward, and fix them.

Keep going over things and build up your world over time. Probably best to keep things as fairly vague placeholder building designs. Simple boxes with signs. Maybe build a tool to let you 'sketch' designs onto a texture in real time if you want to be able to have distinct and custom buildings. Fill in other spots with more generic buildings that can be churned out with minor adjustments.

I would suggest approaching this as an organic problem solving task, and start with an empty trial landscape.

Build tools within your code base to let you 'paint things' while moving around in a stripped down version of your final project. Begin at a starting point, and expand out from there with various tasks in hand.

Take up your list of buildings and interaction types you want within your game, and then work through that list while trying to think as a player in various situations.

- You're at your 'house' or starting point, and now you want to get to the supermarket. Start traveling and laying down road markers, then place your supermarket somewhere that feels good.

- Where do you go from supermarket? Maybe you'll go find some other store, or an objective site. Look around your world, and decide where to put it.

- Keep things flexible. Keep moving around and placing 'sites of interest', and then modify roads to be more interesting but logical.

- Start to build up districts. Find things that don't work or feel awkward, and fix them.

Keep going over things and build up your world over time. Probably best to keep things as fairly vague placeholder building designs. Simple boxes with signs. Maybe build a tool to let you 'sketch' designs onto a texture in real time if you want to be able to have distinct and custom buildings. Fill in other spots with more generic buildings that can be churned out with minor adjustments.

All I've fully decided on for the starting point is when you first enter the city your character is staying with his/her sister and the apartment block is in a area that it's not the poorest area of the city but still has its crime, unemployment etc

i got like a list but my issue is kinda creating boroughs and then putting districts in them and deciding which buildings should go where

Creativity is MADE out of a zilion small decisions where there's no clear reason to decide one way or the other. That's why it can be emotionally exhausting to do creative work, and why it's often better to have teammates to share this part of the work with. But you pretty much have to do it and get it over with. If it help, you can decide that your city as a whole should have some interesting shape, which can double as a logo for your game. The challenge of fitting stuff into that shape will actually make it easier to place things.

Don't get trapped trying to make it perfect. Give it your best shot, and then test it out.

Create a simple procedural generator to build a city.

The city will look like arse and make little logical sense but this is where you get someone with artistic talent to dive in and tidy it up and add character and design choices.

A lot of the design choices are influenced by the missions in your game, if you look at gta or fallout near enough every location has a reason to exist, details that relate to missions.

I suggest creating the missions and character back story before tidying up the procgen as they will heavily influence the design.

Hope this helps!

Create a simple procedural generator to build a city.

The city will look like arse and make little logical sense but this is where you get someone with artistic talent to dive in and tidy it up and add character and design choices.

A lot of the design choices are influenced by the missions in your game, if you look at gta or fallout near enough every location has a reason to exist, details that relate to missions.

I suggest creating the missions and character back story before tidying up the procgen as they will heavily influence the design.

Hope this helps!

procedural generator?

Yes, procedural generator. Create a program which outputs a random city using some defined rules such as "no residential areas near industrial" and "roads follow a grid layout". Those rules are defined by you, but it takes the leg work out of filling the map at the start.

Note that a really good procedural generator could probably make a playable city straight away but that would take an extremely long time to code and test.

Hope this helps!

Yes, procedural generator. Create a program which outputs a random city using some defined rules such as "no residential areas near industrial" and "roads follow a grid layout". Those rules are defined by you, but it takes the leg work out of filling the map at the start.

Note that a really good procedural generator could probably make a playable city straight away but that would take an extremely long time to code and test.

Hope this helps!

not quite sure how to make a procedural generator but i'll look into it

Yes, procedural generator. Create a program which outputs a random city using some defined rules such as "no residential areas near industrial" and "roads follow a grid layout". Those rules are defined by you, but it takes the leg work out of filling the map at the start.

Note that a really good procedural generator could probably make a playable city straight away but that would take an extremely long time to code and test.

Hope this helps!

not quite sure how to make a procedural generator but i'll look into it

i can't find how to do it