So I'm sure everyone knows about the Making realistic cities wiki article. It's quite a useful article, but I find I have a hard time making it useful.
The biggest thing that I have a hard time with is the choosing of a model city. I'm not wanting to make a city now, I want to make a small little town. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more small towns in the real world than there are large cities, and finding a good one to use as a model city seems... impractical, if not just impossible.
My plans for the town I'm working on right now (see location) is to make it a little beachside resort town, with hotels and the like near the coast. There's already some roads there, but what I'm having trouble with is knowing how to expand those roads. Also, probably the biggest thing I struggle with, as I imagine is true with many new users, is scale. Knowing how far apart roads should be is not something that comes easily to me by any extent.
Another thing that's difficult for me, that kind of goes along with the previous things, is "zoning," for lack of a better word. I don't know what areas should be commercial, what should be residential, what should be industrial (if any), etc. The only thing I really know is that I want some hotels on the roads closest to the coast. The reason why this is a problem to me is that knowing what's going to go where affects road spacing. Residential areas are most likely going to have shorter distances between roads than a commercial area, but by how much? I have no idea how big each of these areas need to be or the road spacing for them.
I would post something like this in the forum, but I can't, so... sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯