Tutorials/Building a metropolis

A metropolis is a large city with many tall buildings and people. You will probably want flat land to start off with. There are seeds for flat land in Default mode, but use superflat if you want a bigger city. However, you can use mods or plugins such as Worldedit or MCedit to clear land, or you can use a custom superflat preset to build your city in. It is recommended that you use creative mode to build your metropolis.

So where do you start? That's up to you!

-Note-

1. When you are finished, you should upload your world to a server, as many of the suggestions are meant for multiplayer.

2. The wiki can only help you build, not build for you. Come up with your own ideas along with those on the page to create an amazing city.

3. Please keep the Buildings list in alphabetical order!

Getting started
Before you can build your city, you'll need to find a spot to build it. In a forest or some flat land with trees if probably a good place to build. For some of the suggestions on the list, you'll need a river, or even an ocean to build, so building near water is always a good idea.

To start your city, you'll need to go to your selected building place and start building. Any sort of building will work, but you'll probably want to make it the center of your city, so keep this in mind while you build it.

Recommended Materials
There's are a few different blocks recommended for use in buildings:


 * Any stone materials


 * Iron Blocks


 * Wool (All Colors)


 * Wood (House/Building interiors)


 * Wood logs (logs for supports)


 * Glass or Glass Panes


 * Stone Slabs


 * Unused Double Slab (with smooth side-faces)


 * Nether Quartz blocks


 * Bedrock or Obsidian (place between two walls of blocks for extra protection.)


 * Bright blocks such as diamond, emerald, lapis lazuli, gold, glowstone or/especially redstone blocks should be used, but used sparingly, and only when an excessively bright and shiny point is needed.

Using "punch blocks" such as these to large major areas of a structure can look blindingly overdone, and still makes it look like an inflatable structure. Always put light near these blocks for nicer appearance, diamonds should sparkle, gold should glisten, redstone should glow.

Building Up
Now you have the start of your town. Did you make it a big fancy building? Or a small house? The suggestions list can help you if you aren't satisfied.

It is time to turn your building into a city. Depending on the size of your central building, this could take a long time, or be pretty fast. If you have a very large central building, make the others around the same size (but not too big.) If you have a small central building, consider taking off the roof and adding more floors on top. You'll need a few buildings for people to live in. If you plan on making a very big city, you'll need to make a lot of housing. This will probably be the most time consuming part of your city.

Residential Zone
To get a nice, large, yet organized residential area, do this:

1. Build a long (about 30-200 blocks) road coming from each direction out of your central building. Build the road out of any material. Here's some recommendations: Cobblestone, Obsidian, Gravel, or Stone. If your city is in the Nether you can use Nether Brick too.

2. Now add more roads branching off of them, with spaces between 8-20 blocks between each branch-off.

3. In the space left, build houses on each side of the road.

Commercial Zone
Now that you have a place for people to live, check that everything is in order, and then begin.

1. Continue the road for at least another 30 blocks.

2. Place a marker on the road, and continue extending it for about 50 blocks.

3. Once you have done this, start branching off from the side of the marker that is farther away from the residential zone. Start building stores, restaurants, and other services and stores.

4. General advice: Many commercial enterprises are associated with trade, if the city is ancient to medieval, this is especially true.

Industrial Zone
1. Extend the road the same way you did for the Commercial Zone.

2. Branch off, but not as often, and make factories and other buildings.

3. General advice: Nobody likes to have a house with an uncluttered view of a smog-belching factory, a nuclear-waste treatment plant, a bark-dust manufacturer, a coal-fired power-plant, a quarry, a giant steam-powered loom, or anything of that sort. Make sure your industrial Zone is not next to any nicer houses, and preferably none that are owned by those who don't work in the industrial zone.

Rural Zone
1. Extend the road the same way you did for the Commercial Zone.

2. Grow a farm that suits your place.

3. Build a house that suits your style.

4. Add some extras to your house.

5. At the very end of the road, build farms.

Urban Zone
A large space with tall buildings, and companies rich. Here are the companies.

1 - Make a Great Road.

2 - Make ramifications for tall buildings.

3 - Make Skyscraper with offices.

Suggestions
Here's some ideas to get you started on your city!

City Types

 * Atlantis: Make a city on the ocean floor with nothing separating your city from the water! However, you and all of your inhabitants will have to be on creative mode, as if they are on survival, hardcore, or adventure mode, they will drown. Make buildings out of sponges, diamond blocks, gold blocks, and/or glass blocks, put cauldrons on the floor and fill them up for a water floor, and use iron doors to get in the buildings!


 * Beanstalk: This city is a combination of a sky city and a vertical city. First, build a very tall tower completely out of leaves or green wool (or both). Use vines to get up, and add buildings sticking out of the tower. Once you get above layer 50 (the cloud layer), change your buildings materials from leaves/green wool to normal wool or snow. You can make the buildings out of either wool/snow or wooden planks and stone (normal building materials). You can even build an ENORMOUS capital and spawn giant to run the city. If you do spawn a giant for your mayor, also get a civilian of your city to be an offering; that is, they are fed to the giant.


 * Big Boomer: Build your City out of TNT (apart from light sources. They don't have to be made of TNT) and make the whole population of your city creepers, Ghasts and Blazes. Don't let griefers get it!


 * Big Rooms: Enclose your city in a big room, so it would be a gargantuan room with four huge rooms inside it, one for Industrial, one for Commercial, one for Residential, and finally one for other stuff. They would then contain smaller rooms, with finally house - sized rooms.


 * Castle: Build a castle in your town and surround the whole city with a big stone wall.


 * City of Green: Make roads out of green wool, buildings out of emerald blocks, melon, cactus, and sugar cane farms, and make your whole population creepers, zombies, and if you have mods to let you do this, green-robed villagers.


 * Cliff: Carve your city out of a cliff, or build it hanging from an mountain overhang.


 * Crafty: Make your city out of different colored wool, iron blocks, diamond blocks, huge mushrooms, and other creative materials. Make the city hall of your city out of the most creative materials you can think of. If you want, you could make a Nether Portal a door for the city hall, and you can make your city hall in the Nether.Be careful in 1.4, as now mobs can travel through portals and make a bad mess!


 * Desert Village: Find a desert and put your city in it. Make it out of sandstone and use irrigation to make farms. Also add a Mosque and some palm trees made out of jungle wood and leaves.

Build out of redstone blocks and use iron doors. Also use daylight sensors.
 * Electric City: Nothing but Redstone


 * End City: Build your city in the End, and make it out of End Stone and Obsidian. Use ender chests for storage. Make sure to kill the Ender Dragon first.


 * Futuristic Skyscraper All-In-One: Best for any biome, just need place for pillars. Preferred for creative. A massive, costing... and perhaps ugly structure. If you want your inhabitants to feel like being sheltered or compressed together, this is the best solution. It's designed as a heavy skyscraper with many districts and zone scattered trough it. You can build it of any form - Just remember to be futuristic and realistic. It can be a real maze with multiple layers and floating parts.. or a simple big prism with many corridors. Try to make it feel as if a nuclear disaster fell on the world and the ground-level towns are infected by zombies and that the toxic air obliterated the open-air districts. Your "roads" may be accessible by walking, and may be built with glass cover. They pass trough plazas like some kind of highroads. They give rapid access to certain parts of the skyscraper because it is divided by many areas. You can have some layers, some "zones" restrictions and much more. Remember to have solid, hard pillars made with obsidian or iron blocks to sustain your maze of hallways protuberances. The pieces may be linked together by growing onto sides of roads. Here are examples of layers or "zones" :
 * Level 0 to 4 = Death zone. Sas to the outside. Everything, except authorized military patrols with radiation suits,(Armor of your choice.) will be flagged an infected entity and will be killed.
 * Levels 5 to 22 = Military zones. Access restricted for armed soldiers or highly authorized federal agents, scientists, test subjects or politicians.
 * Levels 23 to 64 = Heavy Industrial zones. Big factories with high polluting. Laboratories. Sewers. Redstone power lines.
 * Levels 65 to 80 = Poor zones. Low value housing. Low value pawn shops. High crime areas. Very populated zone. Army outposts.
 * Levels 81 to 100 = Mid zones. Lots of basic apartments. Individual homes (3 peoples or more). etc. ...
 * Think about a futuristic city built in one huge building with floating parts, all these linked together. Try combining with Ruins or Steam punk city type for best effect. Note* this doesn't HAVE to have 100 levels, this is just an example.


 * Giant Village: Make an NPC Village or find one and expand it into a sprawling metropolis inhabited by countless Villagers. Bring plenty of Villager Spawn Eggs.


 * Hidden Volcano City: Make a volcano with a city hidden inside it. Have a hidden button which causes an entrance to appear. Have a button that you can press to have lava drip down the sides (make sure you have a way to remove and restore it!)


 * Igloo Village: Make a village out of snow. Ice can also be used, but it will melt in light. Make all of the buildings dome-shaped, and place snow golems around the village for protection. This is a very easy village to build and gather resources for, but it is vulnerable to mobs.


 * Invisible City: Make everything in your city made of glass blocks, glass panes, and/or ice, with no doors for your buildings. However, leave the ground grass, snow, or whatever block it already is. Building an invisible city is pretty risky though, as you can't use any lights, so zombies, skeletons, creepers, etc. can spawn in your city.


 * Jungle Tree: Build your city in houses that wrap around the trunks of the tall trees. Use wooden bridges with wooden fences to get from building to building, or use minecarts on wooden bridges to get around the city if you want a more modern look.It can be hard making a path up the trees in survival.


 * Magic City: Make every building in your city have at least 1 brewing stand, 1 cauldron, and 1 enchantment table, and make stores in magic cities only sell potions, potion ingredients, enchantment tables, brewing stands, cauldrons, enchanted armor, bottles o' enchanting, and ender chests. Also, place ender chests instead of regular chests.Use witches for inhabitants on singleplayer for fun, but they will kill you on survival.


 * Maze: Make your city a maze: that is, make it hard to go through without getting lost. Make your city hall/capital in the middle of your maze city.


 * Medieval: A town with medieval architecture, a large castle, Kings, Knights, Witches, taverns, stables, etc..


 * Monster Village: Make a village out of bedrock, obsidian, monster-egg and other creepy stuff, with LOTS of monsters. If you have mods, make spawners hidden in "tombs" and have the difficulty on hard. Definitely a creative-mode city to build. Be creative and make stuff like huge haunted houses, mob farms and mob arenas


 * Mushroom: Build your city like treetop, except use huge mushrooms instead of jungle trees. Difficult to build, but worth it.


 * Nether City: Build your city in the Nether, and make it out of Nether Brick, Soul Sand, and Netherrack.


 * Pumpkin Town: Make roads, buildings, and "stairs" out of pumpkins, use jack 'o' lanterns for lighting, and wear pumpkins for helmets. The only farms you can have in a pumpkin city are (obviously) pumpkin farms. Have iron golems and snow golems scattered throughout your city.


 * Robot City: Make a futuristic city out of Iron blocks and fill it with Iron Golems and redstone mechanisms to make a mechanized robo-city.


 * Rough City:Your city would have a nice, big and rich place in the middle where people can get anything they want for much pretty free. The rich part of town would have a high wall protecting it. The rest of the city would be for the poor. It's inhabitants work very hard and would be kept under close guard. You could even have walls around this part of the city to keep people from running away.


 * Ruins: Make the ruins of a once great city and add small shelters scattered around the city Keep only the shelters lit and keep the rest of the city dark so that hostile mobs will spawn. Use TNT to put holes in streets and buildings to make it seem like they are falling apart. place chests around town and put weapons and valuable items inside pretend that the players are the only survivors in the city and you must scavenge food to keep your hunger bar up fight off any monsters that assault your base and other things keep the difficulty set to hard to keep it realistic.


 * Sky: Build your city in the sky. Use snow or wool for buildings and use glass for the street. You can build the ground out of white blocks to look like clouds, or actually build it at cloud level.


 * Space: Build your city at layer 200 and make the roads obsidian and the buildings iron blocks and stone slabs. Add a lot of redstone circuits to your city. You can also add wormholes (Nether Portals) and lasers (flowing lava) to your city. To make it more space-like, you can surround your city in black wool. Go through at least one of your "wormholes" into the Nether, and then expand your city into the Nether! It will look like space at night, as because of a glitch the sun will appear opposite the moon! Fortunately, Mojang doesn't want to remove it. You can also use minecarts, rails, powered rails, detector rails, cobwebs and command blocks so it can stay night time.


 * Steampunk: Make a flying city which is "supported" by giant fans, use lots of Iron Blocks and have factories with Cobwebs coming out chimneys for smoke.


 * Town of Food: Make a city out of food! Build out of melons and pumpkins, and grow sugarcane. Cocoa plants make good stairs, and use jack o lanterns for lighting (they aren't food but they are pumpkins!) Cake can be used for the floor! Easiest in creative mode.


 * Twin Cities: Have two cities next to each other. They could be deadly enemies, or a city where the rich live and one where the poor live.


 * Underground: Build your city in a cave and hang glowstone from the roof for lights.


 * Underwater: Build your city in a giant underwater glass dome.(Not recommended for people just starting out building cities.)


 * Venice: Make your city have canals of water (or lava) for roads. Add bridges as well. Boats will be used for transportation, but don't use boats in lava, or else they will burn up!


 * Vertical: Build a huge tower out of any material you want. Then, use ladders to travel across the city and make the buildings stick out of the tower. Make this tower very tall and wide.


 * Void: Create a superflat world with only one layer of block. Build a tall structure and then blow up the ground, exposing the void. Then use the tall structure to build blocks off of and make an awesome Void city!

Transportation
You need a method of transportation for your city to get around. Here are some ideas:
 * Boats: If your metropolis spread across islands, then build a boat network. Have harbors at every island and make wool pillars in the water (buoys) with signs directing people to other harbors. You can also have canals, but these might get in the way of your


 * Minecart: You can make a subway or overground railway to get people around. See Tutorials/Train Station for more information. Set up ticket booths and charge people, allowing


 * Pigs: After the 12w36a snapshot or above you can control pigs using carrots on a stick so you could have like a car system. You could add "gas" stations selling carrots on sticks.


 * Teleports: With the addition of Command Blocks, you can now create redstone circuits which activate console commands. Build "stations" with Command Blocks in them, which have the command " /tp @p  " to teleport the nearest player to the Command Block to the specified co-ordinates.


 * Walking: The most common way is by walking, so build nice wide roads out of stone and pavements out of stone slabs.

Buildings

 * Airport Build an airport and add a runway to "fly" planes off of.


 * Arcade Build a building and make the walls out of colorful blocks and fill it with fake games made of iron, paintings, and signs.


 * Arena A player arena and a mob arena in one! You can make it look nice-ish on the outside, but the inside should be bedrock. Have torches and glowstone, and mob-dispensers for the mob arena and have plenty of temporary weapons for rent in the "arena store" or whatever you want to call it. Be creative.


 * Army Outpost A place where your army is held until they go to war. It may be built out of something strong to keep your army safe. You may keep armor in it, as long as weapons and beds are inside for the army.


 * Auditorium A place for people to gather and watch something, like a concert, speech, etc. It should be able to seat a lot of people. Can be placed in the Town Hall.


 * Apartments/Hotel Build a tall building out of bricks and fill it up with rooms with a single bed and small chest in each. People rent the rooms for whatever you are using as currency and can store their stuff there and sleep.


 * Nether Colony Build a small village in the nether to expand your city beyond the realm of the overworld.'''


 * Bank People go here to store their money. Have a trusted person work there and have vaults deep underground to store their gold and diamonds. Only let the trusted person and the owner of the vault into it. You can use piston doors on the vaults that need a special "key" (Lever)


 * Bookstore/Library Fill a shop with bookshelves. Have a librarian villager work there and have authors write in books and quills to buy/borrow. If the building is a library, fine players for not returning a book on time, or "damaging" it (losing it or destroying it). Have a minecart with chest connected to a minecart train filled with books. Also to make citizens happy, let them write their own books with book and quills.


 * Butcher's Shop make a building with the front having a counter, and in the back have furnaces to cook meat. Have a butcher villager worker their and sell the meat. you could also have a hunting group to go hunt the meat for the butchers, again just an idea.


 * Cake Factory Build a factory that makes cakes. You could connect it to the bakery. Have a chicken, cow, sugar, and wheat farm under it, with automated egg, sugarcane, and wheat harvesting.


 * Casino Have a big fancy building with minecart slot machines (minecart in, random items out) or pig slot machines (using random pig movements.) Make it out of gold and diamonds. Probably not possible in Survival Mode without the worlds largest gold and diamond mine.


 * Cemetery Build a cemetery building. You could use iron bars to make a fence, and an iron door to enter. Then add graves inside. Make tombstones out of stone bricks and dig holes under them. If you have access to a world editing tool, you can place zombie or skeleton spawners under them.


 * Church/Cathedral Have a big building to worship the gods that are known as Mojang, Noch, Creepers,You etc.


 * Dance Lounge Have a multi-colored wool for a dance floor, and use redstone lamps (whatever you want to do with it). You can use obsidian for walls. You'll have a blast!


 * Department Store/Mall Make a huge building with many floors that sell different items. Have a floor for blocks, Armour, food, and mob drops, ETC. for different prices. In a mall, add each store in a separate room.


 * Some stores to add would be:


 * Potions shop – A place where you can buy all kinds of potions.


 * Enchantments shop - A place where you pay someone to enchant your tools/weapons/armor.


 * Food market – A place where you can buy any kind of food.


 * Furniture Shop - A place that sells furniture like tables, (Pistons), chairs (Stairs), chess tables, showers, and that build in your home!


 * Local shop – Sells everything but junk food (cake or cookies, maybe pie). May also sell tools and armor but probably nothing past iron. (may also have a higher price than specialized shops).


 * Clothes shop – This shop only sells armor in it. Dye leather armor and sell it as "designer" armor!


 * Supermarket - A place to sell food, snacks, water buckets, etc..


 * Garden shop – this shop will sell flowers, flowerpots, saplings, bone meal, water buckets, dirt/grass blocks, sand, cactus, nether wart, seeds (all), melon, pumpkin, hoes, red and brown mushrooms, lily pad, vines, sugarcane and any other farming resources that exist.


 * Exotic shop – This shop sells items that are a little more difficult to find such like glowstone, lapis lazuli, blaze rods, ender pearls, gold nuggets, apples, golden apples, music discs and eyes of ender.


 * Forge – Charge people to craft a tool or smelt a block.


 * Building shop – This shop sells common and exotic building materials such as stone, cobblestone, brick blocks, glass, glass panes, netherbrick blocks, obsidian, wood, wood planks and bookshelves.


 * Junk Food shop - A junk food shop will sell cake, cookies, pie, and burgers (steak + 2 bread). Make sure no healthy food goes in!


 * Redstone outlet - A shop which sells all things redstony. Have some examples of redstone going underground like a piston lift, a piston clock or an automatic farm/cobblestone generator.


 * Pharmacy - A shop with potions (but only good ones) and all foods except cake, cookies, rotten flesh, spider eyes, poisonous potatoes and all raw meats and fish.


 * Scrap shop - Where players trade in beaten armor, damaged tools and blocks they have no use for, then the owner sells them to people who can't afford full grade armor.


 * Music shop- Sell rare music discs and jukeboxes for a high price.


 * Pig Racing Stadium-Have a rectangle-shaped arena and have racers who have carrots on sticks.See who can get to the finish first!See the race referee section in the Command Block tutorial,SMP applications section.Players can bet on what pig they think will win and prizes will be given to winning riders and their pigs(some form of money and wheat,respectivly).


 * Pet Shop- Here, you can sell wolves and ocelots. They are sold untamed, and then the buyer can tame them if they want to. You can also fill chests with dog food (rotten flesh and bones) and cat food (raw fish). If you want, you can even sell spawn eggs (Watch out with the hostiles) and golems (iron and snow). Remember to keep the pets in cages, and optionally have a home delivery service. Be careful, as the wild ocelots will despawn.


 * Bakery Have a building dedicated to selling bread, cookies, cake, and pumpkin pie! You can build a giant model of the Minecraft Cake out of colored wool and have the inside be hollow. Fill it up with "shelves" (wooden planks) with signs on them listing what is on them. At the counter, costumers can order cakes, cookies, and bread. Ship cake in from the cake factory.


 * Dog Pound Fill a building with wild wolves in cages and sell them to people. Give them bones until the dog is tamed. Smacking wolves is forbidden and anybody who does will be sent to jail.


 * Dungeon Arena A dungeon that a player goes into to fight hostile mobs and and travel through Nether Portal. You could go into the Nether and slay Nether Mobs and the Wither to find the end of the dungeon, and bunker containing a prize and a portal back to the Overworld. Inspired by Take Em All on in Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. An example of a dungeon is:


 * Room 1: 5 zombies


 * Room 2: 5 skeletons


 * Room 3: 5 hostile wolves


 * Room 4: 3 creepers


 * Room 5: Mini-boss: Enderman


 * Room 6: 3 medium slimes


 * Room 7: 1 large slime


 * Room 8: Mini-boss 2: Spider Jockey


 * Room 9: Resources and Portal


 * Nether Room 1: 5 Zombie Pigmen


 * Nether Room 2: 3 medium Magma Cubes


 * Nether Room 3: 1 large Magma Cube


 * Nether Room 4: 3 Blazes


 * Nether Room 5: 3 Wither Skeletons


 * Nether Room 6: Mini-boss 3: Ghast


 * Nether Room 7: Boss: Wither


 * Nether Room 8: Return Portal


 * Prize Room: Reward for finishing is inside of a chest or dispenser, and the exit.


 * Prize Ideas: Nether Star, Swords (Iron to Diamond), Gold Ingots, etc.


 * During a game, no-one else can play. Make sure to have mobGriefing turned off, or mobs will destroy the dungeon. Learn more at the Zelda wiki.


 * Embassy Make other peoples' voices heard! Build offices that represents another server, a nearby city, or even mobs like testificates, creepers (build walls out of obsidian or they will blow up the rest of your city), or endermen! Also remember to build them next to your city hall.


 * Enderman Art Show Put endermen in a room of blocks they can pickup. After a set amount of days, see how they changed it! Players can bet on certain blocks being moved. Make sure that the endermen are kept in a glass cage, though, or players might look at them and make the police come in! Make the room out of bedrock, as endermen cannot teleport through them, and the glass only 2 blocks high as endermen cannot teleport through blocks that are shorter than them. Also remember that endermen can despawn.


 * Farm Have wheat, melons, pumpkins, and sugar cane growing. Raise and breed cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep. Sell the food and wool you get from the farm for iron and gold. Sell animals for gold.


 * Fire Station Griefing protection is first and last, but your wood constructions need a plan B. Fill a house with water buckets, armor enchanted to fire protection, and minecarts ready to move out in maximum speed. Block 51 must die! As an extra measure, you could have a button in all of the houses to call the fire station, connected with redstone. In the fire station you could have a wall of redstone torches, corresponding to the towns buildings, so when someone presses a fire button, the corresponding torch would turn off. Just an idea.


 * Garden Make a big grassy area in the center of the town full of trees, flowers, and tall grass. Use street lights along a road to keep hostiles from spawning. If you feel creative, constructed a lookout tower with a spiraling staircase up to the top, which has a view of the whole city. You could also add attractions such as caves filled with ores and charge people for a guided tour. Be creative with it, but don't go too far.


 * Harbor Can only be built if your town is near the ocean. It will be useful if your town is spread across several islands. Craft boats and build giant ships. Charge money to rent a canoe or rowboat and charge even more if it breaks.


 * Hardware store Build a big building and fill it up with hardware materials such as wooden planks (in all colors), cobblestone, stone etc. make the shelves high and use ladders to get to them easily. Have many checkouts with people manning them.


 * Highway System Make a highway system in your city! Make exits and entrances in the highway. If your city is a big one, you can make several highway roads around your city and you can have them connected to each other. These can also be used to connect two or more cities.


 * Hospital A place to care for injured players. Free beds and healing potions for everybody!Some players had a bad night, so they need some refreshing. Make a BIG house with a red cross on it, and fill it with beds, healing potions, surgery rooms, and that kind of thing. Hire "doctors" and get them to wear nurse and surgeon skins. You can even sleep in one of the beds there, and you will wake up there after a bad episode!


 * Ice Rink Only possible in creative mode, unless you are willing to spend lots of levels trying to get silk touch on a pickaxe. Place ice on the ground inside of a building and skate around on it. Have contests to see who can skate the fastest or spin the longest. Keep fire, glowstone, and light sources far away from the rink, or it will melt!


 * Inn This is best to be built on creative. It needs a elevator, rooms, bathrooms, a lobby, even some misc. rooms. Make sure that you have some chests, furnaces, a fridge, a crafting table, and mabye even other items.


 * Jail When people break the rules, send them to jail! Build lots of cells inside of a big building and lock people inside. Make sure an admin changes them to Adventure Mode! Bedrock and lava is another great idea!


 * Stadium Have a big stadium where players can compete in sports such as spleef and paintball. Add lots of seating for people can sit and watch.


 * Temple Though it may seem similar to a church, it isn't the same thing. You can make a humungous temple, or a little tiny shrine the size of a sandstone well. You can have an area for training in magic (if appropriate), a way to sacrifice, table, lava, bottomless pit, etc. And make sure the temple makes sense; for instance, put a god of shadows underground,and a god of time and space with things such as end stone and other mysterious things. Gather priests and give them cows and pigs to sacrifice.


 * Theme Park Have a fun place with minecart roller coasters, a haunted house, and a maze.


 * TP Hub: Use Command Blocks with the /tp [coordinates] command to make a TP Hub for fast travel. A cheap alternative to making a massive Minecart railway system.


 * TV Studio Pointless but it gives people something to do such as filming soap operas or winning gold and diamond on a game show. Hire directors, producers, actors and actresses, build TV show sets, have pretend ratings etc. This could provide a lot of fun for players on a server. OR you can have someone be a recorder and download a computer recorder like bandicam and post these "Shows" on youtube.


 * Upgrade Shop A place where people can upgrade their tools or armor for a price that depends on what level of armor your upgrading from.


 * Zoo Try to get one of each mob in a chamber where players can look at them. Be careful with the hostiles as they might despawn or escape and harm players, and make mini-biomes resembling a mob's home.

More Ideas
Any ideas that doesn't fit into the other categories


 * Fireworks Show Use a bunch of redstone, dispensers, and different types of fireworks to make a special firework show!


 * Pest Patrol When annoying mobs invade, call the pest patrol! Remember to include tamed wolves,tamed ocelots, iron and snow golems. Don't forget weapons, TNT, and armor!


 * Holidays Have special days to celebrate. They can be real or fictional, just have fun!


 * Games Build an area where players can play games like:


 * Target Time!' A game where a bow is used to shoot a wool target.
 * Pork Pusher!: A game that includes a big, black, hollow box with a glass pane screen representing a TV. The inside is decorated colorfully. Outside, by the screen, are 3 levers representing joysticks on video game controllers. The levers operate 3 pistons, inside the TV. The player attempts to push a pig around as many times as they can. If the player makes 20 successful pushes, they push a button that drops a cooked pork chop on them. If the player fails, they push a button that opens a pit below them, leading to their death.
 * Wolf-run!: A game where there are wolves. Hit and run and see who can survive the longest. 2+ players.
 * Graveyard: A Graveyard with Spawner's under graves.Hide chests with armor and weapons. 4+ Players.
 * Pig Hunt: Build an arena with pig spawners in the middle and a colored pit at the corners. Players get One wheat and abduct pigs. Can be done with zombies for DEATH!
 * Spleef: Mentioned above.
 * Drop Party: Players are put in a room while the admin drops items like pistons and sugar and lava and nether portal blocks (Random stuff) these can be taken home later.
 * Paintball: Players are put in an arena. They are given bows and arrows then fight but remember winner takes all. There are multiple variations like Cap the Block, Domination, President and Regular.
 * President: A member of both teams is given a leather cap (the "president"), then first team to kill the others "president" wins.
 * Cap the Block: A game where a dirt block is placed in the arena then players have to retrieve the block and place it in their base.
 * Domination: Same as Cap the Block but there are multiple blocks in the arena. The first team to get the most wins.
 * Grand Theft Egg!: Put an Enderdragon egg in a big dungeon with hostile mobs and traps. If a person or team manages to get the egg and back out they win.
 * Pressure-plate Fishing: Put a 3*3 chamber with a hollow tube in the middle. Create multiple of these, and remove the middle walls. Then, put a hole in the front, middle, top section of chamber and cover the tops of the chambers. Wire the pressure plate to redstone. The player uses a fishing rod to try to hit the pressure plate.
 * Puzzle House A series of rooms that require the user to use logic in order to move on to the next room such as a hidden door behind a painting or a code written on signs needed to find the correct sequence of levers to pull. Leave it for someone to figure out. You could also charge people admission and add a time limit. Whoever gets out before the clock stops gets a prize.
 * Maze For fun you could build a giant maze, or a labyrinth filled with zombies and skeletons. Make it as dark as possible with traps and pits. Or a lovely pink one with plenty light. Maybe a hedge maze is of your taste. Possibly a neat, complex forest maze will satisfy your hunger for something to do. Or you can be cruel to your test subjects and use pistons and timed randomizers to make an ever-changing puzzle.
 * Monster Hunter: Make three rooms out of cobblestone (expect the floor) that are connected with iron doors. Then make large windows for each of the rooms. Then add different mobs in each of the rooms. For the first room, add zombies, skeletons, creepers, hostile wolves, spiders, pigs, sheep, slimes, and 1 zombie pigman (the boss of the level). This will be the overworld level, and the floor will be grass, with puddles of water as well. For the next room, add zombie pigmen, blazes, magma cubes, and 1 ghast (the boss of the level). This will be the Nether level, and the floor will be netherrack, with puddles of lava as well. For the final room, add silverfish and 1 Enderman (the boss of this level), as well as a small obsidian pillar with an Ender dragon egg on top. This will be the End level, and the floor will be end stone. To play, you get a bow and try to kill the monsters. However, if you shoot a pig, sheep, or slime in the overworld level, you will lose points. Once you are done playing, you will be able to go in the rooms and collect the mob drops.
 * Trick or Treat: Make a large room with a "town" in it. Inside the buildings there will either be another player which will give you prizes, a villager which you can trade with (via a chest full of emeralds inside the building), or a dangerous mob. The dangerous mobs will either be zombies, skeletons, cave spiders, hostile wolves, silverfish, or blazes. The buildings are made of nether brick, with gravel roads and cobblestone stairs.
 * Super Tamer: Have lots of players get a stack of bones and have them tame as many dogs as they can. They may not want the dogs, so they may kill ones they don't want. Can be done with ocelots for an extra challenge.
 * Abeggtion: It is played in the nether. The goal is to run around stealing dragon eggs (placed by admins) while avoiding lava and ghasts, and navigating floating platforms.
 * Capture the block: Have one chosen player, have a randomly chosen item or block the goal of the game is to get that block and keep it at all costs (if you want you can not tell who has the block and have them try to find the one item/block).


 *  War Minecraft has never been peaceful (unless you play peaceful) and never will be. Build forts, bunkers and wage war against castles full of traps, monsters (creepers are not recommended), other player, and challenges. Build TNT cannons and build an army. Award loyal soldiers with positions like the general.


 *  Weapons License In a peaceful city, players shouldn't be running around murdering people! You can set up a system where anybody holding a weapon without a license is thrown in jail. Set a price and expiration date and only let trusted citizens own them.


 *  Training Make a massive training area that teaches the player every single trick in the book of Minecraft. From splash potion jumping, to sniping with the bow and arrow. If you think that the player is experienced (both in terms of skill and actual XP points) enough, then it is possible you can recruit them for a guard.


 * Nether Access Build a portal and let people get to the Nether. Even better, if it spawns you right next to a Nether fortress, then you can make a tour and block off dead ends. Or just make a netherrack mine. Build a nice nether-style building around the portal so people can easily see where it is. Cannot be made in End or Nether cities, consider "Overworld Access" there.


 * Ghastbusters Gather up some players to go to the nether and fight Ghasts and Blazes. Give them fire resistance potions and enchanted bows and watch the Ghast Tears pile up!


 * Defense Don't let the monsters take over the city! Make sure you have walls around your metropolis. Put cacti on top of the wall to keep spiders out. You can also add archer towers if you want. Just make a 3×3 square on the wall with ladders to get up to them. Add moats with lava for death of your enemies. Just be creative!


 * Races This would be an arena that is long and has seating on the sides(they could be going up like a slope) dig a 1+ block deep canal in the middle and have it at least 5-6 blocks wide. Fill it with water source blocks. Put some turns and obstacles in it and you can have boat races! Or, instead of using water, keep it dry and race pigs.


 * National Park Close off an area of your metropolis and leave it how it is, with forests, caves, NPC Villages, plains, deserts, taigas, tundras, oceans, rivers, temples, abandoned mineshafts, strongholds, dungeons, jungles, etc. Make a Leave No Trace rule here (e.g. if someone builds something, they have to take it down once they are done using it, they have to replace blocks they destroy with the same block, they have to use spawn eggs to replace anything they kill, etc.), and if they do not follow it, they will go to Minecraft prison (which is mentioned above). While constructing your national park, make cabins for guests to stay in, with a few bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, a kitchen, a balcony, etc., and use gravel roads to connect them. If there is a stronghold located within your national park, dig straight down until you get to the stronghold and then add ladders so people can get there. It is also advised to activate the End Portal. National parks can also be made in The Nether, with the same rules as Overworld national parks.


 * Pet Show For both cats and dogs. Have events like cats scaring creepers into a pit, and dogs killing as many mobs as they can. WARNING: The animals might die, so be careful! Have pets enter 1 at a time, and heal them between rounds.


 * Redstone Build weird mechanisms with redstone in your buildings or make areas full of them that makes your city look more advanced. Such as wiring all the buildings so they have electric lighting. Or make a clock tower, or track your resident's movements, or have streetlamps that turn on at night.


 * Building Contests Maybe who can build the best flying machine? Or maybe the best new building for your city? Have judge who will give the winner a prize. The one who wins will also get to keep the building,the losers will have to remove their buildings.


 * Historical District Make this part of your city more historical such as medieval buildings, Victorian buildings, any old fashioned era you can think of! Make sure there's a good few museums around here. You can even go back to the time of the Neanderthals!


 * Interior Design Nobody wants to live in a house without furniture! In every house you build (you should end up building a lot of them) add special furniture. Use pistons or fences with pressure plates for tables, stairs and signs for chairs, and bookshelves to decorate your houses. Try making a computer with an iron block and a painting, plus redstone and a lever to be a mouse.
 * You can click here for more ideas.


 * Sewers A dark, dank line of sewers running through the underbelly of your city. Bats will spawn here, to make it even more realistic. You could even connect the houses and buildings to the sewers.

Roads
Roads are present in virtually every city, but making them look nice is actually more complicated than one might expect.

To start, roads tend to be direct, fast, smoothly curved routes. certainly any road that isn't at least about 7 meters wide shouldn't have 90 degree bends that are intended to be ran without stopping.

Roads also tend not to be steep, in real life, anything over 1/2 block up or down for ever 6 blocks horizontally would be considered moderately steep. Anything more than about 1/2 block up for every 3 blocks horizontally for long sections would be considered very steep, and other than in mountainous terrain, be limited to residential streets.

In Minecraft, terrain tends to vary on a smaller scale than in real life, and be much steeper as well.

Usually, long, wide "highway" type roads are as straight as possible, as cheap as possible, and require the least amount of terraforming possible. If there is a 30-meter-wide circular crater, sweeping around it smoothly is usually better than bridging it.

If there is a tall mountain in the way, going straight up it is not likely to be cheap to make or easy to travel. Go slightly up and around, if there needs to be a route to the top, make it connect to the main road and spiral up the mountain.

There are also multiple scales and types of roads with different qualities.

Dirt/sand/terrain path: Should wind around any obstacle, even small trees. Should be 1-3 blocks wide. Can be any reasonably walk-able steepness (up to 1/2 slope, otherwise, it is more of)

Gravel/partial cobble path: should wind around anything that can't be altered with a shovel or axe in less than a minute, certainly shouldn't bridge anything unnecessarily. Should be 2-3 blocks wide. Can be any reasonably walk-able steepness (up to 1/2 slope)

Cobble/Stone brick path: Should wind around anything that requires more than a small amount of pickaxing to destroy. Should not be connected to any large long bridges, only small stone or wood ones with no extra support needed. Should be 2-3 blocks wide. Can be any reasonably walk-able steepness (up to 1/2 slope)

Cobble/Stone brick path: Should wind around anything that requires more than a small amount of pickaxing to destroy. Should not be connected to any large long bridges, only small stone or wood ones with no extra support needed. Should be 2-3 blocks wide. Can be any reasonably walk-able steepness (up to 1/2 slope, or in some cases, even 1/1 with stairs.)

Small private road of any kind: Should wind around anything that requires more than a small amount of pickaxing to destroy. Should not be connected to any large long bridges, only small stone or wood ones with no extra support needed. Should be 3-5 blocks wide. Can be any reasonably walk-able steepness (up to 1/2 slope, or in some cases, even 1/1 with stairs.)

Small rural gravel or partial-stone road: Should wind around any natural structure or well-established construction. Feel free to cut away absolutely any plant life, but limit pickaxes to flattening hillsides for road to be placed on. Should be 3-7 blocks wide. should generally be under 1/3 slope.

Small rural stone-material road: Should wind around any natural structure or well-established construction. Feel free to gouge out rock-formations, place support-beams, etc as needed. for road to be placed on. Should be 3-7 blocks wide. should generally be under 1/3 slope. But avoid sloping in general as long as it doesn't mean tunneling through mountain-ranges or bridging valleys.

Small downtown street: Keep it as straight as possible, even if terraforming is needed. Keep it as flat as possible, even if terraforming is needed, it may be small, but remember, thousands of people, rickshaws, pigs, horses, cars, chariots, carriages, magic carpets, elephants or pod racers use it daily. Should generally be the equivalent of 1-2 lanes with 2 sidewalks, this could be anywhere from 5-17 blocks wide if sidewalks are included.

Small commuter street: Should be direct, efficient, but cost-effective as well, tunnels and bridges are fine, but only if they are needed. Preferably at most 1/4th slope. Small to large stores can be nearby.

Large downtown street: Terraform any and all hills, this should absolutely be no more than 1/6th slope with very few bumps. Don't put these in on a mountainous city unless they are being supported on columns, they look silly when they are super steep. These should also be fairly straight, and never next to houses. Put large buildings near these.

Large commuter street: Should be direct, efficient, but cost-effective as well, tunnels and bridges are fine, but only if they are needed. Preferably at most 1/4th slope with very few bumps. Medium to large stores can be nearby.

Suburban street: 1-2 lanes equivalent, a small sidewalk or possibly not, purely houses nearby. Can be up to 1/3, or possibly even 1/2 slope. Should do as little earth-moving as possible and doesn't need to be very efficient as a through street. Typically 3-11 blocks wide

Intercity Highway: Curves around things, but avoids sharp curves at all costs. Generally stays flat and direct with no stopping areas. Only becomes steep to go through mountain passes. does not dodge light construction, simply tramples straight through it. Bridges anything but moderate-sized oceans. Typically 15-23 blocks wide, but may be smaller in pre-industrial societies.

Mega-Highway: Goes nearly straight, never exceeds about 1/8th slope, obliterates or bores through anything necessary excluding centers of cities or enemy territory (then wars are fought over its construction) Cities are literally built around it. Typically at least 31 blocks wide, but may be smaller in pre-industrial societies. May literally bridge medium-sized oceans in order to cut down on travel-time. Designed to carry any and every road-travelling land-vehicle made by the society building it. No bridge type or tunnel is too expensive or extravagant for something like this.

Houses
Houses are possibly some of the most important buildings in a city. They house most of its population, and are usually used for social gatherings as well. In war-zones, houses may act as or be mixed with defensive fortifications as well.

Houses are rarely just dwellings with a bed, chest, furnace, table and door. They have multiple rooms, possibly multiple stories, and are often designed to accommodate between two and five times the number of people who are intended to live there for short periods (e.g. as long as they brought their own beds / sleeping bags, there are enough chairs at the tables, etc to support them).

House types
Houses come in several types.

Shack or hut: a small structure meant to barely / almost accommodate the basic needs of one dead-broke family or individual. NPC-village huts and swamp-huts both fit in this category. Lots of land nearby, but rarely does the resident officially "Own" it. Cost (Money): $10

size: 1 story, up to 9 x 9 exterior, 1-3 rooms with multiple purposes each, 65 > meters^2 area. rarely

Cost: labor and dirt, scrap-metal or planks.

Rural house: often big, but made of poor-quality materials, and rarely have much structure above the second story. Cost (Money):$20 size: 1-2 stories, up to 20 x 15 exterior, 1 big bedroom and a lot of small ones, a kitchen, separate dining room, 2+ bathrooms or zero bathrooms for older ones. 150-400 meters^2 area. Huge yard or farm surrounding it.

Cost: lots of wood, a little bit of brick or cobble for a fireplace, generally built for the inhabitants or built for / by their ancestors. residents are poor to moderately wealthy.

Duplex: A two-story house, separated. Each apartment can accommodate 2 people. In short, a two-story mini.

Size: 14X14, kitchen-living room, two bedrooms per floor, and balcony. Cost: Many bricks, wooden planks also, etc. Cost (Money):$40

Suburban house: at least moderate-sized, usually gets a little bit of all mid-quality materials. rarely very unique and often very squashed outside, but comfortable interior with at least 2 bedrooms. Cost (Money): $75

size: 2+ stories, up to 15x15 exterior, usually 100-300 meters^2 area. Very small yard. 2+ bed, 2+ bath

Cost: A moderate to large amount of money. Materials are usually at least partially artificial and property usually comes with a complete home built to be sold to whoever will buy it. Residents are often just below average to very wealthy.

Town-house: usually 3 stories of roughly equal size with essentially no yard. Rarely over 8x10 wide, and placed in rows within 5 feet of each other. As Suburban house but more like 120-240 meters ^2 area. and only poor to just above average residents. Cost (Money):$80

Slum apartment: Never over 60 meters^2 area (external, 45 internal), always single-story. Terrible living conditions, cramped, little to no decoration that isn't purely sentimental. 1-3 rooms, 0-1 bathrooms, 1 bedroom. Only the poor live here. Cost (Money):$5

Average apartment: Apartment with 1-2 bedrooms, 1-2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and at least one other room. Typically 80-150 meter^2 exterior. Cost (Money):$100

Penthouse apartment: Singular or nearly singular nice apartment on the top floor of a high-rise building. Easily over 200 meter^2 exterior with at least 1 bedroom per couple/individual and many additional rooms of all sorts. Anyone who lives here is likely the equivalent of a millionaire. At least. Cost (Money): $350

Big House: A beautiful house with materials rather expensive. It's big, and ideal for people who work for the president and the government. Size: 2 or 3 floors, 1 large kitchen, 1 dining room, a breakfast nook, 2 bathrooms, 1 master bedroom, a large garden, a mini-office and library, two bedrooms and a living room. Cost: Much Quartz, wooden planks, using mini chandeliers, crystal, (much), etc. Cost (Money):$750

Mansion: Any house which is unique and singular within a large area, much larger than necessary to support the people inside, extremely nice, has more area than any conventional home, and has more than 1000 m^2. Only used by nobles, the extreme-rich, and those given them as gifts by kings, politicians, celebrities, etc. Cost (Money):$25.000

Other type of houses that don't fit in these categories: There are many, in fact, countless types that don't fit very well into any category mentioned above, what about towers, tree-houses, mass-living areas, sleep-tubes, house-boats, converted asteroids, cave-homes, continuous mazes of rooms of all types, bridge-homes, general store-homes, gas station-homes, motor-homes, space-module houses, worker barracks, wall-houses, hive-apartments, bunker-houses, manor houses and even more unusual types?

General Block Pallet
It is often strongly advised that, for a specific type of construction, you stick to a specific pallet of block-types. For example, Stone-brick Roofs, brick, birch-plank and/or spruce-plank walls, nether brick details like window-boxing, a lot of jungle leaves. This helps other builders, and yourself, to make creations that "fit" together, instead of a random mix.

Jobs

 * Cashier: The cashier of a store either.


 * Repair: Someone who repairs weapons and tools.


 * Cook: Someone in a restaurant kitchen.


 * Professor: Someone to teach techniques in mining, construction, redstone, etc.


 * Military: Soldiers to defend the city from monsters.


 * Builder: Someone who builds buildings and shops.


 * Store Owner: Someone who bought a field, and is actually a store owner.

Last Note
Whatever you decide, this is your city. Be creative and do whatever you want with it. You can use all the suggestions on this page and come out with a failure, or you can ignore everything and still build the best city Minecraft has ever seen! It's your call, so get building!