Any tips on how I can build a large city without going bankrupt?
I barely got 5,000 people and then went bankrupt D:
I think the biggest mistake people do is building hospitals, schools, and police stations right from the start. You won't need them for a long time. I usually fill up most of the map with zones before I start adding in basic services (beyond fire protection). Use streets when you can, don't replace them with roads until you need them. Build up the city slowly, after you get a decent amount of income every month then you can afford to start putting in some elementary schools. You don't need high schools or colleges until you're ready to start putting in high tech industry. Cut bus funding so it only covers residential zones and micromanage the funding on all of your civic buildings so they're filled to just below maximum capacity.
Transportation is the single most important thing in the game, health, education, and everything else comes next. If your transit system is inefficient your city won't be able to grow very big. Learn to use the route query tool and the traffic density and delay maps. If a street is red on the delay map, it needs to be upgraded. If it's green, check the congestion map and see if the road is being used at all - if nobody drives on the road get rid of it so you don't have to maintenance on it. If the congestion map shows a road as dark blue on one commute and transparent on another commute that means people are only driving on it to get to work and taking a different route home. Replace it with a one way road and you've doubled its traffic capacity.
