CITY SERVICES
Tip #1 -- Police and Fire

Police Stations and Fire Stations need to be distributed around your city to lower crime and fight fires.  The layout of where you place police and fire stations is extremely important!

You can see how much area each police station and fire station is covering by clicking on the [Adjust & Review] button, and then on [View Data].  You can then look at the "Crime Data Map" and the "Flammability Data Map".

This is a picture of a Crime Data Map with four police stations.

For a great city, you need to place the Police Stations and the Fire Stations such that every part of your city is covered by these circles.

Here's a couple of things to consider when placing Police Stations and Fire Stations:

1. Placing lots of stations next to each other doesn't do any good (placing police stations next to fire stations is fine, but just don't place police stations close to other police stations, etc.)  Two police stations side-by-side, for example, will have almost identical circles of coverage, so your city isn't actually gaining anything.  Each station costs money to run every month, so the side-by-side police stations don't do anything beneficial but take money away from your funds every month.
     
2. You can adjust the diameter of the circles by adjusting the budgets for police and fire.  Increasing the budgets will make the circles larger; decreasing the budget makes the circles smaller.  You may not want to run the Police Budget up too high, as then the Sims will start complaining about "Police Oppression".  

Jails:

Jails are necessary for your city.  Without enough jails, the city's crime rate will increase.  However, the crime in the vicinity of jails will be higher, so the jails  should be located away from residential zones, and on the edge of the city.

TIP -- The layout of your Police and Fire Stations is worth up to 5 points on the Judges Scoring (item City Layout #2).  Also, a good police station layout and enough jails will help keep your crime rate low, which is worth 2 points on the Computer Score Sheet (item #10). 

There are several ways to check on how your Police and Fire services are doing....

1. Use the [Adjust & Review] button, then [View Data], and look at how the circles overlap your city on the [Crime Data Map] and the [Flammability Data Map] as described above.
     
2. Use the [Query] button and click on a Police Station or a Fire Station.  The "Performance Rating" should be "excellent" or at least "good".  If the performance rating is anything less than that, increase your Police or Fire budgets and/or add more stations.  If the performance rating for a Police Station is "oppressive", decrease the budget and consider changing any ordinances that may have given the police too much power.
     
3. Use the [Query] button and click on a Jail.  The number of "Inmates" should be less than the number of "Cells" and the "Conditions" should be "good" or at least "fair".
     
4. Check with the "Public Safety Advisor" (click on [Meet] to get to the Public Safety Advisor).  She will tell you how your coverage and funding are doing.