City Showcase

The index of all City Showcases documented on the SC4 Encyclopaedia can be found here

A City Showcase, (also known as a City Journal, or CJ and Mayor's Diary, or MD) is a visual documentation of SimCity 4 players' endeavors in the game. While a City Showcase can take any conceivable form -- a journal of regular updates, a story with a carefully constructed plot, "eye-candy" only -- the foundation is a showcase of the player's game through various media, most commonly images, but also sometimes animations and videos.

Major City Showcase Sites

The following is a list of some of the most popular sites for authors to host their City Showcases. Many authors host their City Showcases on multiple sites, usually with simultaneous updates, to reach a broader audience. Likewise, many authors favor the simplicity of only using one site.

SimCity 4 Devotion

At SimCity 4 Devotion, a City Showcase is referred to as a Mayor's Diary (MD). Mayors Diaries were formerly separated and classified into a hierarchy based on post/view count, but in 2019, the previous hierarchies were folded into a single Mayor's Diaries forum.

There are also auxiliary sections, reserved for specific instances:

• The SC4D Mayors' Diary Hall of Fame is where those Mayors' Diaries that have been determined by the staff and membership to have achieved at the very highest levels are honored. Typically, these MD's have worked their way up through the three ranks above, however this is not a requirement for this special honor. Entrance to the Hall of Fame is instead determined by a rigorous qualification and election process. Once a MD has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, it remains there permanently.
• Inactive MDs have been not been posted in by the author for an extended period, and are deactivated and moved into a special Inactive board. Previously, authors needed to request to have their MDs reactivated, based on moderator approval. This restriction no longer applies--once an Inactive MD is receiving updates again, the SC4D Staff will move it to the active board.
• Of Special Interest This Month (OSITM) was a special section for those MDs that were chosen by the SC4D Staff for a month-long spotlight. These were housed in this OSITM board for a period of one month, then rotate back to the regular forums, based on their post count. More information on this award, as well as a partial list of past winners can be found here. OSITM was later expanded to include custom content creation threads, but was shelved entirely in the mid-2010s.

Likewise, there have been numerous attempts at collecting and publishing statistics about the MDs published at SC4D:

• Ben's Top Ten +10 @ SC4D is a weekly list of Mayor Diaries ranked according to a formula by Benedict. Each week the top ten MDs will be featured with a background image from the number one MD. The count also features a section called the +10 which lists the 11-20th highest ranked MD's of the past week. Additional information may be found here.
• The SC4Devotion Mayor Diary Statistics is a statistical analysis of views/post count of all the active Mayors Diaries on SC4D, and was updated weekly by thundercrack83. It was last published on March 2, 2011. Additional information about can be found here.
• The SC4Devotion Mayor Diary Index was a comprehensive list of all MDs, both active and completed, that have been started at SC4D since the site birth in November 2006. It was last updated on July 1, 2009.

SimForum

At SimForum, a City Showcase is referred to as a Stadtportrait (City Portrait) or Regionsportrait (Region Portrait). Regionsportraits and Stadtportraits are located in the SimCity: Stadtportraits und Wettbewerbe, forum, along with the site's Wettbewerbe (Competitions).

Simtropolis

At Simtropolis, a City Showcase is referred to as a City Journal (CJ), and they can be found in either of two sections:

• The SC4 City Journals forum is the historic location of CJ's, and is used for forum-based CJ's, where each CJ has one unique thread that contains all of its posts and replies. The forum allows sorting options such as "most viewed" or "most replies".
• The City Journals section of the website is a newer format for publishing CJ's.

The CJ section and the CJ Forum run concurrently but separately, and authors may use either place, or both places, to showcase their City Journal. Each section offers various features to the authors and readers, in addition to the different layouts.

There are also auxiliary sections reserved for specific instances:

• The Simtropolis City Journal Hall of Fame is a thread in Simtropolis' City Journal forum that is home to those CJs that have been chosen by the ST community as being of such exemplary quality as to be included in the Hall of Fame. Those CJs in the Hall of Fame are kept there permanently. Additional information can be found here.

Likewise, various people have worked on reviewing and ranking CJ's over the years:

• Best of the Best: Weekly Edition is a weekly roundup of notable CJ's that features a ranking as well as a mosaic of pictures from the winning CJ's. It is maintained by Spursrule14.
• Ben's Top Ten +10: CJ Section and Ben's Top Ten +10 is a weekly list of City Journals ranked according to a formula by Benedict. Each week the top ten CJ's will be featured with a background image from the number one CJ. The Simtropolis version of his rankings contains two separate sets, one for the CJ Forum and one for the CJ Section. The count also features a section called the +10 which lists the 11-20th highest ranked CJ's of the past week. Additional information may be found here.
• The Official City Journal Critics Thread is a thread were a team of designated City Journal reviewers post reviews about various City Journals. A City Journal can be reviewed if the author sends a private message to a reviewer, or has been nominated by another member to be reviewed and approved by the author. Additional information can be found here. The original thread location, containing many of the older reviews, can be found here.
• Phats Hottest CJs is a statistical analysis of the top 10/100 active City Journals on Simtropolis that have over 200 replies. A specific calculation is used to determine a CJ's ranking, and was updated frequently by PhatHead. The top 10 CJ's are always displayed in the updates and some updates feature the top 100 CJs. Phats Hottest CJ's ran from July 2005 to July 2012. Additional information can be found here.

ToutSimCity

At ToutSimCity, the City Showcases are placed in a forum called Vos Villes (Your Cities).

SimCity Polska

At SimCity Polska, the City Showcases were placed in a forum called Państwa.

Other Sites

At the SCJU, SimCity Central, The Planning Pages/SimVision, City Builders, SimSports and SimPeg, a City Showcase was referred to as a City Journal.

At CapitalSimCity, City Showcases are called Diaros (Diaries).

At CSGforums, City Showcases were called Urban Biographies.

At Simphoni, City Showcases were called Stories.

The Sim City - City Journal Index

You can find many City Showcases in The Sim City - City Journal Index.