There's a Tropico game, I think it's Tropico 4, that is very realistic in that you don't need to literally make roads and asphalt all the things, and roads don't need to be car-centered; you just make buildings and people will walk, and you add a road network to make things more efficient, but it isn't required
Also curved roads and buildings don't need to be right besides the road, etc.
Soviet Republic: Workers and Resources has this. It is an incredibly deep city builder and sim with very well modeled systems. The realistic mode requires fuel for vehicles and workers for construction. You don’t simply plop buildings down or define zones that magically fill in.
Also curved roads and buildings don't need to be right besides the road, etc.
Sim City 4 is more like a suburbia simulator imo