I've been playing it a lot lately. It is the most difficult, so long as you abstain from playing "missions" and don't install mods. But if you play the missions

I've been playing it a lot lately. It is the most difficult, so long as you abstain from playing "missions" and don't install mods. But if you play the missions it becomes very easy. And the most popular gameplay mod is a mod to make the transit system easier. Also simcity 4 isn't meant to be a 1:1 mapping from game to real city anyway. Most buildings in simcity4 can hold a multiple of what they would contain in real life; it is a model of a city, not a real city, after all. So it stands to reason that they could just cut out the parking lots for aesthetic purposes.