Well sorta... right click on the housing to check what they need to upgrade them. I think it goes in this order...
Water (wells or fountains), Food (markets with access to a granary with food), Religion (temples), Pottery (markets with access to a warehouse with pottery), Education (schools)...
Ok I can't be bothered trying to remember. But basically, just have all these things around your housing plots:
Market (best to have one at each end), Theatres (one at each end is best), Temples (2-3 or more is good), Prefecture and Engineer Posts (wherever there's space is what I always go for), Barber, Dentist, Hospital, Amphitheatre, Hospital, Academy, School (one at each end), Library, Forum (once you have a Senate, so you get extra money), Baths, and whatever else I forgot. Those are like the minimum requirements for a real flash district. I always make sure I have those around my housing plots at the bare minimum.
In terms of housing...
CODE
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xx******xx
xx*o**o*xx
xx******xx
xx******xx
xx*o**o*xx
xx******xx
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x = house, * = garden (you can have a medium statue in the middle if you like, that's what I do), o = fountain
That's what I use for my real flash area, otherwise it's just the fountains surrounded by gardens and houses. Be careful of unemployment though, so you have to have tonnes of buildings around the housing areas. It makes the area of housing desireable, and you boost it even more by adding plazas onto the roads around the housing so your houses upgrade faster once the requirements are met. It looks real cool once you have like the whole plot with Villas.
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