driverdownloads

I have kept an enormous amount of points for this question as I have to cover many aspects of the game in this question.

First how do we make a beach in Simcity 4. I have tried to level the land in many places and have not succeeded in anyway.

Secondly I have never played any of the SimCity games before and this is my first one. I have seen that in the game previews they show rows and rows of residential and commercial towers in the game. The thing is that I have made dense residential towers and dense commercial towers (in separate locations in my city) and the furthest development of my houses have been that they have become into mansions (victorian, stone etc.) How am I supposed to make them develop into those soaring towers?

Thirdly I have seen that all of a sudden some of my houses become black and their wealth reduces. What causes this to happen? I cannot find any mention of this in the manual at all.

Also I have found it a bit tough to raise capital as it seems the only way to do so is by the tax system which when I even hint to increase, I receive 'riots' from my sims.