A lot of tips. Thanks!

What has been working for me till now are:

• The city models (Burgess, Hoyt, Ullman/Harris)
• Wikitravel: clear overview of the city districts and a corresponding map.
• Deadlands Noir: again a clear overview of the city districts

What hasn't been working for me is the WoD city descriptions. They do more or less the same. They also try to describe the city districts and neighbourhoods, but somehow it's hard for me to get a clear overview of city just by glancing over the book.

I don't really know what it is. Maybe it's their way of nuancing everything instead of exaggerating the characteristics of each area. Or maybe the unclear layout of the books. They sometimes use section titles for districts, sometimes they use it for neighbourhoods and sometimes they use one section title for for two neighbourhoods at once. Or they use a section title for the local university or the public transportation. It might be my autistic side or whatever, but that drives me nuts.

On the subject of travel-oriented city guides, well, Frommer's is free and while I find it more useful for actual travel planning than campaign planning. But there are usually a few good headings: "neighborhoods in brief" gives you a rough feel of the city's layout, there are notes on services such as communications, transportation and healthcare, and sometimes even a decent historical summary (that should be good enough for anyone playing a resident of the city).