I'd like to see that as well. As a Dutchy I'd love to see an Amsterdam themed world that has both the beautiful old houses and monuments, as well as the urban decay, little shabby "coffeeshops" and red-light district. I'd also love to see a Berlin themed world or London (there's one I know of, but I'm not sure my computer could handle it).

If you'd also go for a more Mediterranean city, you're in luck. There's a world based on Barcelona, and it has both the old and new parts of the city. It does still look a bit too clean, but otherwise great. (I haven't played it myself, so I'm not sure how well it functions in game) http://modthesims.info/d/553749/barcelona.html

Nah. No thanks. Amsterdam is another one of those overrated fairy tale cities with the cutesy side streets and corner cafés and old merchant houses or whatever. In Amsterdam I personally like the bits between Centraal and Waterlooplein that got knocked down when they built the metro. There's a trail of dense, slightly gritty apartment buildings from the 70s and 80s there that represents Dutch cities better than any collection of canals and fancy gables ever could.

True, Amsterdam has a lot of cutesy touristy streets, but also quite a lot that are busy, stink and have lots of ugly shopfronts. But most of the buildings in the downtown area are indeed quite old. If you want mostly post-war buildings, with some urban decay etc. Rotterdam would probably do better as inspiration for such a sims 3 world, or maybe Eindhoven (not sure about that one, haven't been there often).

Also, since you mentioned the evil-looking city hall of Bieleveld, I'd say the building of Radio Kootwijk would also look great in a (slightly less modern) dystopia. It's in the art-deco style, but has an almost brutalist, imposing feel to it.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned Roseward. Zombie apocalypse type world. It's a very interesting, grungy sort of place. https://nigalkins.tumblr.com/post/5...alypse-world-by

A few more "on the grungy side" worlds - http://nowa2000.de/sims-3-world/sim...nightmare-city/ - http://mysims3blog.blogspot.com/201...y-evincryg.html - https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/di...dustrial-hub/p1 - There are some who really love this world - https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/di...-the-desert-sun

I have all of the above downloaded.

One can change the look of any world/lot by adding and/or changing patterns and objects....but you knew that

I'm currently playing my apocalypse challenge in Sunset Valley2 and it's pregressed to the spring of 1526 with my settlers about to get moved into their second home to start building in town.It needs a graveyard soon.

I dunno if it's been mentioned in this thread because I didn't read the whole thing, but my favorite custom world is FagerSims's Enekjaer Island. I use the version updated for IP here because I like the whole scuba diving thing. The things I like:

-Smallish size. Medium-size map, which is what I prefer.
-The lots are mostly clustered together, which I prefer because I don't like it when it takes forever for Sims to go to and fro. But there are also some nice outlying lots for the loner-types, the rich ones, and the horsey/agricultural folks.
-Creative use of rabbithole rugs on nicely-built/decorated community lots. There's only one "basement rabbithole," the bistro. I don't generally like those, but this one I can tolerate. Especially because I don't often use the bistro anyway.
-The houses are cute. Most of them have more than one bedroom, but they're not too big for a single or a childless pair. But if a childless pair living in even the tiny 1-bed lot has an oops I don't feel like I'll HAVE to move them to a new lot right away because it's not too small/cramped to accommodate a crib, so at least I've got until oops-kid becomes a child to get them moved.
-The horse facilities are nice, which is good because I like to have at least one horse-owner in my populations.
-The dive spots, as mentioned. There are three of them. And also the fact that everything's navigable by houseboat.
-A good number of spawners. Not so many that it makes it too easy to find too much stuff that earns too much money, but enough that the gatherer-types are happy.
-Few routing issues. The only one I've had is that there are a few houses that are fake rowhouses, and sometimes a Sim will get stuck in the part that's fake. I fixed this just by locking some doors.
-The color palette of the whole thing. It's very green but also kind of dreary (befitting a northern island) but yet the "downtown" always feels cheerful. But at the same time, my brooding loner-dude who writes depressing novels for a living feels at home and happy in his dreary little house away from everyone. It definitely feels like the North Sea/Baltic, as it's intended to, but I think if you wanted to, you could change the trees and other landscaping to something better suited to warmer climates, change the lighting, and set it to summer all the time, and boom, you'd have a tropical paradise.

So yeah. I stabbed at lots of custom worlds of various sizes to figure out my preferences, and that's the one I keep going back to.