Big buildings in 1901?! Yes, it is kind of pushy, but they do look like this in SC3000... Just count how many floors...
Once a technical breakthrough, when it debuted some unusual artificial intelligence techniques, the Simcity series arrives to its 3000 release, trying to deliver more than just better graphics. In fact, the graphics issue is kind of a failure with SC3000, since the programmers didn't deliver total freedom: you can only rotate the city in multiples of 90 degrees... it is said that the miss was because of the imposed deadline. Despite the rotation limits, of course SC3000 is beautiful, full of very different buildings that really contribute to the feeling, that you are in charge of a true city.
In SC3000 you have more worries than ever, and some of them were very much expectable: ecology now plays a significant role, and, for example, you'll have to arrange terrains where to dump garbage. For the casual player, the biggest novelty is the possibility to negotiate with neighbor cities: you can buy / sell water, power and garbage! Beware with your deals.
Even when playing in the "normal" difficulty level, starting with +20000 USD bank account, it is almost impossible NOT to get a loan. There are many strategy guides selling for SC3000, but it seems to me that the most obvious tip is "don't you risk it all for a fast start!", meaning, that you'd better not borrow much money, if you want your city to be profitable... sometime in the distant future.
SC3000 is really hard. I remember building a 999999 habitants city in SC2000, that was self-providing and had no crime, almost no pollution, etc... Now, despite having played no more than 1 hour, I simply couldn't avoid a loan.
Check these pages for my SC3000 cities!