Do Sims like a view?

Solution 1:

Some descriptions of regions in the game refer to land value of sites. There is nothing in the land value dataview to back these descriptions up.

Land value is strictly determined by nearby buildings. There is no land value advantage to living on the coast or on a mountain top.

Solution 2:

This is not a definite answer, but there might be an indication that supports that idea. Chris Schmidt, with a job description of Tuning Designer, writes in the official blog post “Working Up SimCity Wealth”:

Building parks in a neighborhood will spur the development of buildings of that wealth class in a radius around them, and building them in areas with a high natural land value, or overlapping the influence of another park will widen this effect.

Personally, however, I had not seen any difference in-game. On the land value overlay I hadn’t seen any colour difference if the location was a riverside property, or on the hill crest. I can hypothesise that, mayhaps, once the land is developed (see how Schmidt talks about building parks in those areas), it may have higher desirability ceiling, so to speak, but that needs a thorough experimentation, or some sort of confirmation from the developers. And they do not show it on virgin land to make it more challenging.