Start with the resources and unlocks for a medium city without unlock all/infinite money in Cities: Skylines

I'm still really enjoying Cities: Skylines. So once again I want to create a new city. However, that means I have to start with virtually no money and no unlocks, making the first few hours a bit boring.

I could start a new game with the built in 'infinite money' and 'unlock all' mods enabled, but that feels too much like cheating. I want to know how well my city is doing. And there are some cool buildings that I haven't unlocked yet that I would like to earn by making a good city.

Is there any way to get some sort of a kick-start? Say start on a new map but with the resources and unlocks a city with 30k cims would have? One option I thought of would be to take an existing city and bulldoze everything. But that seems extremely tedious.

When you turn on the infinite money mod, the game is still keeping track of how much money you really have under the hood. So while I can't think of any way to directly "boost" a city to a certain level, the closest I can think of is to turn on the infinite money mod, play until you get to the size you like, and then turn it off.

Progression is usually quick enough with infinite money that you really shouldn't need to worry about the unlock all mod if you don't want to "break it" in that way.

Use the general Simcity 4 strategy: Build slums.

In general the biggest factor that will slow your city's development early on will be money. As money comes from taxes which directly correlates with population you get exponential growth. In order to get to a medium-sized city quickly, it's thus important to spend most of your starting money and income on population, e.g. quantity over quality.

Make sure you spend your initial money on as much population as you can. Use the cheapest sources for utilities (coal power plant, minimal amount of water, drain pipe sewage), and don't buy any services you don't need. One fire dept and no police/education should be enough for the starting city. The only other services that are important as soon as they unlock are garbage and cemetery.

If you've got arable land, I suggest you go with farming industry, as it's not as polluting as regular industry so you can mix it with your residential and commercial, which will save on infrastructure cost. Otherwise, surrounding your coal plant with dirty industry will work okay. You may need two or more sets one-way roads to handle the traffic.

Use a cheap road layout like a grid of 2-lane one-way roads.

Take out all of the loans when they become available, and use the money to fund expansion further. In general their interest rates are much lower than the profit you can make by building stuff from this money.

When high density becomes available, upgrade the center area to it.

This kind of playstyle should quickly net you a slum city of the desired size, which is a good starting point to then build whatever you want using the slums as an income source.

Don't know if this is exactly what you are looking for, but a great way to start a city is to start with The Battery. Video on how to do the battery by ConflictNerd

This will really help you start a city without having to wait hours and hours for it to start.