I've looked everywhere but I can't find an answer to this. There's a neighborhood map I would like to bring into SC4 and modify for my own use, but I can't figure out how. I tried simply placing the .sc4 file into one of my Regions folders, but it won't show up in the game. Making a city with the same name first didn't help, and neither did making a new region for it. I know how to bring custom neighborhoods into Sims 2, just not the other way around.

Any help please?

Put the map into your Regions/Downloads folder. Create or edit a region with an available small city. Click on the empty small city and choose import. Select the map from your Downloads folder. Note that the name may not match what you expect; because of this, I tend to make sure that there is nothing else in my Downloads folder.

Okay, I tried that but the map isn't showing up. It's the only item in my Downloads folder but when I click Downloads in the game there's nothing there. Same story if I put the file in any of the Regions folders.

The map file needs to go in the Simcity 4 regions download folder. Copy it directly from your sims 2 sc4 terrains folder into the SC4 Regions downloads folder.

Yep, did that. I even downloaded a few maps from here and put them in that folder, but none of them showed up in game.

After putting the map in your Downloads folder, you click on an empty small-sized city in your region. I don't remember the exact wording, but one of the options is to import a city to replace the currently selected city. When you choose that option, you will be asked to select the city from your Regions folder. Just choose the map from your Downloads folder.

If the map doesn't appear, make sure that you are clicking on a small-sized city. Import only shows cities of the appropriate size.

It's also possible that you need to rename the map file to "City - <city name>", so that it matches the names of other cities. However, I seem to remember that it's willing to open files with any name at all.

I thought of another issue: if you have just the base game, you will not be able to open maps created using Rush Hour or Deluxe.

Do you have a link to this map? I'd be happy to take a moment and see whether I can import it into my game.

This might be my issue because I don't have Rush Hour and I've already tried everything else including the renaming. I don't have a link handy to the map, but the one I was interested in is named Riverside and is on this site.

Is this it?
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=442365

I'll take a look and see whether it requires Rush Hour. If it does, I have a technique which will convert the file to base game. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that the process deleted the roads. Would that be interesting to you?

That's the one. I'd love if it could be converted to base game, but if it deletes the roads that kind of defeats the purpose. It's a simple enough map that I'll probably just end up recreating it from scratch and then adding on my modifications.