I've noticed that whenever I start a new city, and play a family, the game only creates one or two townies at a time, and with my luck, they're teens.

Is there any way to force the creation of new townies or something like that? Also, when does the game know to create another one? When there's a new family, or what?

I think if you use the boolprop cheat and then cltrl-click on the postbox, you can create as many townies as you want.

Alternatively, download the teleporter plus (shrub) from http://www.simlogical.com and you can create your own (better-looking?!) townies - move them onto a lot and then use the shrub to make them townies. I did this to create some elder townies, as the game doesn't provide any and I had quite a few elders who were wanting to re-marry or have one final woo-hoo ...

I'll try the shrub, thanks!