What is missing from this city

[Hand of Evil]

see http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

 

[cuteasaurus]

Depending on the plumbing situation: public restrooms or outhouses.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

What do the “working girls” work out of…?

If it’s a port it should have a wharf area and plenty of the above...

Edit: answered in post 9...

 

[EricNoah]

If you haven't seen the web enhancement for the 3.5 DMG, there's a lot of useful ideas there. The idea is that you can break a city down into neighborhoods, and there are lots of suggestions for various businesses given the nature/wealth of the neighborhood. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20030719a

 

[Warehouse23]

Can't go wrong with a warren/casbah/old-town/shuq. Just take one of your "large building" spaces and describe it as a mess of alley ways, shanties, covered markets, housing, etc., from which strange smells, boistrous sounds, and few souls eminate. Maybe it is a ghetto for refuges from the war, or for the war's scapegoats.

 

[WayneLigon]

A mill, where people can bring grain to have it ground. They then take it to the baker for him to make it into bread and other things.

 

[was]

A courthouse? A lawyer's (barrister) office? A public works office such as city planning or water and sewage?

 

[Conaill]

A river, a port, or at the very least a major trade route.

A river is almost essential, thogh, and it imposes some significant features on the layout of the city.

 

[danbuter]

Warehouses.
Shipyard.
Lighthouse.

 

[Kilmore]

The population was about 13,000 people of various races, but since the war in my world, the population dropped to about 7,000 people.

I would think that a city's population would actually swell during a war, as refugees from the outlying villages and farms moved in to the better defended city. This is, of course assuming that the city doesn't become a dwarven Stalingrad.