In neighborhood view, the terrain for Downtown appears to be temperate and grassy. However, in lot view, the terrain outside of the buildable lot area instead appears to be concrete.

This severely clashes with the terrain inside each lot, which is grassy and on some lots even shows plants like shrubs or trees. The videos I've seen that have Downtown gameplay footage also seem to have this problem.

Despite that, I've struggled to find anyone else on the Internet who even brought this problem up, much less offer a solution. I've tried using the "'terrainType Temperate" cheat, but it didn't work even with testingcheatsenabled turned on and after I exited and went back into the Downtown subneighborhood.

Has anyone found a way to change the terrain in Downtown from Concrete to Temperate, with or without SimPE or another external program?

I'm currently using The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection.

I think the terraintype cheat needs to be used in the neighborhood screen

I had a similar problem awhile back.
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=589623

another solution could be a line in userstartup.cheat file. boolprop simpleterrain false

I appreciate the advice about the simpleterrain thing, it made neighborhood view look a lot nicer...but it didn't change the terrain in any way. Neighborhood view is still grassy, and lot view still has drab gray concrete outside the lots.

I read a little more into the terrainType cheat, and apparently it only actually functioned as intended when using the "Desert" keyword: if used, it would change the entire neighborhood to desert like it should. For every other type, it apparently does nothing.

from my understanding the terrainType cheat changes mainly neighborhood's terrain type; lots I take would keep their original terrain type.

the cheat I mentioned; it seems to be mainly for making neighborhood view to match the appearance of its terrain type.

I would like to change a desert downtown to concrete. What is this terrain type cheat and will it achieve this?

neighborhood's terrain:: terrainType [name of neighborhood's terrain paint]
lot's terrain; not sure if such a cheat exists.

Thanks, I will give it a go. I am guessing this will need to be done on each load up.

So none of Mootilda's programs will change it permanently? Hood replace maybe? I've never used the program only know of it.

Any lots created before you use the terraintype cheat keep the old terrain. New lots will have the new terrain.

Well I can use concrete terrain paint inside the lots, it's more the look of the hood.

Is it possible to use an external program to manually change each lot to have new terrain? If so, how?

You can do it in game. Simply in hoodview pick up the lot and put it right back .
Here example pics, I changed Downtown to lush (terrainType Temperate) , 1st pic is how the lot looked before , and last pic is after.
(naturally only works if you can put the lot back, not working with certain lots , roadless or like that )

Edit to add: I choose bad example lot, as that house leaves the hudge hole behind, I had to move the lot elsewhere and level the terrain with cheats before I could move it back.

as far as I recall, the cheat seems to be permanent. Hood Replacer is another option.

=
Oh yea, the Tricou house with the DEEP basement.. I didn't know that if you moved a house with a basement, the basement is left behind. OR - does it just leave a hole, but you can move the house somewhere else & the basement will go with the house?

The basement is part of the house and it will leave a gaping hole if moved elsewhere.

Oh one more thing.. method I described does NOT change the terrain at sidewalks. Only hoodreplace will do that for my knowledge, but if it comes to default Downtown (or any of the 3 UNI) their SC4 file is not in the list of EAxis hoods player can choose

and yes @grammapat , like Jo said , I only ment the hole in terrain, like when you place any non flat lot , it wil change the terrain shape

I apologize for not responding to this earlier, but it worked like a charm for almost all my lots!

The only ones I've had trouble with are the SimBowl Lanes and Han's Trap Door Corp lots. I'm unable to put them back on the ground despite the ground seemingly being flat.

Don't know if this pertains to your problem, but give it a try. Go into your lot. Go to the Terrains in your game, hold down the Control Key while painting a terrain. This will remove terrain painted on the lot and maybe replace it with the terrain that is in the neighborhood. Haven't tried it by changing it with the cheat first, but might work. I had custom terrain paint on a lot and wanted it to match the terrain in the neighborhood and it worked.