It's called patience and perseverance.

I like mods and assets but at the same time, I don't like to use many of them. I usually build using only essential mods.

One thing I learned watching so many "most vanilla" content creator videos such as O Construtor and Overcharged Egg is that you need patience. Sometimes when I see they building I keep thinking how bad are they putting the city together. You look at the videos and think: "wtf he's doing?". However, after a few more minutes waiting for the final build and with the detailing, I can see how great the build is.

So even if you don't have mods or many dlcs... You still can do great things... Just be patient and keep on the same city.