What do you build in placeholder cities?

I am used to playing tall but thinking of playing wider, plus trimming the buildings in my tall cities.

If you are building a city solely to control a resource, make a trade route etc., what will you always build?

What buildings do you tend to exclude in your tall cities?

Actually you do need just about every standard building in a tall empire because the main point is the national wonders which require 100%, so it also means those same exact building in the same exact order.

You can however sell barracks after constructing National Epic in the cities you won't build military units to eliminate that maintenance cost. (Related is that only cities building units need Armory)

Playing tall (if your capital has a large edge over your other cities in population) you can sell police stations & constables outside the capital after constructing NIA to eliminate maintenace costs.

If you aren't going cultural victory, you can skip hotels entirely.

Cities that will never see combat don't need city walls etc. (but this has no maintenance anyway)

Unless you can't get AL from other means, you won't need Recycling Centers.

Cities should have a significant food per turn surplus to make Medical Center worth while.

If you have a coastal city in your empire, you can skip Caravansary since this case the external sea routes will provide more gold than land routes.

A city that's coastal that doesn't have any sea resources within 3 hexes can skip Lighthouse. (And unless needed for city connection or used for an external sea route can also skip Harbor)