You need districts to win and their value is magnified by the city states. Pingala and Reyna, the governors, are ideally placed in tall cities. There are uses for tall cities. Even the governor Llang helps a tall city because of the extra housing he can provide, and he can generate culture from city parks. Occasionally you will see an area that has plenty of food, water, and ideal terrain for Llang, but I don't use him much for an inland tall city. I like him for a tall coastal city. Once you get the seaport, the coastal tiles are worth a lot of money.
More often, I think you will occasionally see an opportunity for a tall start. Suppose it is a grassy area and has some high food tiles and you can get a few amenities early on in your capitol. Then you could decide to grow that city, go to craftsman and speed up builders an instead of expanding right away, try to raise your population so that you can claim land around your capitol through loyal pressure.
Look at the abilities of the leaders and civilizations. Some of them have unique improvements that provide housing. These civilizations can go tall earlier and easier if the improvements come early. Poundmaker, for instance.
When you are trying to claim space in the early game, pay attention to locations that are good for tall cities. Sometimes you might settle right on a high food tile and immediately work another high food tile to quickly claim space. Then you can put Pingala in there.
Remember you can have a level 4 governor pretty early if you know which one you want already. All you need is your government plaza built and the first government building which you get at political science. You can get a level 2 governor quickly by rushing state workforce and building the government plaza immediately. That can give you a level 2 Pingala, with researcher or connoisseur.
