If you want you can even make a completely disconnected city and bypass most traffic issues all together because of how supply and demand is fulfilled across the map.
Industrial development only requires a single road connected residential tile to grow off the full city's industrial demand. The same goes for Commercial. Residential will fully develop with just a single commercial tile on its road network.
It is broken in a realistic sense definitely, but it's also why I'll always play it regardless of which realistic transportation city game i'm also playing. I could never abstractly brush-in a city like I can in SC2k.