Sand city: An experiment

[Alfar]

Alpha to selection on the buildings layer.
Set the foreground color to black.
Add a new layer, FG color background, name it "Houses bump".
Set the gradient tool to Normal mode, Gradient FG to BG, Reverse (so it's white to black), Shape Shaped (dimpled).
Use the gradient tool on the Houses bump layer.

Set the foreground color to 50% gray.
Add a layer, foreground color background, name it "House roofs".
Bump map the house roofs layer with the Houses bump layer. Azimut 135, elevation 45, depth 65.
Set the House roofs layer to overlay mode.
Make the Houses bump layer invisible.
Duplicate the buildings layer.
Add a layer mask to the buildings copy layer, Transfer the layer's alpha channel.
Fill the buildings copy layer with the Wood #1 pattern
Rename the buildings layer to "House shadows"
Offset the layer 1px in both x and y directions.
Gaussian blur the House shadows layer, size 2px
Set the house shadows layer to multiply mode, opacity 80

You now have houses with roofs and shadows. (Image 6)

The streets at the edges of the city are pretty crummy, I know. I'd probably cut some of it off at some point and introduce a city wall.