After having found my first city I created some upgrades in it. Having done that i frequently visited the town to check on the progression. Thing that struck me as odd was that the city grid was not displayed after the first time. I thought it was due to not pulling any building tasks and that it would come up when I would try to build. But even then I only could place buildings blindly and without knowing how many tiles I would open further out by building.

Odd thing is that after the city upgraded tiles showed up correctly again.