What do you mean by “alternative?” If you are looking for a free alternative, there is LinCity NG which has a Windows port. Sid Meier’s Civilization is a fantastic game that allows you to “build a civilization and so on.”
Transport Tycoon, Locomotion, and their open source clones OpenTTD and Simutrans are fun SimCity-like games, even though you have little control over the building of the civilization.