The Imperial City is iconic, but should it be redesigned in the future? Perhaps in an expansion or when we eventually return to Cyrodiil in a future game? While it is visually impressive and iconic, it doesn't do the lore justice when it comes to size. The neighborhoods built on bridges would be nice to see. If they needed to, they could easily explain the redesign with all the calamity in the Fourth Era and what is to come. But the question is, should it be redesigned?

I've seen some great alternate designs, most keeping the core design the same, but making it bigger, making the Imperial Island more of an archipelago, creating canols in between the rings for boats. I guess that if Cyrodiil will be scaled larger when we do see it again, a redesign would be necessarry, but how far should they take it? Any design ideas?

Well it should remain the same as it is in Oblivion in my personal opinion

i would like to see it bigger and redesigned as you suggest, however not if it results in the take away of the rest of the game (a larger more detailed city takes up both more space on the disc, as well as more time in development.. as such, it would take away from other potential content)

That could be an issue indeed. If it was an expansion for example and the city was about the size of Solstheim, I think it would be big enough. If Cyrodiil was to be visited again, I would like to see more cities anyways (Sutch for example). The core elements, such as the White-Gold Tower, the basic circular structure could be the same, but instead of a series of rings on an island, a series of rings built upon several smaller islands or just an archipelago in the shape of a ring with an island in the middle would work in my opinion. But no, it must not take away from potential content. You could base a whole DLC expansion in the city, that is the scale I'm looking for.

I would not redesign it radically. What I would do is do is eliminate separate cells inside the city, so that we could walk from one district to the next without having to suffer through loading screens. I would also redesign the districts so that they looked a bit more unique, along the lines of what they did with the city in the Better Cities mod.

I would explode if they made it like in the Pocket Guide. Explode with joy.

Considering a future elder scrolls game is going to be like 1000ish years after oblivion, its very likely we are going to see improvements. As middle of imperial city was kind of broken in oblivion, Its highly likely for them to re-design city to fit Akatosh statue in better way

I agree, and that can be done while still maintaining the imagery of the Wheel which bears such metaphysical and ideological significance.

In fact, I think the best way to handle any revisiting of the Imperial City would be in a Mournholdld like manner, having the City it's self be the only landmas for the expansion.