How to stream a City priority LOD?

[.jayderyu]

There was another discussion about height maps that got to me thinking about this again. What would be the best way to get a GTA like City world working. While maintaining a 1:1 meter ratio(since I would use a physics engine like JBullet).

I've had some thoughts on the matter. Breaking it up into a grid to load, but some objects would have a massive priority. Like massive buildings would still be seen from a far distance. It would make me think that I would have to process to much of the grid at one time. How would I keep all of this spacially related in the JPCT world where the meters would be limited to float.

I'm not saying I'm going to start something like this anytime soon, but this has been mulling in my mind for a few years now.

[EgonOlsen]

GTA4 seems to use simplified meshes in the distance. You can easily spot this, when standing on top of a high building looking down with a sniper rifle...everything looks pretty cheap, even the cars are just moving blocks.