The best way is to give them a school, college, museum, library, hospital, firedepartment, and a policestation right away, otherwise your citizens won't be very happy. Just don't spend too much money on those sectors yet.
I don't have Simcity 4 yet, but that won't be for long. If the gameplay is a bit like Simcity 3, you should make room for landfill, and as soon as you have a roadconnection to one of your neighbours, he'll probably offer you to to dump his trash in your landfill, in exchange for cash. The more he brings, the more money you get. Just keep that landfill away from your housing areas.
Another thing you should do, is select parkingfines and legalized gambling. The people with get a little grumopy in the beginning, but that's just like in real life.
