Upgrading a city is not a matter to be taken lightly; it requires a clear-headed person to undertake the master planning. Therefore, as soon as he made this decision, Rocky immediately got in touch with the Technician Guild and hired a group of designers—experts in this field.
For this, he spent no less than one million Gold Coins, and that was just to hire the technicians.
From this alone, it's clear to see how much investment is needed to upgrade a city. In fact, despite there being so many Sky Cities, the vast majority will never have the chance to be upgraded because the costs are too enormous. An investment of tens of millions of Gold Coins is just the starting point, and there's essentially no upper limit.