In goldentowns we have few ways of getting cash. Each of them is based on selling gold, but there are different ways of getting this resource. The first one is also the most obvious one, mining gold from a mine. Unfortunately is takes a lot of time and is very expensive so we can start thinking about it only after around 2 months of playing. Before that, it might just make it worse.
The second way of getting money is through referents, so getting people registered via your registration link and having 10% tax of their resources; this is my way of getting money in this game. The next ways are, like in real life, wars - international or between players. Sending our army to another town and wining will give us 10% tax from this city until our army will be defeated. If it comes to international wars, we can participate in any of them on the side that we want to help. Once our side will win we will get a percent of resources from this war depending on the amount of soldiers that we have sent before.
Fourth and fifth ways are just selling resources and workers on the market to other players for gold. There is nothing hard in it and everything you need to do that is keep your level of happiness on 100% - basically, every house needs to be on 10th lvl (everything is described in the article called "Happiness"). And the last way is through shares - investing in other towns’ or players’ shares; but, about this, I’ve made another article because there is too much information about it to write it down here. Click to check "Shares" article