For all the levels I've done so far (I'm on North Dahshur) a single block style has worked.
Central service block: 4 tiles by about 20 tiles (the long dimension doesn't matter). Inside the block:
At one end, a bandstand or pavilion.
At the other end, your palace if you don't already have one(for some levels this requires 5 tiles wide).
One temple with a firehouse, architect, and police opposite.
Water supply, tax collector, physician.
Later on, apothecary, dentist, mortuary, scribal school, courthouse.
There may be room for another temple and some shrines.
The idea is that all these buildings will generate walkers that go round and round the rectangle.
At the end opposite the pavilion, place one road leading out form the end, two tiles long, with a roadblock next to the inner block.
Now surround the inner rectangle with an outer rectangle leaving two tiles in between. The two rectangles will be connected by your short blocked road. Fill the space between the roads (gradually) with housing. These houses will receive all basic services very efficiently from the inside. From outside you must supply food, pottery, etc. I typically place four to 6 bazaars around the block -- if possible, six tiles away from the houses for the maximum desirability boost of +3. Your entertainers will also arrive from outside. You want them to walk along one side on the outside and the other side on the inside. Don't forget to provide fire protection outside the block.
The catch with this layout is that you can't put gardens next to the houses. No problem -- use plazas. Once your houses need more desirability to evolve, put plazas on two adjacent paved roads. The paving will soon expand, letting you place more plazas.
This sort of block will evolve well enopugh to let you get prosperity up to 40 or so.
I've posted 4 or 5 games that use this layout. There are links to them in several of the threads about individual cities that I started.
A warning -- this style of block is so efficient in its use of service buildings that you may have to build unnecessary buildings at the end to boost your culture rating.
Bradius has a different but equally effective layout shown in his posted games.
Housing block design is much easier in Pharaoh than it was in C3 because the water distribution is so simple.
[This message has been edited by Dragon2 (edited 11-11-99).]