If you have any mods enabled, it will disable your ability to get achievements. If you have a city that you started using mods on, then that city is "dead". Your city must never have the taste of mods if you want achievements. I suggest having a separate city for achievements and naming it something so that you know to disable mods when playing on it.
This achievements is hilariously easy and takes less than a minute.
1) Click on the button in the very top left of your screen.
2) Click on every single button in the little window that pops up at least once.
That's it!
Some things to keep in mind:
- I tried doing this in a brand new game and all of those buttons were disabled. So, it looks like you'll gradually unlock them as things become available to you.
- If something is still disabled after a while of playing, try building things that have something to do with the button. (i.e., if you can't see the crime rates, try building at least one of each police building)