Question about population fluctuation

[Kiev 0]

My city has about 100,000 people in it. From month to month, the population can drop to as low as 80,000 and shoot up to 110,000  Is this normal?

I make sure that all utilities and services are well funded. I think I have appropriate cap busters in place. It has a connection to another city. I'm not messing around with the city while it happens, just letting time pass.

[Skyfire2275 23]

Welcome to Simtropolis!

I have had the same issue and I think I know what part of the cause is anyway. I think it has something to do with buildings dilapidating to a lower wealth. This causes the population in the building to increase. So, if you have a whole neighbourhood doing this, then your city's population will fluctuate a lot. Check it out. The dilapidation will probably be due to desirability around these buildings. Mostly due to commute time it seems, but also a lack of parks/trees seems to do it (along with services/utilities, but you said you had that covered). So, take a look and check for dilapidated buildings and try to improve desirability around them so that they do not dilapidate anymore. I hope this helps.

[soldyne 111]

skyfire2275 has some good ideas. I used to have this problem as well but while building my CJ I have learned a few things.

When you click on a dilapidated building it will most likely say that it was abandoned due to commute time. this is not entirely accurate. I have many cities with 2hour and longer commute times on average with no dilapidation what so ever, so commute time is not necessarily the main cause of population loss.

Also, since you are experiencing a yo-yo effect of population then you must have a decent amount of desirabilty and demand to cause your lost population to rise again, so, I am guessing that those things are not the answer either.

Without knowing more about your city I would have to say that the main problem you might have is unemployment. and not just any kind of unemployment. one must realize that with SC4 not all jobs are created equal. you need to have the right kind of jobs for the right kind of wealth levels and education levels.

R$$$ are the worst cause of unemployment in most big cities. they grow like weeds, but dont like to actually work anywhere. R$$ are acutally your main workforce in SC4. In my big cities I actually tax the rich out with 20% taxes. I do not allow R$$$ in any of my large urban areas. If I am building a fringe area with some small amount of medium density or a suburb then I may allow R$$$.

By forcing only R$ and R$$ in major urban areas you are basically building a large workforce which can work in almost any job anywhere. I have a 300k city right now which is 100% stable. no dilapidation, and no yo-yo effect, and no rich sims.

There may be a way to manipulate taxes to allow rich sims to a smaller degree, but I just dont like the rich at all even in reality, so that is just the way I play the game. Try it out and see if you can't help stabilize your city.