Preservation for Advancement

[UltraGIR XL 3]

Ah, my Simtropolis friends, I've a story/question for you.

It's about the only I can make cities--- by constantly marking my second-class citizens' homes as historical sites.

Y'see, I've an odd problem: an enormous surge in the upper-class (I don't use any mods, mind you.) that occurs in all of my cities, that, for some reason,  ends up being their downfall. After getting 30,000 sims, I usually enter a period where I get thousands of wealthy sims in my city, which, for some odd reason, leads to a mass unemployment among them, and oddly long commute times. I don't really know why, because, by that time, I've enough commercial jobs (High and medium wealth offices and services.) to sustain them. I've an excellent ifrastructure of roads, buses, and subways, as well...

So, because of this problem, I usually  end up marking my middle-class buildings historical, to prevent the upper-class from appearing.

I dunno. I felt like sharing this, and I was half-curious if anyone else had this happen to them.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There are several things you can do:

1. Increase the tax levels on the wealthy Sims.
2. Join to another city that provides more §§§ jobs and provide good transportation
3. Lower taxes on R§ and I-D, I-M to keep these in the city
4. Lower the education level.  Education is not always a good thing

High wealth in this game can be a curse.  Like all pyramid hierarchies, you don't want more than about 10% R§§§.  You can only have so many executives, and the rest will have to work elsewhere.

[UltraGIR XL 3]

Exactly. The taxes are highest on my upper-class (8.2), to keep up a liberal financial policy and stunt their growth.

Such a curse it is.

[Bones1 96]

8.2% is probably too low for R$$$ taxes. I usually set mine to 10%, and leave everything else at 9%.

[carmichael 0]

ive had exact;y the same problem... i'll try to tax out the $$$ and see what happens...

shame i like the $$$ buildings

[spa 968]

I love the make historical button. It's my best friend. I use it to preserve neighbourhoods but the side effect is that the R$$$ don't get to take over. So, yes, I guess you could say that I use it in the same way that you describe.

[UltraGIR XL 3]

It's a pity, really.

As mentioned before, the buildings do look rather nice (Ecxept for the Bell Towers. I can't stand those.), but the middle-class ones aren't that bad, either. I, in fact, prefer that my suburbs be made of the buildings in the shingle-house set.

[dgrid 0]

yep, I use "make historic" like crazy myself, esp on the brick and shingle houses, as well as rowhouses.

Sometimes I'll use that on low-wealth apartments etc that look ok mixed w/ med-wealth, gotta have em around too, it's my low-income housing program, heh.

[Linda 0]

I block $$$ out of certain areas by making them public-transportation accesible only-- the only way to get from the residental street to the main throughfare is by bus (This can be done by "blocking" the road with a busstop, or an HOV lane tile that's available as a mod from the STEX.) $$$ sims are addicted to oil, and won't stay anywhere where bus, train, and foot are the only transportation options.

And today, I found out about a mod that prevents buildings from growing in areas where they will likely be abandoned soon. (By raising the minimum desirability for a building to grow to 40%-50%, instead of 20%, which is also the percentage at which abandonment starts.)

[UltraGIR XL 3]

Aha...

I've just noticed: if you let your cities sit for a few years without expansion, once you DO expand, there'll be an explosion of high-wealth developments.

Ergo...

Don't let your cities sit, but don't expand too fast.