How to get over 30,000 population?

[LeythDC5 0]

I have figured out how to get a city running properly and got the demand for RCI all the way up but how do i expand now?  I got all sorts of land for high residential comercial and such.  Population wont go up now and I can't figure out what else to do.

[haux 6]

Is everything watered? Do you have adequate transportation placed? Try building with medium density before going crazy with high density. And make sure you have good education, police and health.

[LeythDC5 0]

yea eveything is watered and good transportation, and i have all the bars all the way up. education safety etc..

[UnkleS27 24]

do you have parks or rewards to deal with the demand caps? You'll need all of those things to expand your cities, and neighbor connections are good ideas too

[LeythDC5 0]

yea i do have parks as well.

[haux 6]

But do you have neighbor connections? Those are pretty crucial for any kind of expansion.

[LeythDC5 0]

yea neighbor connections as well

[LeythDC5 0]

ok now i got a city going. population is 40,000 and i'm making 16,600 with around 16,000 for expenses. Got a university, airport, lots of power and water, clean as well. traffic is good education is good safety is mediumly good. i got baseball fields and soccer fields scattered along with small parks. 3/4 of land is used up. industrial zones are on the outskirts of the city in the corners. comercial is in the middle and residential around. So now what? Just patiently wait or is there anything else i can do to help the city grow?

[umnoscottishhootsmon 0]

i find once i get more than 50,000 then the population skyrockets so be very careful or you end up with cities like mine congested, congested, congested, and maybe a litlle more congested and your sruggling to school everyone and treat everyone and arrest everyone and house everyone and give them jobs i find commercial gives more jobs per square once in medium density so scrap industry after you run out of space unless you are on a large tile my best city has medium crime terrible traffic average everything else and 620,000 people on a medium tile

usually you wait

have lots of neighbour connections as may as possible and of rail,monorail,el rail,subway  and road and leave some room for highways and seaports and any cap relief then have it bearing in mind you can afford it

[LeythDC5 0]

sounds good

[FreewayofFlight 41]

Hello, I think I can help you, if you're still dealing with low density residential, you should try and get rid of all the mansions in your town, because if you're trying to build up your city, those stupid mansions do nothing but chew up your land. And once you destroy those mansions, raise the taxes for the wealthy to make sure they don't come back, it worked for me cause I had a similar problem and I was tired of those rich people building those mansions and then leaving, and when I was finished with my 'extermination', my town went from 6,000 to 20,000 in a few years. I hope this helps!

[dgrid 0]

great idea about bulldozing the mansions!

Plus, if you need wealthy sims later on, you'll get nice mid-rise condos for the rich (med density)

[LeythDC5 0]

Hey guys I managed to get to a population of 70,000 but no education, traffic, power, water, safety, fire problems at all. What should I be doing now? still go demolish mansions?

[SC4BOY 21]

I'm just guessing that transportation may be your biggest obstacle at this point. Its amazing how the population JUMPS when you add a GOOD transport system into your commercial district.. You'd be surprised how many people those houses will hold if you get the right mix of transport, service, taxes, connections, etc.. Keep at it.. you'll have it humming..

[owenluby 1]

Now start another city nextdoor! Do the same s you did to this one... then things should grow very fast!

[LeythDC5 0]

awesome only thing i noticed wrong about my city is that the industrial demand is up but theres alot of industrail buildings abandoned.

[SC4BOY 21]

This is part of what I was talking about.. the buildings will build and have workers even if there is a problem.. usually the problem is either transportation or environment.. since you said the environment is great, that only leaves traffic.. (and this doesn't mean you have "congestion" problems.._) Instead it just means that not all the sims can get to where they want to be.. And there is no real way I know of to tell that is your problems.. Maybe someone else knows how to tell, but the way I tell is just that its all that's left.. .. You say you have demand, and no caps sooooo.. what's left?

[LeythDC5 0]

i'll build a new city next to it and see if that helps.

[GreekMan 246]

take it nice and slow. It's better this way.

[agswookie 0]

I got 1,200,000 in my city over 200 years. Come to think of it, i used 'super demand' mod

[RushHourFreak 1]

You have to be patient, DESIRABILITY is the key!, You have to expand all the suburbs and all watered powered etc...or use CNTRL + X and type "weaknesspays"

[Barbarossa 51]

You should tax out your industry. Move them to another tile and manage an industry only city there and keep this one as your res/com city. Part of your problem could be the pollution. Keep up with youtr zoning, as well. Select an area to develop and re-zone everything from low to medium or high.

I can't say a lot about bulldozing mansions... they have never been a problem.

However, I can say... BULLDOZE anything abandoned. Otherwise, you will spend sim-months/yeas waiting for someone to assume the lot and build something. The lot will develop faster if nothing is on it.

Barbarossa

[DOXXP29 5]

Barbarossa gives an excellent suggestion which has worked for me time and time again. A little industry in a remote corner can be ok, but your best bet is making an industrial city with good transportation connections.

And definitely, bulldoze ANYTHING abandoned! Especially, as Freewayof flight recommends, get rid of the mansions if they've depreciated or abandoned or even just on general principles. These monstrosities hog large pieces of real estate to occupy only a few people and their swimming pools. If you're looking for high population, why commit a 3 x 3 lot to a mansion holding 18 whiners when you can have an apartment building on the same sized lot that holds over 1000? Another reason to bulldoze is that buildings will not regenerate "downward". What this means is that if you have an R$$$ mansion that abandons, it will NOT automatically be replaced by an R$$ apartment. You'll have to bulldoze for anything of a lower wealth to come in. This is true for ALL development types, R,C & I.

Looks like you're on your way to a good sized metropolis. Good luck. Soon, you'll be looking for places to develop and wondering what to do because there's no room left. (Answer, of course: build a new city next door and keep the region alive! And...when in doubt, bulldoze!)

[GTA SanAndreas GTA 1]

1,200,000 in 200 years my city is 700 years old and only 250,000 ( But the education, crime, transportation, wealth, etc etc is amazing )

[Mummer 0]

I've got a bit of a problem, and I was wondering if anybody had any advice.

I've got a city running on a large tile, and it was a veritable paradise just a couple days ago. The population was slowly, but steadily rising from around 30,000. My population was educated, and I was starting to load up on the manufactoring and high tech jobs. I zoned my first medium density areas, and they quickly took off. Then the problems began. My population skyrocketed, and my streets became absolutely clogged. I had around $500,000, so I decided to invest in a massive transportation overhaul.

Not long after that, however, I needed to expand into a big chunk of empty land, to meet both industrial and residential demand. This took me all the way down to $200,000. A few years later, the new neighborhood has become so congested, that I need to do another overhaul. After tons and tons of work, I realize I have just $10,000 left.

Here's the big problem. I have an income of about $12,000 a month, with expenses around $11,000. My schools and hospitals are at the minimum for what the demand is, and my sanitation department is underfunded by $2,000. To make matters worse, I need new fire coverage very badly in the industrial neighborhood. I've been worn down to around $3,000 in my coffers, and I try to let some money build up. However, every time I do, something comes up that needs investment. A new power plant. More police funding. My profit goes down to barely $100. Then, finally, the investment pays off, and I my profit grows to about $1,000 again. Then, the same problems start, and my profit drops to $100 with my coffers nearly empty.

I have nearly 60,000 people, and very high commercial demand. The problem is, I simply don't have the money to spend on denser zones or expansion. All my funds are eaten up by the essential spending, and this is all with a severely underfunded sanitation department. I'm treading water here, and I don't really see anyway out of this. My taxes are relatively low, and the minute I raise them to give me a comfortable profit, my middle class residents begin to pour out of my city and businesses begin to shut down. Some parks would really help keep that demand up, but I just don't have the funds to build any.

I'm wondering the problem is that with the low taxes, I spurred premature growth. (I've funded these tax cuts by setting dirty industry taxes at 20%. I didn't care about the demand for them, and the funds from their overtaxation have allowed me to keep the taxes super low for my middle class.) The demand is just too low when the taxes are reasonable, and it seems the small tax payments are the only thing keeping my city from turning into one giant slum. If I were to raise them to get out of this financial crisis, my economy would collapse, as it is built on manufactoring and the middle class. Anybody have any ideas?

[GTA SanAndreas GTA 1]

Try taking any of those rewards that make money ( altogether they make about 1,300/m ). Also legalize gambling, another $100/m.

If you already did that, even though you said setting taxes up has people leave, you've gotta. Once they get used to the fact they have to pay it they sims will begin building again. What are your current taxes? I usually leave mine at about 7% , 20% for dirty, 15% low wealth commercial & residential. ( I dont like the lower wealth and dirty things in my city ) But for a starting city, 0-75,000 I would stay at 8%-9%. !!!Save before you try raising the taxes!!! Also, when everything goes abandoned, give it some time and whenever you get a lil cash, make parks near some run-down buildings ( if there is demand for it to go from the run down low wealth, to the medium wealth ) and once it happens, delete the park ( or plaza ). Thats what I do in my cities. Works for any population, but if you see low desirability and have parks all over, its crime or air pollution.

Also I would recommend using RTMT [Road Top Mass Transit] from the NAM [Network Addon Mod] It saves space so you dont have to build subways/bus stops on land, but on roads. If you think the NAM one is to unreal, [https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=13510] this one works just as well, and has some props (It also has a monthly cost unlike the NAM one)

[lestatdl1 0]

Also, don't give those pesky sims everything they ask for! Think "Slum Lord." I usually let my population hit 5-10K before I give 'em water. Zone low-denisty residential somewhere with no services except power, just to temporarily bring in the tax revenue. You'd be amazed how much money a few thousand R$ sims bring in.

[QNathan 0]

Originally posted by: lestatdl1 Also, don't give those pesky sims everything they ask for! Think "Slum Lord." I usually let my population hit 5-10K before I give 'em water. Zone low-denisty residential somewhere with no services except power, just to temporarily bring in the tax revenue. You'd be amazed how much money a few thousand R$ sims bring in.quote>

 

haha u'd be a horrible mayor in real life....no water hahaha

I have a 107 year old city that has 220K population with good school, health, fire, and police benefits. I make around 7k per month. I am at $1.3 mil right now. Most of my income come from mass transit and tolls. You'd be surprised at how much those subways bring in. They're expensive but a great investment. The returns so far have been awesome. The only bad thing about tolls is that it backs up traffic a little bit and the profit can vary according to traffic volume which ties directly with mass transit. Buses contribute a substantial portion of tolls revenue and a subway system decreases traffic volume which decrease traffic to the tolls. But the benefits of a mass transit system are too immense to  neglect.

That's just my main city. Once you get it up, the surrounding cities build incredibly fast. I start zoning residential med-density in a neighboring city and soon I had over 25k people there.

[Mystrelia 57]

For the most part, I disagree with not giving those sims everything they ask for--of course you have to be able to actually afford it first, but here's something that happened just today. I have a large map that I decided to turn into basically a farming community. The vast majority of the citizens are low-wealth who live in trailer parks near the farmland. They have a combination elementary/high school that I downloaded and no other educational facilities. In the heart of the city I have a small area with a few middle wealth houses (these sims work in the BSC farm reward businesses), a road that leads off to one side with a few commercial buildings, and adequate health care.

Let me say, this is one slow-building "city" because it doesn't make a lot of money. In a good month it will clear $500. Usually it's more like $300. Since my goal here is to build a lot of farms (I love those BSC farms!), it's been in the city's best interest to keep a good transportation route for the farms and keep land values relatively low. After a good long while I decided to go ahead and let my residents have some water. I'd placed a water tower early on for the reward buildings because they need water, but only a very small area actually had water service. So I took the plunge (no pun intended) and started carefully laying the water pipes to the residents and small commercial sector. The next month, my tax profit had doubled, and the only thing I had done was to give them water!

See, the thing is, when you withhold services to a city you're basically shooting yourself in the foot. Each service you add means more tax dollars from the citizens because the value of their property goes up. Normally, when I start a city the first building that goes in is a school, the second is a relatively non-polluting power plant, then I start laying out the zoning. When my citizens start yelling for something, I give it to them (fire station and medical facilities at about 500 population). And from what I've read on this forum about problems a lot of people have, I honestly can say I don't normally have any of them. I start putting in mass transit as soon as the first medium-density housing develops. Granted, it may only be a couple of bus stops, one near the apartments and one near the train station that goes to the industrial section.

My cities are built slowly. It doesn't mean I don't have to occasionally tear something out to fix a problem. What it does mean, however, is that I have R$ and R$$ sim-citizens who are perfectly contented paying 9% taxes and R$$$ sim-citizens who although they may grumble occasionally, fork over their 11-12% taxes and move in way faster than I can accomodate them with proper jobs.

[lestatdl1 0]

* Don't give them everything they ask for *right away* was what I meant.