Newbie question about building a city

[jonpfl 0]

All,

I have a city started in a region (big square) and it is has around 51k population.  All three things on the RCI are high and the map is full.  I have rezoned things from small to medium (and a few to high).  Is this the proper way to grow the city?  As I said, I cannot zone anything new right now.

Should I go to a neighboring region and do something to help the growth?  I am trying to get a nice commercial downtown and all I have right now are residential high rises (and not very big).

Should I just sit around and babysit this city or start another one next to it to create more residents?  If so, should I have more then just buses and cars in the neighboring city?  Should I create a passenger train?

Thx
jonpfl

[Livin in Sim 83]

Hi, jonpfl, welcome.

Although, I am not a master of really big cities, yes, I have found that neighbor connections spur growth, especially commercial growth.  I  would try building one or two neighboring cites.  You can put in a railway connection, although it is a bit hard to get your sims to use it.  If you are starting to have traffic problems, tho, it may alleviate that a bit.  It is a bit difficult to get your sims to use passenger railway at your current size, but the larger the city gets, the more they do.  If you don't have a freight station, putting railway in with that will help your industry.  This is turn will provide jobs for low and medium wealth sims, which are your bread and butter, so to speak.   If you can afford to put in an airport, it might be worth it to take some land for it, or build it on a neighboring small tile, and connect it.  Airports help boost commercial demand a great deal.  And of course, space used for amenities is also a payoff because of the boosts they give.  But I assume you have them if your demand is nice and high.  If your space is gone, I would convert more to medium and high zoning as well after you have done some neighbors and growth is occuring.

I hope this helps, have fun.

--Liv

[patriots_1228 51]

hmm i guess this is a little off the question, but it has to do with transit in a new city, which is one of your questions.

usually, i start by making the highways, than adding exits, avenues, and roads, than i add rail,subway and /or monorail depending on city size, and so on so on till i have a pretty nice transit system. This works pretty nice, and looks good too.

about the zoning-your style of building is a good stradegy, personally i plop out my downtown with STEX selections, and also i use cap mods which allow me to get skyscrapers faster, but your stradegy works fine. and just cuz your maps full doesnt mean new buildings wont grow or you cant zone over them. I would develop more city tiles to get your population higher, but 51k is huge so you dont have to really.

[Bordz 0]

Hi,

i usually start by using medium density zones for everything, i think they tend to grow just as fast as low density and it saves you the cost f goin form low to medium. But i dont have rush hour so i dont know if it this has chnged in teh expansion.

Hope that helps

[Bordz 0]

sorry about the spelling

[Kevin 101]

Just so you know Bordz, you can hit the edit button underneath your post to make changes to spelling, grammar, etc....

[mqsim 1]

um have you got exits to your neighbor city or build more parks that will boost the population hope it helps

[nathanscottdaniels 0]

This may seem horribly out of place but I have no choice but to ask it here. HOW DO I START A NEW THREAD IN SIMTROPOLIS? I can only figure out how to reply. I am quite computer savvy and have been to countless forums before but I have scanned every page and have not found a "Start New Topic" button or anything like that in this forum!

EDIT:  AAH HA!  I found the little link way up there .  I always just thought it was just a pointless part of that dashboard up there!

[Sim_Air 2]

nathanscottdaniels: well, lol, it isn't a pointless part of the dashboard anymore

jonpfl: Usually, i build residential cities around a few empty squares in the middle; i make industrial cities around those residential and in the middle of the whole thing, voila; a commercial downtown with a few residential and an airport nearby. That isn't the exact plan of course but it is the basic idea. Anyway, if you just want to use that city of yours, then make another city where you will move your industries slowly(destroy here, build there, destroy here, build there etc.), then make more cities nearby with residential and where you will be able to find a perfect place for your downtown, zone commercial. Buses, trains, subways(!), anything will do; as well as redesigning your transportation network.

USEFUL: Perhaps this may help:

http://simcity.ea.com/tipstricks/tipsntricks.php