Strange Demand Problem

[TigerXtrm 0]

What's the first thing you look for when demand drops? Population cap. But what if there isn't one? I have the cap query mod installed and I'm nowhere near my population cap yet my city is hardly growing. Here's the setup:

I have one center city which has a downtown with some medium rise spreading outwards to the borders of the map. Along the shore there is a large industrial area which I'm slowly taking apart and relocating to next door. Next door being the city next to the industrial area where the biggest part of the industry now resides. On the opposite side of the main city there is a small urban spread out of medium rise residential and commercial buildings as well as some High Tech industry.

The problem seems to be primarily with the main city. I have everything in the green except for enviorment, which is completely red but like I said I'm tearing down the industrial wasteland. Anything else is fully green. Education, health, police, fire, everything. I have the highest major rating you can achieve, full green bar and a statistic rating of 100 (which I believe is the max).

I can't really think of any other reasons why this is happening. Demand for all but R$ and C$ have dropped for apparently no reason. I have over a total of 1500 parks and gardens in my city so I hardly doubt thats it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TigerXtrm

[david1314 44]

The problem is you're removing all the industry...it sounds like anyway.

Each industry growable affects the CO demand indirectly, and the residential demands directly. You are deleting jobs for your sims, and removing commercial demand to allow additional jobs in.

[TigerXtrm 0]

I believe it already started dropping before I started removing the industry, I'm also placing new industry in the industrial city next door so technically it shouldn't pose a problem right?

[david1314 44]

Well, a growing city will exhaust demand. Once people move in and fill the demand, it's gone.

But removing industry is rediculous. It's like saying the way to revitalize Detroit is getting rid of GM (more completely and officially).

It also doesn't help that the '+4000' and '-4000' demand lines shown on the graph are actually closer numerically than the +4000 line and the +6000 line. It is a logarithmic function, and is designed to show small demands on the graph as well as large ones. This means you can have what appears to be a massive shift in demand (going from +4000 to -4000) without much actual change in the demand. I understand why maxis did it this way, but it was retarded to lable the graph on a linear scale when it is clearly logarithmic. For reference, I think in actual demand, the 2000 lines correspond to about 50, and the 4000 line corresponds to about 800, the 6000 line is in fact the maximum (active) demand of 6000.

Theoretically, moving industry over a city works; however, for this to occur smoothely, it would require the cities be played in real-time with each other (obviously impossible unless one is to play a single month, save, and play the next city over and over again for the years it would take to transfer the industry). The problem is that you need the industrial demand in the industrial city (which comes from deleting the industry in the main city), but you need the jobs immediately so residents and commerse don't suffer.

Also, I'm sure there are some dying to point out you could go get a demand mod, but that solves the symptoms, not the problem...

Finally, the performance bars (safety, mayor rating, environment, etc.) have no bearing on the city itself. The environmental considerations are only local to the actually polluted areas. And unpolluted section of a city with -100 environment will still have the same potential to grow as a perfectly polution-free city (actually, the smaller commute times probably make the polluted city the preferable option). These should be considered as indicators of your city (like the Tach, oil guage, spedometer, etc. of the car). Trying to affect them directly will not necessarily increase demand.

[castironpigeon 1]

Related to the industrial issue, it could be a transportation issue. This is especially the case if you began seeing a drop in demand after you put up the nearby industrial city, but before you began tearing down the main city's industry. Sims were trying to reach their distant jobs and giving up along the way. This causes demand to drop as david1314 pointed out. I'd recommend throwing down a railroad or elevated rail between your main city and your industrial center if you don't already have one. That might make a difference because rail/el allow sims to travel farther and faster, while still being cheap enough for industrial workers to use.

[Voulpiotis 4]

If you show us a picture, you would help a lot. It may be the commute time though...