Ridiculous Demand?

[Evil Weasel 88]

I have run into one of the most ridiculous catch-22s. Here is my issue:

Residential demand = WAY HUGE

Commercial demand = way negative

Industrial demand = way negative

Unemployment = WAY HUGE

I don't have any jobs! I have massive unemployment, and not nearly enough jobs for my people! I can only make more residential areas which causes even more unemployment, because trying to fix huge unemployment by placing C or I does nothing as nothing moves in. Taxes for C and I are ZERO but they still wont come and only residential comes, making unemployment worse and worse. This is such a stupid game.

And no, my region is the same overall. Tonnes of people, tonnes of residential demand in every city, and none has positive C or I demand. All have huge unemployment.

[lucashp 1]

Maybe, its because your commute times are to high, and thats making people choose to not work there, And the jobs that dont have residental working at them are just ruining demand. I would unzone some commercial/industrial and see if that helps. Also, Place roads. And if its a high population (Maybe 100k in a city) Try avenues going through commercial and industry area's

[Fawah 0]

I'd post screen shots. Also, have you messed with taxes? Maybe you Res taxes are so low then can't help but not want to live there even if there are no jobs?

[beachfrontproperty 0]

https://www.simtropolis.com/modding/index.cfm?p=details&id=185

https://www.simtropolis.com/modding/index.cfm?p=details&id=131

First - SUper demand mod

Second - industry quad.

There cheats but it will solve your problem.. everything will skyrocket and the industry quad will x4 the jobs of your industry so ti will be solved fast

[Mr Ham 0]

no those just give you lots of abandoment i tired... i dont know what to tell you, it doesnt make sence if people arent gettings jobs then the demands should be higher

[Bones1 96]

First thing I'd check is your tax rates. Lower them a bit if you're seeing negative demand.

As population levels in a city go up, the "neutral" tax rate goes down. That is, the tax rate for having "no impact" on demand drops from 9%, to 8.9%, to 8.8%, etc.

Dropping commercial taxes by just a few tenths of a percent could have a big boost to demand.

[John-SJ 13]

The OP already said that C & I taxes are set to 0.

Could it not be that there are tons of C & I zones which is why there is negative demand, but that the jobs are too far away causing sime to have "no jobs"?  Or, if not too far away, perhps there is some other transportation network problem responsible.  

I'm guessing it might be worth a try doing some route checks on Sims taht do have jobs and see how they get to work and then checking the route along the way.  Maybe there are extreme bottlencks that are causing commute times to skyrocket or some other problem that makes the Sims not want to work.  It;s worth a try at least.

[villagemayor 0]

I don't know if the 4X Industry mod can solve the long term problem of negative demand. In the short term it will boost the number of jobs per factory and reduce the unemployment rate, but that will no doubt cause a huge collapse in industry demand, never to recover. I've used the super demand before, and it does work. But again, the demand is not forever, and I have seen even the demand drop to negative with that mod. But these two mods will solve the unemployment rate. Good luck!!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Originally posted by: villagemayor I don't know if the 4X Industry mod can solve the long term problem of negative demand. In the short term it will boost the number of jobs per factory and reduce the unemployment rate, but that will no doubt cause a huge collapse in industry demand, never to recover.quote>

In fact, that's only half true. I have added the industry quadrupler in a running region once, and the result was strange. Residential demand indeed increased, and the city experienced a growth boom it was not prepared for. Before adding the mod, I was at residential stage 6 approx, and afterwards, big buildings on stage 7 lots started to grow - and dilapidate, because the traffic system was not meant for such highly concentrated amounts of commuters like 1,700 from one building alone. The city went out of balance, and it took me some time to get it back to normal. Now for the strange bit: Industrial demand didn't decrease a single bit!

If you add the quadrupler, make sure you bulldoze some industry before and don't save before you have checked that the city runs well. Else, go back and try bulldozing more (or less) industrial zones prior to adding the mod to find the equilibrium.

[ayawlex 0]

he's asking on how to solve the problem, not cheats. anyone atleast know have a solution which is not a mod/cheat?

[Exla357 41]

No

[HyperGaruda 0]

I'm experiencing exactly the same problems and so far I've only come up with some theories on what's the cause and how to solve it. Firstly I think it is caused by an uneven distribution of R wealth types (usually too much R$$$ compared to the number of suitable jobs available to them) combined with some sort of bug concerning regional demand. In every city I have built, the demand is copied from its neighbor, resulting in a solid and nearly impossible to alter demand graph. So once I got to the situtation you described, the city would not grow as I thought to be best for them...

This implies that the solution has to be an increase of R$ and severing all connections, so that demand can stabilize according to the actual local values. I have not tried severing the connections yet, because I'm afraid it will cause demand caps to resettle and a disruption of industrial transport (though if the city is adjacent to water, you can use a dock/port).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You don't say what your desirabilty displays are showing.  Have you looked at them?

How are your pollution levels?  These affect your desirability, and many other variables.

If you have no jobs because of pollution, you'll have to do something about it.

Also, how is your garbage?

Are all your lots watered?  Any industrial other than a farm must have water, and only CS$ buildings have their own water supply.

Cheating is not the answer.  You can use the classical layout of Res feeding into Comm feeding into Ind.  Use an avenue through the Comm.  If you have to do some urban renewal, remember that happy Sims are the general object, not pretty buildings.  The program likes balance and intergration of the three zoning options.

Don't cheat, use your head.  If you are really stuck (re)run the Tutorials in Timbuktu.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

One problem could be that a lot of industrial and commercial buildings saturate demand, but do not actually offer any employment because the Sims simply don't reach their potential jobs.

You see, when a building with 400 CO

[diamonddog_74 32]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

You don't say what your desirabilty displays are showing.  Have you looked at them?

How are your pollution levels?  These affect your desirability, and many other variables.

If you have no jobs because of pollution, you'll have to do something about it.

Also, how is your garbage?

Are all your lots watered?  Any industrial other than a farm must have water, and only CS$ buildings have their own water supply.

Cheating is not the answer.  You can use the classical layout of Res feeding into Comm feeding into Ind.  Use an avenue through the Comm.  If you have to do some urban renewal, remember that happy Sims are the general object, not pretty buildings.  The program likes balance and intergration of the three zoning options.

Don't cheat, use your head.  If you are really stuck (re)run the Tutorials in Timbuktu.

quote>

I agree with A Nonny Moose.

Look at your pollution levels, garbage, and water. Garbage especially is something that really creeps up on you suddenly and causes atrophied demand.

Please show us a screen shot of your RCI demand graph so we can see what kind of R demand is skyrocketing. If it's low wealth, but not medium and high, then some of your desirability factors need to be tweaked.

Also, raise those taxes. Don't be afraid of them. The game's default of 9% is fine for Industry. I tend to use 8 - 8.5% for commercial, and I don't suffer drops in demand. I use 7 - 8% for Residential. The only way you can afford to build infrastructure is if you collect taxes (without cheats).

[kpingvin 0]

I have something similar: people are just flocking into the city but there aren't enough jobs for them and there are no demand for C jobs either. I think my problem is that I over-educated my people. My population has everything: education, health care, parks etc. and anyone who moves in soon becomes rich and then doesn't find a decent job. Now I'm trying to create a poorer population.

Try checking the wealth of your unemployed sims, maybe you have the same problem.

[diamonddog_74 32]

Sometimes, these issues are caused by too many neighbor connections that cause an "eternal commuter" problem. Check to see if you have this scenario playing out.

The following image and explanation are from the CAM manual:

Consider that you have a region with four cities. Each city has 200 inhabitants and 100 industrial jobs. The residential areas are located close to the corner that all four cities share, and the industrial districts are located in the middle of each city (far away from the residential areas).

Consider playing city A for a while. The workforce (about 100 persons, 50% of the population) starts looking for jobs. They consider the industry in their own city to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city B. The jobs in city B are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city A, so all 100 workers head for city B.

Now, consider playing city B for a while. That city has a workforce of 100 plus 100 commuters coming from city A. All these workers consider the industry in city B to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city C. The jobs in city C are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city B, so all 200 workers head for city C.

Now, consider playing city C for a while. That city has a workforce of 100 plus 200 commuters coming from city B. All these workers consider the industry in city C to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city D. The jobs in city D are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city C, so all 300 workers head for city D.

Now, consider playing city D for a while. That city has a workforce of 100 plus 300 commuters coming from city C. All these workers consider the industry in city D to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city A. The jobs in city A are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city D, so all 400 workers head for city A.

Now we’re coming back to city A to play for a while. And now you probably understand the problems we’re seeing. The regional population is still only 400, but city A already sees a workforce of 500, 100 living in the city and 400 commuting from city D. These would once again commute to city B. However, sooner or later it will be obvious that there are less jobs available in city B than there are commuters going across the border.

This leads to a high job demand all around the region, and for quite a while the simulation will allow the situation to continue. However, the longer you play and the more skewed the situation becomes, the more difficult will it be to achieve a healthy development.

Those commuters going around in circles through cities A –> B -> C -> D -> A -> etc. will never disappear. Commuters only increase in numbers, they never decrease. Thus you will soon have traffic and pollution problems around that corner. Before long, you will also face a situation where residential buildings start to dilapidate since all jobs in the neighbouring cities are “taken” by the eternal commuters and those living in the city will suffer from unemployment.

Be sure not to build border crossing close to a corner shared by several cities. You may have border crossings from each city in one direction, but not connecting to two cities close to a corner.

E.g. in the example above you could have had border crossings between A and B, as well as between C and D, but not between B and C, nor between D and A in those cases.