Is my city worth continuing?

[Kr0ntr0n 0]

I just picked the SC4 deluxe edition up, after 2 or 3 years of not owning it.  I've finally gotten a grasp for how you're supposed to generally design your region (it was strange to go from single-city play, to working with an entire region).

Anyways, I'm like the worst ever at making cities on sc4 so far.  i've got a region with a pop. of  around 200k.  At this point, it seems that my cities are going down the tubes, but i'm still hoping to salvage it if possible.  My biggest issue is trying to figure out the most effective transportation, and keeping demand up.

I'm taking any suggestions on whether or not to just drop the region and start over, or any tips on fixing my situation.  my demand is virtually nonexistant, except for high-tech industry.  problem is, i zone and zone for high tech industry, and manufacturing always pops up instead, even with much higer taxes.

heres some screen shots:

Demand:   http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/959882/demand.jpg

Region:  http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/959882/region1.jpg

"downtown":  http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/959882/city1.jpg

thanks for any help

[Gahagan 0]

Those are my typical demand bars.  I would recommend that you zone more residential, both higher density and lower density on the outskirts of your town if possible.  I have also found that a solid education system does wonders for demand.  Makes rich people pop up everywhere, and rich people make pretty buildings.

Post a picture of your budget, if you can.  I would definitely recommend the education network (libraries are good to have around, and museums are VERY important for older Sim education).

If your budget can't handle that finish developing your industrial zones, and then spike ID and IM taxes to 20%.  For some odd reason those two industries don't abandon because of a tax burden, and it also guarantees that any industrial you zone will be high tech industrial because your ID and IM demands will fall through the floor.

Also, when zoning I-HT remember that they need LOTS of parks in order to maintain their job.  A good strategy I found is making a circle of road, then zoning the inside as industrial and putting a large park in the center.  That generally holds jobs in.  Just remember to give your I-HT enough room to develop their stage 3 buildings, they're pretty big.

I would try that out, then post an update with how things are going.  Good luck!