Please Help... my cities suck :(

[DarkSoul 3]

Ive got a city right now, with about 75,000 people, its a large city, and is almost full with no space left.

I keep losing people, down to about 65,000 people, and it will go back up if i correct something or other,

generally the city is pretty desierable, and I have a high mayor rating, almost full.

I have major traffic problems though, with streets and and roads, with one avenue going around the middle part of my city.

How do i fix my traffic problems? I dont want to destroy a bunch of stuff, spend a bunch of money I dont have, and lose a bunch of sims due to destruction.

I dont have any highways, monorails, subways etc..... I have one half functional rail system which I cant get connected to itself, due to unsuitable grades... ARRGGHH

Im so frustrated right now, I dont know what to do to make this city thrive.

someone help me out a little please.

[granto93 4]

well, i think you have no choice but to build some mass transit, be it monorail, subway etc...you also should build a highway through town. its better to sacrifice a bit of your city and build a highway than to let your city fall apart altogether. if you could show a pic or two it would help

[IDS2 3,344]

You must be having demand cap problems. There are several lots on the STEX to ease this anti demand force. The lot I use is the Somy angel statue (you know what demand caps are, right?) If not, search the omnibus. Quite complicated.

[Illegible 0]

A pic or two would help. How is your income/expense ratio? I found it helped to get cities started if I got my income to be higher than my expenses and just let some money fill the coffers. Then I could afford to terraform, build mass transit or zone to generate more income. Do you know how to manage your expenses yet?

Ill

[DarkSoul 3]

Ill get some pics shortly.

For now, Im making about 19,000 a month, and spending 26,000 ..... Mostly because I funded education fully, so as to encourage HT industry.

If i reduce the funding, then I can bring it down to about 21,000/month expendatures.

and this was because, I hit a lull, and ran art money to cheat a little, but I had such little cash at the time (I wasnt paying attention... i was making money) that I needed to take out a loan to have enough funds to effectivly use art money.... im an evil terrible person, But I really am trying not to cheat.

I did use a pollution removing building (from cheater lots i believe) as well as a few "incinerators".... got some trash problems as well.. or did anyway.

Now, that being said, Im not exactly 100% clear on demand caps, But I do have a basic understanding of demands, and have been doing pretty well in NOT building things that arent in demand (i think so anyway)

when I do get things right, and am making money, if i attempt to let the money build up, all that happens is people move out, and the city doesnt go anywhere.

I'll go get some pics right now.... but ill probably end up playing, so i might not be back here soon

[simmy.uk 1]

I am going to produce a tutorial on city building.

Sounds like you are having problems developing this city. You have a good basis for the city. You have high mayor rating so that suggests to me your sims are quite content.

The first thing you should do is look at ways to cut costs. Are there there any schools/hospitals that are over funded? The money you save from this invest in a subway system. Try and concentrate mainly in commercial. Ofcourse connect to residential, some industry however you will find the majority of sims do their travelling in commercial areas. Then place bus stops beside the subway stations. Connecting your mass transit in this fashion is very beneficial to your city. Place parking garages beside statios too to encourage commuters to leave their cars and take public transport.

Use your traffic stats and find out where the hot spots are. Use elevated highways to ease congestion in busy areas. Make sure you conect your highway with plenty of off ramps.

[mayors 0]

=demands caps are when .. erll I'm not sure how to describe it but prima guide says that it is when a particular developer type hits a 'ceiling' and you will end up with 0 demand, even though demand may be very high. the important thing is, demand caps are easy to fi. for inudstry, just build road connections to neigbours to raise the cap by a few thousand as well as seaports.. for residential, parks rewards etc help and for commerce, I'm not too sure by try an airport.

also your ciyt seems to be dying from transit problems (ithink?) try installing mass transit systems. of course it would have been easier if you werent losing money, but if the whole city is full I doubt you should ever lose money. If your school has say, 300 students then adjust the slider so that the capacity is at like 350. having full funding when you dont need it not only wastes money, it does nothing.

also try a sunken highway if u can and tunnel where you meet development

and pic would be nice

[DarkSoul 3]

Well here are some pics.

You can see my non function monorail system that I started, but cant get to work properly because of elevations... AARRGGHHH... so frustrating. 

Anyway, I do keepan eye on funding, and have been adjusting accordingly. 

I really know nothing of city design, as you can tell, and everything tends to be more or less blocky, or gridy...... i dont know how to design a mass transit system that functions well. 

its a sad state of affairs.

I have reduced funding to education though, since i did have it fully funded for a while... and if i recall, im either making some money now, or losing just a little bit.

otherwise im not sure what to do with the rewards I keep getting, because I wont be able to keep putting them all in, and have enough places for people to live lol.

love to hear some advice, I think im going to go play a bit.

btw i do have some other cities in my region, and a total population of 124,000 or something for the region.

[pirateship 0]

Judging by your pics i'd get rid of the monorail all together, and concentrate on getting a good bus/subway system into place (this will reduce congestion and get you some more money hopefully). There's some stations on the stex that can be put directly on roads so you wouldn't have to destroy buildings to put them into place (just make sure you're not blocking residential tiles).

Other than that I notice you don't have much industrial developement, if you don't have this city connected to a good industrial heavy city, you're people might find them selves without jobs.

*Edit: The road top mass transit stuff is in the mods/downloads section.  Right now its #12 in the top 50 downloads, and here's a link if it works: https://www.simtropolis.com/modding/index.cfm?p=details&id=251

PS

[DarkSoul 3]

ya, up until this point that im at now, there was no demand for any more industrial than that... and thats high density now, i will be adding some more industry since they are asking for more.

Ive got some bus stops placed, and a subway system built.... or something like it anyway .... not really sure how to build a subway.

Im going to build this monorail... ive it going through most of my city, im not going to waste this effort because of these mother f***** hills, but ive destroyed a big chunk of my city trying to make the hill a grade that will let me connect the two pieces of monorail together to complete the line.

I get about 2 squares away and always run into a friggin unsuitable grade or unsuitable area. either that or the computer digs a big channel for the rail.... or makes a big cliff.

is there someway around this crap?

also, searching the stex results in nothing.... for anything.

Any time i do a search nothing turns up... or very rarely.

this is true in cases where I have copied and pasted the exact name of something, only to have no results returned.... and then find the exact thing myself, later on by mistake when i stumble across it.

[Tuky 0]

Some suggestions:

First bulldoze the larger airport, your city is small enough that it doesn't need an international airport yet (and as usage of the municipal airport maxes out you can go through 2 upgrades on it to get more use out of it.) That will get rid of at least one drain on your income. Alternatively, since bulldozing costs lots of money, set the international airport on fire or drop a meteor on it, free bulldozing

Next, as income allows you might want to rezone large sections of your city. Right now it looks like you have industrial, residential, and commercial zones all thrown together in a mix. Instead you should consider centralizing your commercial zones surrounded by residential zones and finally industrial zones on the outskirts. You are already kinda heading the right way with the industrial zones but there are plenty of nasty factories in need of relocation (plus by having them along the edges, some of the pollution goes off the map and so doesn't effect the rest of the city.) Just be warned that this will not be cheap as you not only have to pay for the zoning but also for the destruction of any buildings present (might want to start in areas that have not developed yet.)

Sims like to travel from R to C or from R to I, rarely from C to I, so by centralizing you also will lower the distance a sim has to travel and cut down on cross-town traffic.

As for the monorail, bulldoze it. A subway is much easier to lay out because it does not care about the terrain above. Lay the line just like you would lay a road or avenue, putting stations at regular intervals (a station can go right on top of the track and does not need to be next to it like with the railroad stations.) As for how often to place a station, consider that sims don't like to walk more than 6 tiles so you will need them all over the place along the line or place a park-and-ride next to the subway stations so sims from further away can use a particular station.

For demand cap help, you should be near to being awarded the minor league and then the major league stadiums, these help raise the demand cap until you are well over 100k population. If you don't already have the reward, build more parks like soccer fields and basketball courts and you will soon get it (both cost a good chunk of money so you will need to save up.)

[britishdude1192 0]

One quick zoning suggestion: In your picture I see quite a few lots the are situated on extreme grades in the hills I would attempt to level (or smooth) these areas so that sims can build on them

Also, I understand that you don't want to spend the time and money to replace the monorail but subway will cause far fewer headaches in the end, especially when your city grows enough to add more mass transit lines it wil be easier to build, connect, and you will need to demolish less

[DarkSoul 3]

ive got a subway, and monorail in now.

it was a pain, But im rennovating some of the city

Ive also got the minor and major league stadums already installed, as well as the convention center.

I even used the LG electronics building.

For the most part Ive tried to lay out the zones in the manner mentioned above, with industry on the outskirts, and commercial, in the middle'ish... i do actually have a big chunk of commercial in the "middle" of where I began my city.

problem is, now Ive got alot of people abandoning their homes due to commute time.

I have bus stops in (obviously could use more im sure) as well as the subway and monorail, and ive pout commercial zones around some of those areas with no luck.

Ive also got a railway that I cant really get to go anywhere due to elevations, but i didnt plan on making this an extensive rail system anyway, just something to get goods in and out of the city.

[DarkSoul 3]

also, my city has about 150,000 people now... and im making money... a little.

[DarkSoul 3]

well i dont know what i did but for some reason (probably art money heh) one of my cities that I worked hard on, to get to 2000 people, suddenly crashes when i try to unpause it at any speed.

It was working fine without any issues at all, and then suddenly, boom... crashes to desktop now.

[patriots_1228 51]

please use the edit button in the future, and dont swear.....when you say your cities suck, do you mean they look unrealistic, or they dont have billions of skyscrapers, full demand, etc.?

[DarkSoul 3]

I mean, my cities often top out at a certain population, and I cant seem to get them to grow.

The city I had with 175000 people suddenly began crashing when i tried to load it, so I had to destroy it.

Now ive lost two large cities in my region because of this, and only have two smaller ones that arent directly connected to the new city I started, which has about 100,000 people.

the problem with this city is, commute time, places are getting abandoned due to commute time, But i have bus stops, subway stops, and monorail stations just about everywhere, and I have added more to these areas where places are getting abandoned.

Im out of space for the most part, and have no more room to zone anything, and also have all high density zones already, except for industrial.

im going to go play again, so I will get a couple of screens.

[Cowboy-Texas- 0]

First suggestion... stop using art money. If you need extra cash (like I always do), then use the simple ctrl+x method and enter the cheat code "weaknesspays". You can keep doing this over and over to increase your funds by 1000 simoleans at a time.

TIP: just keep hitting the up arrow key after each time you press ctrl+x and the "weaknesspays" text will be re-displayed and you won't have to keep typing it in.

As far as demand caps, etc... it sounds as if you got some good advice in the many posts above. I'm dealing with the same problems on caps... but I just have to keep experimenting with different things.