Residential Cap

[Evil Weasel 88]

There is a cap that forces you to build up medium density residential before building outwards with low density. This makes large-till cities impossible, since the game forces me to build up and I leave most of the map empty. If I want to make a suburban area on a big map, I can forget about it!

Is there a way to eliminate this restriction?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Add parks, playgrounds, ball diamonds and other recreational things.  This lifts the res cap.

[Evil Weasel 88]

I do that. All I end up with is tonnes of parks with empty lots between them. I have jobs right beside them too and good services. High density grows, like I said, but no new lots develope.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Check your desirability display.  Low level Sims need elementary schools, fire stations, water, etc.  Have you tried a playground?

[Evil Weasel 88]

Dude you don't understand my problem!

There is a cap that forces you to build up medium density residential before building outwards with low density.

[Ziek 0]

I have never heard of this before. Where did you come across that?

[Aroughleague1209 0]

Try adding large Flower gardens...and trees also. Trees keep pollution way down and increase land value without paying anything.

No, I'm not talking about the seed trees in mayor mode. Use the God mode trees within the game by holding down CTRL+SHIFT+ALT and clicking the God mode button (that's the one with the sun-shape on it). and click the top option within God Mode.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: Evil Weasel Dude you don't understand my problem!

There is a cap that forces you to build up medium density residential before building outwards with low density.

quote>

The reason that we don't understand your problem is that it doesn't exist.  I have never had this problem building cities for the last three years or so.  If you run the tutorials in Timbuktu you will find it is at pains to point out that you build out before up.

I don't build medium density residential until my game actually needs it to grow more commercial.  This has nothing to do with "residential low density caps", of which there appear to be none.

Check your various displayed maps and graphs.  You will find some glitch that is causing your problem.  Water, maybe.

[Aroughleague1209 0]

I don't mind using medium density residential zones, even in a city's earliest days. It doesn't cost all that much more, and it doesn't charge any monthly fee for the extra zoning density.

[gabry85 2]

Actually Evil Weasel is right. It happened to me as well!

Once you have built a low-density city of about 10,000 sims, a message from the city-planner advisor pops up and says you'd better build medium or high density areas.

From now on, it is a very slow growth of suburban, low density areas.

My only suggestion is: if you want to build large suburban areas, you should divide your big city in four medium cities and edit your config.bmp file. I know it's annoying and you have to erase your city but, unless someone here has a better idea, I can't see other ways, I'm sorry.

[Ziek 0]

I actually HAVE gotten that message from the city-planner. I just never thought anything of it. Similar to them complaining about no fire department.

[Imprezza05 1]

my guess is that you are not getting any suburban development because you might be getting too much high rise development, also you may have too long commute times / bad traffic.

[Aroughleague1209 0]

I never get that message from Neil Fairbanks, because I always zone medium to high density residential right away.

[Evil Weasel 88]

Originally posted by: gabry85 Actually Evil Weasel is right. It happened to me as well!

Once you have built a low-density city of about 10,000 sims, a message from the city-planner advisor pops up and says you'd better build medium or high density areas.

From now on, it is a very slow growth of suburban, low density areas.

My only suggestion is: if you want to build large suburban areas, you should divide your big city in four medium cities and edit your config.bmp file. I know it's annoying and you have to erase your city but, unless someone here has a better idea, I can't see other ways, I'm sorry. quote>

Thank you for being the only person who actually read my post, which is evident from the responses I've got. So is there a way to avoid this with cheating?

Meh Actually I've got a large tile inner city, I'm going to build up but I want to fill the whole map. It angers me that they make these stupid huge tiles then prevent you from covering them with this stupid rule. Hate it. How on earth do you fill a large-tile city?

[gabry85 2]

I agree, I planned to build large suburban spaces and I use rarely medium density buildings. Maybe large-tiles cities were supposed to be used for high-density spaces such as the downtown. As I said before I have no other ideas than the one I mentioned above.

I don't know if there's a cheat to help you with this, maybe on the STEX there could be a lot or a mod that could do the trick on the housing demand, take a look. Also check this out.

I personally dropped playing SimCity 4 for this reason and for its too many bugs!! It seems that EA didn't care much about this game and that's a shame...

And PLEASE, Mr. Fairbanks, shut up!

[llamavore 0]

How on earth do you fill a large-tile city?quote>

 

if you want to fill up a Large city with suburban growth... well I haven't tried it, but it's the only thing I can think of to make it work -- make neighboring cities with dense industry or what have you, and no residential, and link them to the large city, and see if that increases the residential demand, maybe you can force the sims working in the next city to build more suburbs in the large one.

[RippleJet 36]

Evil Weasel, I'm sorry I didn't see this thread earlier to give you a proper answer right away.

The percentual appearance of different stage buildings is set by properties called "Stage # vs. Size" in the Developer Exemplars of the game.

The thresholds for residential development is the total regional residential capacity ( R§+R§§+R§§§ ).

With the release of Rush Hour, Maxis reduced the thresholds for R§, CS§ and I-D, so that low-wealth buildings would develop into skyscrapers sooner than was the case in Vanilla. For RH this means that with a regional residential capacity as low as 20,000, buildings of stages 7 and 8 become predominant for R§.

This in turn means, that in order to have functional, wide-spreading suburbs, you need to have at least one city in your region where you allow residential high-rises to appear. Otherwise, the lack of higher stage buildings will cause the residential development to halt.

With the CAM I have shifted these thresholds upwards, so that more low-rise buildings have to develop before the higher stages come into play. In CAM the initial development of a new region will be slower, but on the other hand, the development would continue far beyond the upper thresholds set by Maxis.

Take a look at the first post in the CAM - General Discussions and compare the first two graphs to each other. Especially the first graph should give you a better answer to your question.

Originally posted by: gabry85 I personally dropped playing SimCity 4 for this reason and for its too many bugs!! It seems that EA didn't care much about this game and that's a shame... quote>

Many have felt the same. Whether the CAM could get you back into playing I don't know, but it might be worth a try.

[Sim_Air 2]

There is also the other side: you can start with low and cover all the map, then you can zone medium and high in the middle and have suburban areas around the downtown....i tried it once; it was a mess but it worked lol

[Evil Weasel 88]

With the CAM I have shifted these thresholds upwards, so that more low-rise buildings have to develop before the higher stages come into play. In CAM the initial development of a new region will be slower, but on the other hand, the development would continue far beyond the upper thresholds set by Maxis.quote>

By "initial developement" do you mean developement outwards, or developement upwards? Does your mod allow larger amounts of low-density?

[RippleJet 36]

Take a look at the two graphs mentioned in me previous post.

Compare the thresholds of those two graphs to each other.

As you can see, the first threshold in the RH graph is at 300.

The first threshold in the CAM graph is at 800.

Up to that regional residential capacity you will see only stage 1 buildings.

Once you get past that first threshold you will see 95% stage 1 and 5% stage 2 buildings.

All subsequent thresholds are higher for CAM than for RH. Thus, you will need a larger population for each new growth stage to appear, giving you more low-rise buildings initially with CAM than with RH.

[Teddah 1]

Originally posted by: Evil Weasel

By "initial developement" do you mean developement outwards, or developement upwards? Does your mod allow larger amounts of low-density?quote>

Correct me if I'm wrong, RippleJet, but the CAM adjusts the building stage ratios to allow a higher percentage of lower density buildings.  In other words, it now requires more low-density development to support the higher densities.   Basically, the 'cap' you refer to in your first post is raised significantly.

[Evil Weasel 88]

Ah I am interested. I have two questions:

1. Can I use it on already existing cities.

2. Is it safe.

I have a city of 82 000 I am working on (on a large tile). It has areas around the outskirts that are undeveloped or partially developed (some green blanks between houses). Would the Cam allow me to feel these gaps? This is essentially the reason I'm asking.

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: Teddah Correct me if I'm wrong, RippleJet, but the CAM adjusts the building stage ratios to allow a higher percentage of lower density buildings.  In other words, it now requires more low-density development to support the higher densities.   Basically, the 'cap' you refer to in your first post is raised significantly.quote>

Initially you will see more low-rise houses before the high-rises will start to appear. On the other hand, the development continues far beyond the highest threshold set by Maxis.

With RH the first threshold for R§ is at 300, the last one at 19,846. Once your regional residential capacity has reached the last threshold, no further development will occur. The ratio between the existing eight stages stays the same after that.

With CAM the first threshold for R§ is at 800, the last one at 3,085,020. It will take longer to reach the first threshold and your city will grow more horizontally before it starts to grow vertically. On the other hand, new stages will continue to appear a lot longer in the lifespan of your region.

Originally posted by: Evil Weasel 1. Can I use it on already existing cities.quote>

Generally yes, but do read the manual thoroughly first and remember to backup your entire region and plugins folders.

Originally posted by: Evil Weasel 2. Is it safe.quote>

Yes, if you remember to backup your region and plugins before trying it!

Originally posted by: Evil Weasel I have a city of 82 000 I am working on (on a large tile). It has areas around the outskirts that are undeveloped or partially developed (some green blanks between houses). Would the Cam allow me to feel these gaps? This is essentially the reason I'm asking.quote>

Try it, and you can tell us your experience.

[Evil Weasel 88]

OK, once I'm off work I'll give it a wing. Nothing to lose I geuss.

[Cob92 360]

I have found that cities will begin as low density, but will eventually densify in the urban core even as they sprawl. Also, for me large suburbs tend to be difficult to sustain except in cities with an existing urban core. The city center provides funds needed for master planning of streets, access roads, schools, clinics, landscaping, and safety. However, they can be very profitable and great looking when set up correctly. Also, if you are going to build large amounts of sprawl, roads MUST be well planned. Suburbs depend more on highways and avenues for commuting than mass transit. Failure to build a good system of access routes will result in large scale abandonment and a massive money drain on the city, due to hundreds of thousands of cars congesting the network.

[Flann 1,709]

I am working on a large tile city right now. Basically I started by planning the Highway network. The core downtown and industrial center will be encircled by the highways which then branch out to service the sprawling suburbs. I developed some medium residential in the city center. So far I haven't had any problems with demand for my suburbs.

[rob9926 0]

i think you are making your suburbia too desirable for R$$. medium wealth will not be stopped by low density. what should stop medium wealth above all other aspects is amenities. if you shower your suburbia with the finest services then you will get higher wealth residents. one problem with these high wealth residents is they don't want to develop in your empty tiles, they rather knock down your houses and build larger counterparts. so what i can suggest is that if you want a suburbia in a large city with every tile constantly being developed, simply don't give your city any services and say goodbye to medium wealth residents. you will most likely have a constant demand for more residential and be able to inhabit almost all of a large size city. one advantage of this is you can raise your low wealth population really high and not need to waste money on expenses.