No Job Zot Question

[mrdahjr 0]

Originally this was a question as to why something has happened in the game - but when I started to post I think I figured it out and now I'm only confirming it: I had started building a city - had two seperate chunks of development. To the north along a coast I had industries. To the south I had residential and commercial. Each had their own road networks but no road connected the residential area to the industrial area. Instead, I had a train connecting the two areas. It worked GREAT at the start. Better than I expected. The only thing I didn't establish is a busing system near the industries. I forgot about that but it still worked somehow. It's my understanding that at the destination side of rails Sims won't walk more than a block or so - but they did. Go figure. So as I said - everything was working better than I expected and I was bringing in MONEY. Profit margin for a 5-6 thousand population was about 1k per month (I think per month). So after this was all established I started placing things like a hospital, a grade school, a library, high school and city college - and I think this is where I went wrong. After placing these things for some time things were OK then all of a sudden I was seeing "no job" pop up all over my residential zones and they appeared to have stopped using the train. Am I correct in thinking that what happened is they (Sims) simply got to smart, wanted better jobs and more importantly stopped using the train because "they didn't want to?" I remember reading somewhere that educated Sims prefer to "drive their fancy cars" or something along those lines. If this be the case: Should I have simply left this city without schools, to keep them an uneducated work force - develop this city as such and have neighboring cities offer schools? I know each city in RL has its poor neighborhoods - and for the most part serves the purpose of cheaper housing. If neighboring cities have schools (a better life) will that equate to the Sims in the poor city abandoning it in favor of the city with schools or will this "poor city" serve its purpose with cheaper housing and dirty industries?

[Zelgadis 638]

Well, I'm assuming that you posted this in the Mac forum since you have a Mac. Seems reasonable, yes? However the issue you describe here is not Mac related. I could leave it here, but I'm going to move it to the SC4 general discussion forum. You'll surely get more help for your issue there.

ISF

[dada222 9]

As you said, more 'clever' sims want hitech industries, CO and don't use mass transportation that much. So you should develop IH and Co instead.

[mrdahjr 0]

Ok, so does placing ANY school of any kind cause this to happen? I'm thinking what causes this to happen is placing colleges - but is it safe to place grade schools and high schools? I'd like to develop this city as one with poor housing and industries... and provide avenues for a "way out of the neighborhood" to neighboring cities that offer better schooling.. connected by highways, roads or rail? I guess what I'm asking is can neighboring cities work together in this fashion? Can you have poor industrial cities work together with higher educated commercial or hi-tech cities? If this can be done, should I place any schools in the poor city? At what point in Sim education do they start becoming "too smart" for what is developed?

[Mikeaut1 261]

Um... I don't think placing schools has any effect on no job zots. No job zots strictly mean that there is no job for the person(s) living in the houses that have them. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is commute time. Make sure your residents have places to work, either it be Commercial or Industrial. Schools, hospitals, and other civic buildings also offer jobs. So schools and hospitals actually benefit the prevention of no job zots.

Do you have the NAM? The NAM has the ability to make all commute times reasonable and short rather than long, thus reducing no job zots. I think if you don't have the NAM you should download it.

[mrdahjr 0]

NAM? I remember downloading something for transportation a long time ago. I forget what it was though. It may have been that. As far as commute time causing no jobs to pop up - the city seemed quite happy until some time after I placed a grade school, high school and college. I can only assume the period of time after those were placed when they were happy was taking into account the time it takes for Sims to get educated enough to want more. Commute time was long from the start but didn't appear to phase them at all. The no jobs only appeared after some time having the schools placed.

[Mikeaut1 261]

Hmm... I'm still not convinced that the schools have anything to do with the njz's. I do recommend going into the game and querying the homes that have njz's and see how their commute times are. It could've been that after you developed your school, there was some more demand and more residential/commercial zones were built up, thus causing traffic.

[mrdahjr 0]

Nope already checked those things. From the creation of the city, they way I planned it - commute times were long. That was one of my concerns so I kept a check on those but they never caused a problem. And the size of the residential area hadn't grown. I got everything to a certain point where I was brining in about 1k a month and let it sit for a while to watch for any problems. Everything worked better than I expected like I said. After a while of watching I started getting messages about the need to clinics, schools... at was at this point that I placed the hospital and schools. Still for some time things went great then all of a sudden up pops the no jobs. I checked the trains - they appeared to have stopped using the train. I did notice after a while it seemed they moved out.. and replaced by new homes/residents. Pop dropped to around 5-6 thousand, down from I think 7 or 8 thousand now that I think of it. Once some new homes popped back in it seems to start turning around. That's why I was wondering if a neighboring city with better services to work together with this city.

[His Divine Hand 244]

To answer your question simply about neighboring city with better services, not the way you think. Now, as to the problem that you have, schools did not cause it persay, but if you sims became too educated too work in Farelys Foundery, they don't have a job. Did you residentail buildings change to a higher wealth than R$, and a few mansions move in? If that is what happened, but your industrial zone stayed as Dirty Industry, then people don't have jobs they needed.

The solution to this, if you want a poor city you either put no services in, or you make all of the buildings historical so that they must remain as poor R$, even with services. Now, building a neighboring city you maybe be able to provide a place for higherwealth sims to work, and that would solve the problem as well, so long as you don't get too much dirty industry and instead get some manufacturing or high tech. I hope that is helpful.