Commercial demand and development

[dare2go 4]

Introduction: I only own a SimCity4 Standard Version (without Rushhour), so I can't use extensive query tools.
I'm going back and forth between 2 different regions, so previous questions (and images) I have posted might relate to a different region. The following questions all relate to the main city in a region of 10 developed tiles, all cities/towns contain all 3 categories: residential, commercial, and industrial (no dirty city as such).
This city's size is currently 289,000+ Sims with roughly 136,000 commercial jobs, and 76,000 industrial jobs; it takes up over 90% of available space on the largest region tile (density is not very high yet!).

On one hand I get constant news ticker messages "Sims Scout for Office Advantages", yet my city centre with Stock Exchange, City Hall, Main Museum, etc, is largely "under-developed", with far too many small buildings like Small Shops, Boutiques, Wright & Daughter, Fennel Corp., and the ever present Cox Family Court - some of which occupy blocks zoned HIGH DENSITY Commercial... 
Around my new international air port, which is fairly close to the city centre, the only company of any size is Wong Insurance on a High Density block, all others are taken up by Small Shops, and at least six of the businesses are Bob's Grease Pits, plus a Flea Market and a Drive-In Cinema (all not what I want there)... 
I also just got a "Research Center" and placed commercial zones around it (some medium, some high density) and re-routed a sub-way to get a stop near by, but the picture is similar to the air port, only with a few more vacant spaces... 
Other commercial zones look very similar = far too many small buildings. The only really big commercial businesses in my city are McClennan Inc. with around 6,500 employees (where I had to place 2 sub-way stations to handle the crowds - LOL), and Chong Inc. with 4,200.

From all I have read so far all zonings above should attract better businesses and satisfy the "Sims Scout for Office Advantages" request - or do I have to put up "road blocks" to change my traffic around commercial zones from green to at least orange?  

An image showing the current traffic density can be found under my post   https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=98927&enterthread=y

[Maxis92 11]

From what I can tell, your city is developing just fine.

Ya gotta have patience.

Usually, you can't get the extremely huge commercial skyscrapres until your population approaches 500,000 and your civic services are good.

Your city will have a lot of mid rise buildings (like Wright and Daughter) at a population of 136,000.

A city with only so many people don't create the demand for tall buildings.

However, just out of my curiousity, do you mind posting a picture of your city with the buildings?

[Madog 3]

Well,

1.Reserach lab = Radiation?Radiation = no convenience

2.Airport = Polution = no convenience

3.Tax??

4.Demand?

All of this can be your problem,more population problems and traffic problems

[dare2go 4]

Originally posted by: Maxis92 From what I can tell, your city is developing just fine.

Ya gotta have patience.

Usually, you can't get the extremely huge commercial skyscrapres until your population approaches 500,000 and your civic services are good.

Your city will have a lot of mid rise buildings (like Wright and Daughter) at a population of 136,000.quote>

 

Not 136,000 - at time of posting it was 289,000 = more than twice...

Originally posted by: Maxis92A city with only so many people don't create the demand for tall buildings.quote>

I'm not overly keen to get tall buildings as such, but rather want to satisfy the demand, since I get all the time the "Sims Scout for Office Advantages" message.

The city is now at around 315,000 (dropped by about 4,000 in recent game months), not many offices have moved in, and slowly I get "unemployed" symbols and black residential buildings because there aren't enough jobs, despite the high demand, and some commercial zonings being empty, even right in the centre of the city next to highrises !?!

All commercial demand except Co$$$ is around 4,000, Co$$$ is barely positive, and across several locations (spread around the entire map) I have probably un-occupied room for about 30-40 large commercial buildings, if not 50... Just empty blue parcels of land.

(And yes: I even try to put some parks, etc, near-by to make the lots more attractive. My parks budget is twice that of my road maintenance... Grrr. 

Taxes were around 7.6/7.2/7.2 % for commercial, I just lowered them to around 6.9/6.5/6.6 since I'm making a decent profit and can't expect many more "Rewards", and both my power plants are fairly new = sudden high expenses. 

Lowering residential taxes by much more doesn't seem to be logical because the commercial demand is there (see above - I would rather think to lower residential taxes to encourage spending = demand.)!

I have already placed two landmark buildings to encourage demand (one resulted in McClennan Inc. moving in next door). Would that be the way to go?

Originally posted by: Maxis92However, just out of my curiousity, do you mind posting a picture of your city with the buildings?quote>

 

I'm running out of permitted storage space here, and from internet cafes I cannot use my account at PutFile.com to store images, because the uploader requires AxtiveX (which internet cafes are blocking)... But there is a picture with buildings and the traffic pattern in my other post https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=98927&enterthread=y

[SC4BOY 20]

I have the same problem sometimes.. If you patiently expand the FULL REGION population, you will find that the demand will rise high enough to trigger the available buildings.. stages are "steps" not continuous.. but I also have used your approach of plopping (even if only temporarily) one or more buildings that satisfy demand.. (but don't "use it up".. just nudge it.. hehe)

[His Divine Hand 244]

Part of your problem is that most of the commercial highrise offices are Co$$$. You would need to boast your high wealth office demand, which would mean getting more rich sims into your city.

[High5flyier 7]

I notice you have a lot of dirty industry areas located very close to both residential and commercial. Quary some of these buildings to see if the pollution is not suppressing their development. The convention center is a great booster for commercial but if the air pollution is stifleing the desirability factor then it is being wasted.

[Jazzmaster 716]

That's what I was going to say...all that dirty industry is sure to drive off any of the higher-up skyscrapers you want.  Also, while I'm pretty sure residential population plays a key role (they won't move to your city unless they know they'll have workers), you need a high amount of commercial office jobs to gain higher buildings...the absolute minimum is 45,000 or so, but you probably won't see the tallest buildings until you have about 50,000+ I'd say.  And yes, neighbor connections do help.

[Qualm 0]

Two things:

1. What does your water pollution map look like?  My high rise office development stalled out after a few were built, and it turned out to be water pollution generated by the high rises themselves.  A couple of treatment plants took care of that.

2. What do your traffic patterns look like?  High rise office buildings LOVE and I mean REALLY REALLY LOVE huge volumes of traffic passing next to them.  I converted some residential to commercial next to the heaviest transit paths and high office buildings shot into the sky like it was downtown Shanghai.

Oh, one more thing - to get empty commercial zones to develop, try placing plazas near them, not parks.

[frdrcklim 139]

Seriously. Buy the Rush Hour. In RH, the Maxis residential lots increased their capacity. It may also help you get a diverse set of new bldgs. Back then, I keep getting the same kind of bldgs because it only showed chicago and ny looking lots. I think they had a patch that fixed that but I forgot. Anyway just buy the expansion. It will make your life easier and it's probably cheaper compared to before .

[dare2go 4]

Originally posted by: High5flyier I notice you have a lot of dirty industry areas located very close to both residential and commercial. Quary some of these buildings to see if the pollution is not suppressing their development. The convention center is a great booster for commercial but if the air pollution is stifleing the desirability factor then it is being wasted.quote>

 

No, all industry interspersed in the residential areas is clean hightech. The only dirty industry is near the bay, but slowly I'm deleting (bulldozing) high polluters, because clean industry is growing closer to residential areas (= less travel time). And I have checked water pollution, too - no prob since city has too water -what-they're-called-mental-block-cleaning-plants.

Originally posted by: frdrcklim Seriously. Buy the Rush Hour. In RH, the Maxis residential lots increased their capacity. It may also help you get a diverse set of new bldgs. Back then, I keep getting the same kind of bldgs because it only showed chicago and ny looking lots. I think they had a patch that fixed that but I forgot. Anyway just buy the expansion. It will make your life easier and it's probably cheaper compared to before .quote>

 

I would very much  like to, but I'm currently (and for foreseeable future) in South America, right now stuck with a motor rebuild (on our camper - that's why I have so much spare time to waste) in Bogota in Colombia - no chance to get the right region/language version here... I have even tried one internet download of a trial version, but got rejected for being in "wrong region" - any other suggestions?

Cheers!