"Abandoned due commute time"

[Mahan 1]

My buildings are getting more rotten and grey becuse of "Abandoned due commute time".

The problem is, I dont know ***** it means.

What does this mean and how can I avoid it happen again?

[Drew_445 0]

It means they had to drive or otherwise commute too far to get to their job. One way I know of that's worked for me to solve this is using bus stations more, and other forms of mass transit. Also making sure they have good road access and have a pretty straight path to work, so they don't have to go on winding, twisting roads or something that takes longer

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Try this out, it's called the NAM and it helps out by helping your sims find an easier path to work.  It also makes mass transit more attractive.  Use multiple lines (roads AND bus stations AND trains AND subways AND monorail etc) between your residential areas and industrial/commercial areas.  If that still doesn't work, try replacing zones where buildings abandon with commercial or industrial zones.  Putting jobs where the sims actually are should help as well. 

Best of luck!  For other questions, try out the SimTropolis Omnibus.  It's full of great info, and I highly recommend perusing it

[City2TheMax 3]

Originally posted by: NMUSpidey

Best of luck!  For other questions, try out the SimTropolis Omnibus.  It's full of great info, and I highly recommend perusing itquote>

I agree, it's a very helpful source. Another thing that increases commute time is heavy traffic - check your traffic indicator and  make changes such as more mass transit or bigger roads. I have suffered very, very little abandonment by simply making bigger roads.

[sdlitvin 0]

I've done all those things.  But there comes a point when you just want your city to reach a steady state population gracefully.  That is, you want to stop adding new industrial and commercial zones so the city stays at some sustainable level of population. 

But I find that what happens is that the Sims insist on growing new residential buildings anyway--demand for jobs always exceeds supply (there's always a big demand for commercial and residential development).  The increased demand for jobs that isn't met causes other buildings to become abandoned. 

If I bulldoze those abandoned homes, new homes spring up in their place, and that causes homes in other parts of the city to become abandoned.  So at any given time, I have a vicious cycle of old residential buildings getting abandoned and new residential buildings getting built.

How can I just level off demand for jobs gracefully so the Sims stop building any more residential buildings?  Raise taxes or something?

[ColinM 11]

I found that it helps if your city's plot of land isn't all flat and that things aren't always grid style. When zoning low density residential, never use a grids (unless the land is flat), just have your main roads connecting to a small industrial area that is bordered with trees (it doesn't matter where the plot of industry is, as it will change over to HT in the future). Have roads going east-west and north-south following the landscape making large areas to fill in with light residential. As your population increases and you find yourself zoning medium density residential (which I would recomend doing after about half of your city's budget can handle the extra expenses from landfills, schools, healthcare et cetera) put the roads closer together and use one way roads on either the east-west roads, or the north-south roads, so they go to and from your main job source, or to a main artery like an avenue.

Also, adding busses and other forms of cheap transit helps too.

Here's a picture of my medium density area in a city, this is while using the NAM as well.

I hope this helps.

[ColinM 11]

I found that it helps if your city's plot of land isn't all flat and that things aren't always grid style. When zoning low density residential, never use a grids, just have your main roads connecting to a small industrial area that is bordered with trees (it doesn't matter where the plot of industry is, as it will change over to HT in the future). Have roads going east-west and north-south following the landscape making large areas to fill in with light residential. As your population increases and you find yourself zoning medium density residential (which I would recomend doing after about half of your city's budget can handle the extra expenses from landfills, schools, healthcare et cetera) put the roads closer together and use one way roads on either the east-west roads, or the north-south roads, so they go to and from your main job source, or to a main artery like an avenue. using cheap forms of mass transit, and enabling orderances for transit and other things to make your city a better place to live help as well.

Here is a picture of my medium density area in my city Treau Shores. I hope it helps!