planning and development problems

[lucius0605 0]

Hello everybody,

Firt of all, i am new here, i come from the Netherlands so please forgive my my poor english writing...

But there is not a good dutch simcity 4 community to join!

I am visiting this forum now for quite some time and i really enjoy all those great city journals and pictures of amazing city's.

I really love to play the game and i  hope i can someday make just a great region like for example parkopolis.

Now i always run into 2 problems. One is that when i zone a area for example residential that even when demand is very high that they just don't build houses. This problem is most of the time when the city is getting older (10-15 years and further). The crazy thing is that when i start a neigbouring city and zone for residential they build instantly (logical because demand is very high) and even then, when that city gets older i run into the same problem. Crime, low education, pollution, no-road connection all that stuff is not the problem i have took care of that!

The second problem is that i found it very difficult to plan! When you look like a region like Parkopolis i just can't understand how anyone can plan this out en let it work!

For example, i want to build a suburb like city so a lot of low density spread out residential areas with commercial on the avenues...But how bigger the city gets most of the time demand for commercial gets so high that it forces me to build commercial areas otherwise my sims wont get a job...And then my beautiful suburban idea is gone! Then i notice that i can't hold on to the way on how i want the region to become but i feel like the game is deciding it for me, and i can't stand it! I want to plan and create a beautiful region on my way but how do i get on top of the game and find the control?

I am very sorry for my bad english! If it is terrible i don't now..Anyway i hope to here from you!

greetz 

[Tysons4 68]

welcome

the sims want somewhere to work and shop... so on your first city you have to give all 3 of them... or jump between cities zoned rc and i. (they also require power)

second problem... sim city is like paint but only with different brushes... if you get good at it you can construct masterpieces.. look through the stex for more to add to your pallet and the city journals to stimulate your creativity

dont be scared to zone, rezone, build, and destroy

have fun

[SC4BOY 20]

Sounds like you may have reached a residential cap? It sounds like no as you say there is demand.. hmm.. maybe that you're simplly going too fast..the game does not like to be rushed, it likes time to pass.. are you using any specail lots? and as mentioned the game is meant to promote adjacent city development simultaneously

[Talin Tower 0]

If you're having any trouble with trying to get the zoning to be the perfect size, here's a trick. While dragging the cursor hold the shift key down. Then you will have 1 whole zone no matter how big you want it to be.

[Rady 94]

You should use neighbouring cities for your industrial and commercial zones if want to create a strictly residental city. One of the most iomportant things in that case will be that you need to esstablish an efficient treansport network, so that your sims can get to work. If you query a residental building that shows the "no job" sign, you very often will discover that the sims left the building due to long commute time (the information why the building has been abandoned is stated at the very top of the query window). So you need to provide alleys, highways or even (once youn can afford it in terms of budget) public transport.

That way you will have no problem in creating a pure residental city.

As for the layout, I would support what sc4boy said - don't rush. Take your time for planning the layouot of you city. Use the pause button to give it a break and consider your next steps. If you just drag one zone after the other 'cause the demand bars tell you so you will end up with a city that

(a) looks ugly

(b) turns to hell in terms of ttraffic once it reaches a certain size.

(Actually, that's what my cities turned out to be when I started wit sc4. I reached a point where I needed to destroy half of the city to cope with the traffic problems).

And for creating the zone layout: meanwhile I dont use the zone tool to let it create the roads within a zone. When zoning a new area (regardless of wheter it is r, c od i) I do it the following way:

1) I start out wit laying out the streets (avenues --> roads --> streest) in a certain area. In the beginning of course there will be no avenues, but I take into accoutn where they appr. will be in near future. This is important when placing e.g. public transport or civic buildings. More than once those building where placed without second thought and thus later on got in the way of my major networks like avenues, el-rail or so.

2) If already neccessary, I place the public transport stations and lines (rail, el-rail). Of course in the beginning there is no public transport since you might not affor it.

3) I zone the remaining space between the roads. By using the SHIFT, CTRL and ALT key you will also have certain possibilities to change the orientation of the zone (that is, which street / road it's gonna face). You might consider leaving unzoned space for the creation of parks and recreational facilities since it doesnt make sense to spend money for zoning if you later plpop a park atop this tile.

So, thats just my way to "plan" the city.

[lucius0605 0]

Thanks everybody for all the replies! Thanks that you took the time to give a serious respons!

I think that i know what you all mean with ''rushing'' it, but it is not the case that i zone giant pieces of land and not have the patient to let it develop. Really, the years pass by and just nothing happens. And i never zone really big pieces at once.

I have added a picture of what i mean, now it is a reasonable small piece that wont develop, but i have the same problem on a bigger scale sometimes and/or with small spaces scattered around the city. As you can see there are enough commerciall buildings around it, i have even placed a worship center on top of the piece that wont develop hoping that it will increase desirability to the area and start building on the zones that are left, or give the simulation a stimulans to start building. But it won't work, and it irritates me that i got this pieces in my city that stays unbuild.

I have also added a region shot. Perrylane still represents the original plan i had with the region. I wanted to build more cities like pennylane, with low residential with commerciall at the evanues, but demand forces me to build more commercial with resulted into small commerciall 'centers'. But my original plan is gone! The question is how can you stire your region in that paticulair way that it gets the lay-out, the fibe, the atmosphere that you want? Without just being subject to the simulator and have to go along with it...

Picture 4.pdf

Picture 1.pdf

[zurrabear 20]

Regarding your commercial demand issue--I'm no expert, but it sounds like patience is required, and you need to build up a large commercial sector in 'Tilapia', then go back to 'Perrylane' and you should see commercial demand there being satisfied by Tilapia, although maybe not right away. At that point I would also remove some or all of the commercial areas you built in Tilapia that you didn't want.

[Tysons4 68]

and the sims dont like industry and commercial so close to each other... add a buffer zone... like parks and sims like churches in their industrial zones... it increases clean industrial desirability put your cemetery in the industrial zone when it becomes available

[Rady 94]

lucius0605, as for the single commercial tiles that won't develop: possibly it's a lack of desirability, or there is a spot nearby that has a higher desirability, so most likely commercials will develop there rather than the spot in your picture. Try to put a plaza tile there, that will possibly help to get commercials to develop.

However even in large cities I discovered this "problem": a single one- or two-tiles-wide zone that won't develop - but that's the sam in RL, isn't it? At some spots nobody wants to start up a new shop of office.

For the general commercial demand: as suggested by zurrabear, you could etablish some commercial one in a neighbouring city tile. But you also need to take care of sufficient transit routes: sims only will go so far if they lack the proper network. As I can see in your region screenshot there is only one avenue that connects  Tilapia, Perrylane and Haco. And what's about Laverthure? SO possibly due to this the sims in Tialpia consider it to be too far to go to Haco or Laverthure to find a job.

I had the same problem once - my sims only travelled to the next city tile to find a job. Once I build a highway (and railroad / bus) that connected three city tiles they happily travelled three city tiles from theyr residental to theyr work location.

So if you want Tilapia to stay a rural (or strictly residental) town you could either build a highway to Perrylane --> Haco or build a commercial center in either Mayfield or the city tile north of tilapia.

Btw, what have you been zoning in Laverthure and Haco? Is there industrial AND commercial in these cities? Remeber what tysons4 said - it's never good to have a high proximy between industrial and commercial/residental zones.

[lucius0605 0]

Everybody thanks for the replies!

Rady: I think your right, it's probably a bit like in real life..

The answers to your questions: - There is indeed 1 avenue. It runs from Haco, Perrylane, Tilapia, to the right into Mayfield. It stops there. Laverture is connected to perrylane and Haco through streets. Of course the avenue is not the only connection to each other, there a roads connected to each other as well. For transportation i have buses in every city and was planning to maybe replace some of the buses for a subway line through the city's to the commerciall and high-tec districts.

- In Laverture is only high-tec and commercial, next to each other! People said that it ain't a good match but in works fine for me! See the picture.

In Mayfield is only high-wealth for now, in talipia high-wealt, medium-wealth, commerciall, and a airport.

In Perrylane medium-wealt, a very small bit of high-wealth, commerciall, and a bit high-tec. It also holds a university and the advanced research center. Therefore it is also the most educated and developed city of them all.

Haco was the industrial city were i started out with. It has dirty industries from the old days, and manufactering. It's also has te power supplie for Perrylane and i dump all the trash here of all the cities. Mayfield to Tilapia, Tilapia to Perrylane, Perrylane to haco, Laverture to perrylane, Perrylane to Haco etc.

Picture 2.pdf

[Rady 94]

Placing industrial near commercial or residential will work out initially, but later on you will get problems with growth stages - those areas won't develop like they would in the absence of an (especially dirty) industry. It's a matter of desirability.

But as the saying goes - many roads lead to Rome, and since you're the mayor - you'r gonna decide

[lucius0605 0]

I'm sorry Rady but i can't really follow you..

What do you mean with the absence of an especially dirty industry? Are you saying that if you don't have diry industry areas  won't fully develop?

[Rady 94]

Sorry for confusing you

What I meant is that industry lowers the desirability of neighbouring tiles ('caues of the pollution it creates). This is especially the case for heav industry which creates a lot more pollution than e.g. high-tech industry. So:

If you place a residental (it's the same for commercial AFAIK) zone

(a) near a heavy industry zone, you won't attract high-wealth residentals 'cause of very low desirability. Basically what you wil lend up with is "ghettos / slums" since only poor people will live there

(b) near a high-tech industry zone desirability will be higher then in (a) thus you will also attract wealthier sims

© standalone (that is with NO industrial zone nearby) desirability will be the highest of all three cases. In that case you will be able to attract high-wealth sims (and commercials).

Of course there are more factors that have an impact on desirability apart from the above. For a more detailed look into this topic you should search the forum for "desirability" - I'm sure there are many threads (by sc4 gurus ) that offer deeper insights into that topic.

So basically you should tend to seperate industry and residenatl/commercial zones if you want to attract high-wealth residentals in the end. That's why many tend to build industry and residental city tiles: the border between the tiles cuts off any impact between the neighbouring tiles. This way you can place an residental zone right beside an industrial zone thus reducing commuting times but without the side effect of lowering desirability since you got a city border in between.

And for your "planning" problem: I suppose the main problem in that case is to provide proper transport networks (that is highways, rail, buses. That way your sims will live in an rural / suburbian area but will travel to the next city tile that e.g. provides industry or commercial zones.

Maybe I can get you some screenshots from one of my regions later on so you will see what I'm talking about.

[lucius0605 0]

Rady: I know about pollution and how it effects desirability..

I know that the pollution stops at the border of a city.. (it has no effect on another city)

Somewhere on this forum is a totarial named making money the easy way..

The author says that commute time stops at the border of a city what means that it doesn't matter how far the job is in the other city.. That's why i only have buses... But you say that when you build highways you noticed that your sims wanted to move 3 city's across the map to go to work.. How do you discovered that?

And what i really mean with planning.. When i started the region i wanted that al my cities would look like Perrylane.. Only demand forces me to change the lay-out, (by building commercial and high-tec centers) that's why i wonder how anyone can 'plan' a massive region from the start.. how can you know how high demand is going to be? How do you know that your city's will, your zones, will grow? And not have problems with to much or to little demand? Like look at Parkopolis, how is such a big region planable?

And it would be great if you can show some region shots!

[Rady 94]

Originally posted by: lucius0605

But you say that when you build highways you noticed that your sims wanted to move 3 city's across the map to go to work.. How do you discovered that?

quote>

My city layout was like this (X .. empty citiy tile, R .. residental/commercial city tile, I ... industrial city tile

X   X   X    R2

X   I2  R1     I1

X  R4   X    R3

I used the route query tool on the highways in the industrial zone and discovered the following movements:

Industrial City 1: bus / cars entering from R1 going through to R2; train / bus entering from R3 going to R1

Same with R1 --> I2 --> R4

Of course it's somehow odd that they do this, but obviously they travelled trough the whole zone without a stop onto the next.

So I had two large pure industrial cities and no problem to satisfy job demand in the residental cities. But this happend only afterI  put the railway an highway in place, not when I had avenues only.

I never tried to seperate the residental from the commercial zone by placing themin different city tiles but assume it works the same way. Even if I create a city tile that's supposed to be rural (that is no big industrial or commercial zones) I at least put SOME commercial zones (very small areas of course) in that city since each litte village should at least have e.g. a grocery store, ... But that's just a few tiles with each settlement.