Question about Commute times and abandoned buildings.

[Blacksilvre 0]

Hello Everyone,

First of all, belated Merry Christmas!

I currently got to 400k population and still have high demands for all 3 zones that I can't seem to meet.  I suddenly started getting the no jobs icon on lots of buildings.  The wierd thing is, this only happens on the residential zones near the dirty industries.  There's no problem in pollution since I made sure they're far enough when I've put them there.  They won't let me query on where they work also after they get the no job icon.  The commute time is always long and that's also the reason when they get abandoned.

I have nam with simulator Z medium installed.  The no job signs only happens on the residentials in the middle of the map I built near the dirty industrial.  I divided my city into the E and W side.  East are mainly Residential, commercial and hi-tech industries while the west side are power plants, dirty and manufacturing industries.  The commutes are long on the buildings that get the no job sign. 

I have lots of residential on the East side and I have no problem with them.  The commute times are short and I very rarely get a no job icon on the buildings over there.  I've queried some of the buildings there and lots of them go to work halfway through the map and their commute time is still short. 

The residential that I'm having problems with are in near the middle of the map, near the industrial side so it's abit impossible to get the long commute problem considering the houses on the East side have a long way to travel and their commute times are still considered short.  But when I check them after they get the no job sign, it would say that the commute time is longI don't know what to do.  Is it because I'm not able to meet the commercial and industry demands?  I'm slowly getting the demand for dirty industries but there's still lots of demand for Manufacture and Hi-tech industries.  I seem to get the problems on high and medium wealth buildings mostly.

I'm almost broke now.  i have 2k money on the reserves and I get 1k profit per month.  I had around 2-3mil but they were all spent building bus and subway stations.  I had problem with congestions and traffic but after I installed bus and subway stations on every corner, that helped with the congestion problems. But this didn't help one bit on the long commute times and no job icons I'm having.   I don't have highways yet since my map is already mostly populated and whenever I try to put highways, zones get destroyed and messes me up quite badly where I lose alot of money and population.

Also, abandoned buildings, if I leave them as they are, will they get repopulated over time?  I'm seeing alot of high and medium wealth buildings abandoned due to this problem.  Am I better off destroying the buildings to make way for new construction?  I do this but it also takes time for those areas I destroy to get replaced. 

[SC4BOY 21]

In the circumstances you describe (without having detailed info about your city) I'd say your problem almost certainly relate to the wrong mix of R$,$$, and $$$ population in the city. You probably have too much R$$$ and they can find no place to work. Each C, I will have something like 45% $ 45% $$ and 10-15% $$$. (the exact ratio varies a bit based on education and the wealth of the jobs) If you have too many $$$ (or $$ for that matter) you cannot find jobs for your people without their leaving the city. Use taxes (or the bulldozer if you have to) to bring the population closer to that. Long commute times GENERALLY relate to:

1. They can't get to jobs in the city.. ie you have not integrated the R, I, and C such that there can be free travel among them.

2. You have either the wrong jobs or the wrong population for what you have in your city (as I described above)

3. If you have many people leaving or entering your city it makes for HUGE commute times (each who leaves is accessed 1/2 the distance through the adjacent city tile)

[Blacksilvre 0]

Thanks, that seems to make sense. Now looking at my city, I have high demand for r$ and r$$ than r$$$. But the thing is, I keep putting lots of manufacturing and hi-tech jobs so that should help. Though, I haven't been able to lower the hi-tech and manufacturing demands yet no matter how many industrial zones I put in. Even if I've increased the taxes on dirty industries. Their demands are through the roof and by roof, I mean past the line at the very top while on dirty industries, I have very few demand. This is really good news for me. So it has nothing to do with the roads I have.

My city is alone at the moment. No cities around it. Do you think it'll help alot if I start a city near it?

[SC4BOY 21]

yes... the game feeds on demands from other cities in the region.. its a part of the game

[Blacksilvre 0]

Cool thanks! I'll get right on it then. It would be easier for me to start a new city than figure out how I can meet both demands for hi-tech and manufacturing industries because whenever I try to put zones that hi-tech industries desires, I always get Manufacturing setting up shop there. Can't increase taxes either because I want the demands to stay the way they are, as high as possible since I don't want to get that "stuck in a rut" problem where there's no demand for everything and that's a bigger problem than just the no job icon and abandoned buildings.

Plus I'm a bit excited making another city near it. Should be easier this time around since I can connect it right away near my current city so making progress with it should be easier. Plus this time around, I'll make sure to make room for highways to avoid destroying lots of zones when it's decently developed. It can go either way too when I have to make highways for my current city. I'll be destroying lots of commercial and industrial zones so I should have no problem destroying them if the neighbor city has lots of them so my sims can temporary get jobs there until the highway is fully functional and the destroyed zones are replaced.

[Spinmaster 75]

If you're looking to correct R$$$ unemployment with high-tech industry, you will need this bug fix if you don't already have it.

Long story short: there's a bug in the game that prevents the IHT lots from actually offering jobs for R$$$, even though up to 10% of the workforce in IHT is supposed to be high-wealth. The highlighted download should fix that by slightly altering the ratio.

[Blacksilvre 0]

Thanks, I actually have that installed. I'm just having problems meeting demands on industries. Demand for Manufacturing and Hi-Tech. Trying to get Manufacturing demand to lower first so I can increase the tax on it when the demand becomes lower. Since Manufacturing loves to pop up on zones I make mainly for Hi-Tech and I end up destroying manufacturing that spawns there.

Currently making another city near it too so It'll hopefully take some of the burden.

[SC4BOY 21]

Oh, it doesn't seem anyone addressed your question about abandoned buildings and rebuilds. They WILL rebuild. It may refill the current building or it may just build a new lot on the spot. I routinely bulldoze them however since an abandoned building (even if you have the mod that stops them from looking abandoned I believe) drops the desirability in the area around them.