Welcome to Hippieville! (And it needs your help!)

[Forrester 0]

First -- I apologize in advance for my lack of great and grandiose images, my horrible city 

planning, and my general lack of mayoral competence, but I just picked up SC4 and, hey, we all gotta 

learn sometime . . .

My goal: Create a 2x2 city that packs in as many happy, well-educated, snooty Sims as possible. 

I'm operationalizing this as:

1) Education level no lower than 160, and preferably higher.

2) Median income no lower than 60k, and preferably higher.

3) Life expectancy of 90+

4) No dirty power, minimal air pollution

5) No 'hax', cheats, etc. All natural growth.

The city I'm presenting was built, slowly and clumsily, on medium difficulty, with the basic set + patch, no NAM.

Now that I've found Simtropolis . . . well, I just downloaded NAM, and may get other content, as long as it doesn't

make the challenge easier in any sort of disreputable way.

I'm interested in any and all suggestions you might have with regard to what content to get that might make Hippieville even hippier.

Also, what sorts of modifications to make to my city to help pack in the hippies even more.

(For what it's worth, I plan on creating Slumtown to the north soon --

all dirty/manufacturing, low education, etc., just to see what it's like.) 

A few pics -- here's Hippietown from 50,000 feet. Year 239

(I've been taking my time tweaking the public transit and figuring out what it takes to get people to live in high-rises).

And had a couple of budget . . . problems, but those are gone now. Current population is ~140k.

I grabbed the New York map, picked a 2x2 tile.

Hippieville's been doing pretty good over the last 100 years -- the main addition has been putting in a subway system.

That's the only light ground rail I have, is subways (pretty cheap to maintain, though admittedly expensive to build.

But I typically run a $3,000 surplus during good times, when my water and hydrogen plant are at good efficiency, so hasn't been an issue.) 

http://img193.imageshack.us/i/hippievillegraphsyear23.jpg/

Note that the plurality of jobs are R$$. We just hit 25k High-Tech, so I have to figure out where to drop the Space thingamabobber.

Commute time continues to be an issue -- people keep moving out of high-rises because of "long" commute times, but the times I have here (50-60) 

seem a lot lower than some of the commute times I've seen in other CJs or summaries.

Those folks have hundreds of thousands of people in their cities. Not sure what's going on there . . . ? 

Speaking of commuting, here's the traffic data:

http://img193.imageshack.us/i/hippievilletrafficyear2.jpg/

The Subway system is VERY haphazardly built, but it seems to be helping. Not sure what subway systems are supposed to look like, ideally -- suggestions/links? 

The budget is looking good these days -- had a little problem early on, year 50-100, funding all of the solar plants -

-

(I started with one coal plant, and after that supplemented it with wind farms until I got solar power, then it was all solar and now it's hydrogen).

Tax rates are very low (I think, right? - seem to be to me) for all except dirty industry and manufacturing.

I tax poor people more than the rich because, well, who likes poor people? 

I may even raise it to keep the little ditch-diggers out . . .

http://img6.imageshack.us/i/hippievillebudgetyear23.jpg/

Next -- air pollution data (it's actually getting a little nastier than it's been in awhile), zone data, etc.:

http://img51.imageshack.us/i/hippievilleoverviewsyea.jpg/

As you can see, property values are high virtually everywhere.

(I picked the map with the *least* bold green in it, across all of the zone choices except for agricultural).

And you can see why I have so many snooty smarty-pants types in Hippieville.

The Zone layout is very haphazard but in general seems to match up with a theme that I've see in other maps today --

industry on the outside, with a layer of commercial, then residential, and commercial and a little HT industry in the center.

I haven't gotten downtown to completely take off with high-density goodness like I thought it would.

Perhaps I need to get the residential denser, build up the bottom of the map, and then build up some surrounding cities.

Some city areas:

http://img6.imageshack.us/i/hippievilledensestyear2.jpg/

This is the most densely packed (without people deserting) area -- 4700 residents in the building in the upper left alone, which is nice.

Some nice dense commercial buildings (~1000) here too.

(Yes, I know, in your city, you have buildings with 20,000 people in it and skyscrapers with 50,000, let a newb have his fun. Also, how do you do that?)

Downtown just hasn't taken off yet:

http://img10.imageshack.us/i/hippievilledowntownyear.jpg/

I think I need to buff up the transit system and then densen the residential community to the west of downtown in order to see growth here.

Finally, a problem area:

http://img684.imageshack.us/i/hippievilleproblemareay.jpg/

The red arrows point to buildings where everyone deserted, or the commute is Long, even though the place is freakin' surrounded by bus stops and subway stations.

I have NO idea why they are so *****y, but it's quite annoying.

Now that I've got some loot to play with, after I buff up the power system

-- (I might need to buy a solar plant to supplement the fusion reactor) and the water supply, I'm planning on extending the subway system into the industry corners,

and then filling out the bottom of the map with residential. I will then start on Slumtown to the northwest -- all dirty/manufacturing, low education/health, just to see what it looks like.

I also think that, given the document I found on how different parks affect commercial and residential neighborhoods differently, change some of the parks I've got placed.

And I have to figure out where to put that Spacelab.

BTW, I haven't done anything with MT yet -- doesn't seem I need it -- but after I build surrounding cities, I'll have to put in some rail.

I'm assuming I can put it underground so I don't have to tear down too much

    . . . would like to avoid putting in a superhighway (my hippies wouldn't like the pollution), but . . .

Anyway, there it is, Hippieville Year 239. Please tell me what you think and how I can improve it moving forward.

Thanks!

[thepokemaniac 18]

Looks great!

[ron.robinson123 0]

Love it!

[DCMetro34 577]

Good start! One way you could improve is by mixing zones so sims won't have drive or ride as far to get to their jobs. I see on your zoning map, that you have big clumps of residential, which makes commuting longer. Also, I see that industry is sort of in cracks in your zoning. Give industry it's own little area; and not too close to residential. Finally, make sure your mass transit is focused on the areas where road traffic is high; that will help a lot.

[timcravey 169]

I like it. It's interesting to watch someone who is relatively new to the game.

My only suggestion is to start developing the surrounding city squares immediately as this will boost demand in your central city and give those lazy Sims somewhere to work. Remember, Sims who wont walk around the block to get a job will gladly drive (or use subway) to a neighboring city for work. 

When I played the New York region I topped out at 3 million population

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

Yes, mixing and blending zones get's great results and if you're going to keep them apart make sure your transit network is up to par or better.

[SounderBruce 173]

Interesting concept...

[Patricius Maximus 236]

I have not examined your images under a microscope (as some have rightfully done), but I would like to say that for a first try, you're doing pretty good. I've had some cities with worse statistics.

And on the rail question you have, no, you cannot put rail underground. However, you can connect your subway system with neighbor cities. It works great. And also, do not be afraid to develop neighboring city tiles. The more expansive your region gets, the better off you will be.

[Forrester 0]

It was an interesting little stretch of time. Hippieville grew, in fits and starts, with a minor little economic crisis along the way . . . but I'll get to that shortly.

In Year 239, I had a pile o' money (400k) and decided to make the following changes/additions to Hippieville: 

1) Follow the suggestion that I more fully push Industry to the sides, give it its own area. Most of my industry was on the perimeter, but there was a big thick line of it next to downtown, and I did sprinkle it here and there (figuring that I wanted to give the Sims someplace to work nearby that wasn't commercial). I didn't completely get rid of Industry in the middle, but I did completely wipe out that strip next to downtown. 

2) Because my residential demand (for all times) was just about maxed out, I built a big-ole residential strip south of town. I took the country club out of the far eastern end and plopped it (poorly, should have made it farther north) south of town to help increase demand. (I just noticed in this pic it wasn't placed yet -- I put it right below the darker-green patch.)

3) As noted above, I ripped down the country club from where it was, and I also stripped the area almost completely of residential -- putting a bunch of Industry in its place.

4) I went with the almost universally recommended 6x6 grid for new builds, though I haven't changed the old routes to match. I have a lot of 7x6 or 9x5 lots -- hoping it doesn't hurt me too much.

5) Weirded out by small strips of uber-subway density, alongside almost completely ignored subway routes, I added in some more routes to see if I could spread the density out a bit:

This does make me wonder how people have subways that efficiently and realistically support millions of people, if I have parts of my subway system that are at capacity, or more, in a town of 140,000. I can't imagine that the subway system is supposed to be as dense as the road network, is it? 

6) I tore out a whole lot of streets and put in roads. Didn't like the extra expense/month, but trying to get that commute time down . . . I started to suspect that highly congested streets cause just as much noise as less-congested roads. Am I right? That's the only reason I was sticking with so many streets before, is to try to keep down traffic noise for my hippies.

So . . . I spent 150-200k on all of this, and hit Play. And then realized that the new regions I built weren't supplied with water . So I connected them to water, and built some more residential in the area south of town . . . and hit a recession.

The Hippies were probably not pleased, but I bumped the residential tax rates a bit (residential demand was still almost maxed) and I barely rode it out without having to take out a loan.

In Part II, I'll describe how hell broke loose soon thereafter, and how things look now.

[Forrester 0]

Two interesting things happened over the ~40 years following the initial mini-crash:

1) I got my first 10k residential building, which caused an education and health crisis among my hippies

2) My spending to resolve the crisis, combined with an aging hydrogen power plant, and (probably) a recession,

caused a huge deficit that required a massive tax increase, loans of $150,000, and . . .

. . . the hippies were not happy about this . . . repealing some of their favorite ordinances.

At least for awhile.

BTW, I figure you can't run Hippietown without having a Clean Air Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, carpooling, all that jazz, right? 

The hippies would demand them. In financial crises, I knock a couple of them off, and reinstate them when things got better (here's how it generally looks):

Here's what the new residential development next to the country club looks now (and how it looked prior to the crash):

See that big ole residential building north of the country club? It popped up to initially contain TEN THOUSAND glorious hippies -- 3 or 4 times as big as my next most populous residential building. I was very happy, but then they started complaining. The nearby small elementary school was over capacity, they didn't have good health care, blah blah blah. So I dropped another elementary school, dropped a high school nearby, and tried to get their education level up to high -- medium just isn't good enough for my hippies. (And dropped a big medical center as well, of course.) 

After all, those 10,000 ignorant hippies, and their ignorant kids, were enough to drive the mean education for the 1-10 and 11-20 year olds to below 160, i.e., below my threshold for educational success.

You can see in the graphs of the last 100 years how, when that residence took off, education took a hit, and the stupid people in there got a lot of R$ jobs.

Sadly, the people there quickly started complaining about commute time, and the place was deserted. And then, I had bigger fish to fry -- between my additional expenses, and a hydrogen plant going to hell, I started running a huge deficit. Jacking up taxes to almost 9% on residential didn't seem to help (though residential demand stayed quite high). Nobody was moving in, I was running big deficits . . . I had no choice but to take out a huge loan, buy a hydrogen plant, bump taxes a little bit more, and see how it turned out.

Well, it turned out quite well -- I was soon running a 5k surplus per month and paid off the loan easily. (I wish there was a way to pay it back early.) And soon thereafter, people started moving back in, and Hippieville now has around 180,000 happy, well-educated hippies that will live a looong time.

I wish I was running a bigger budget surplus right now, but . . . we'll see how it goes.

Note the tax changes from 50 years ago. Residents are paying a bit more (and they are how I get most of my $$) but commercial is paying less. I increased the rate on the dirtier industries, and dropped it on HT. I may eventually drop the HT tax rate to zero. My Industry demand is always lagging, and sometimes even the HT is low. But -- my understanding is that at the edges of the map, only Industry tends to thrive. So it's a problem.

Re the specific developments -- I showed you the residential spot near the country club. Here's what the new residential spot looks like directly west of downtown (where I tried to make things higher density, and ripped up the industry nearby) -- not super-dense, but it looks like it's holding, for now:

The area on the east side of town, where I was having problems keeping high-density residential, and where I put in some new Industry on the perimeter, is doing well -- the population seems to have stabilized there, nobody's deserting:

My goals for Hippieville for the next 50 years or so: 

1) Look around for Commercial zones where customer demand is high, and zone them up.

2) Try to create one or two more high-density residential zones.

3) Either buy another Solar plant, or buy another Hydrogen plant -- and if I do the latter, sell the power to any nearby city, except for Slumville (or, perhaps, DitchDiggerTown), which will of course have a coal plant.

4) Move the Opera House (which according to http://www.simcitycentral.net/html/cap-relief-list.html, only helps commercial) to a different spot. (It's screwing up my avenue placement, too.) 

(By the way, can anyone translate the +/- stuff, or the ranges, on that list?) 

Here's what the current zoning looks like, BTW:

Open to suggestions, of course.

Multiple people have suggested that I build up the surrounding cities now, instead -- I think this is a good idea, but I am not sure what their themes will be, and I want a good theme/quest/goal.

DitchDiggerTown will have, perhaps, *one* school, and nothing else, education-wise. I want to see how low I can get life expectancy and still have a successful, packed town.

Not sure what to do with the others, though. I have a tile on an adjacent square that borders a river -- I was thinking of trying to create a city that has maximum median income. Love to get a high-rise that is $$$ and *holds* at $$$ -- but I'm not sure how to do that. But it might be fun to play around with.

One city will probably be GridTown, where I stick with a 6x6 grid for everything, just to see if it is indeed a ton more efficient.

Any one have any good ideas for what to do with adjacent cities? I'm also wondering if I should play on a different region . . . New York mostly has one-tile spots, which I might find a little boring, I dunno.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions you given so far, and please, keep them coming! 

PS What is it with sims not wanting to cross the street to use the damned subway??!!!

PPS One thing I noticed about the most densely packed area I have, in the mid-north of the grid, is that it has a ton of one-way roads. I'm wondering if they are part of the secret to success as far as maximizing density. ? 

[Dumanios 35]

Probly because they are stupid or don't wanna get run over.

[Oktoberfest 0]

facinating. A CJ completly devoid of any custom content and anything that would make ur city look even remotely presentable, with the only goal of making the perfect city, I like it! And i like the name too, man

[Forrester 0]

Originally posted by: Oktoberfest

facinating. A CJ completly devoid of any custom content and anything that would make ur city look even remotely presentable, with the only goal of making the perfect city, I like it! And i like the name too, manquote>

I'll try to not take that personally .

One question I was going to ask is what some good custom content is to download that would perhaps mix up what my buildings look like. It'd have to be all natural growth stuff, nothing ploppable, and not change the rules in any cheaty fashion, but . . . I'm open to suggestions on that front .

Okay, back to Hippieville, where a $$$ 5000-person condo just opened up with LOW NOISE. ???!!! Be interesting to see how long it lasts. I tried something new, it's not on a 6x6 spot . . . might have something to do with it.