Region expansion questions

[zziobs 0]

Intro --

Though this is real world map cities are absolutly fictional. I 'm playing it since a week. It worked out really well till 40 game years but; then on  there've been huge struggle for developemet.

For the very first time I'm thinking region as whole rather than thinking only of the city and wish to pay particular attention to the looks of region. I'm not the brightest of the artists so there wont be much of eyecandy. I just try my best.

Questions --

I'm littile confused about expansion of this region.

Q1. Should I go verticle in "Harrisburgh" by zoning "medium and high density residential" or should I first fill all the tiles by "low density residential zones" What is the best choice ? I always used high density zones first rather than spreading city with low density

Q2. Most of the dirty industry and low wealth sims fled from "Harrisburgh" I want at least few of them. What is key to make low wealth sims and dirty industry stay in city(apart from lowering taxes)

Q3. Most of the low wealth sims fled for "Brookfield" too despite not having any facilities. Is there any way to get rid of mansions and getting back townhouses.

All kinds of comments, suggestions are welcome

I'm using no mods atm and wont be using  as it tends to make regions unloadble sometimes if I lose plugins

[jim 546 43]

Q1: I always try to fill the area with low density buildings first. Then I can look at certain aspects of the city to find out which districts would be best upgraded. Spreading out also makes the city look better, in my eyes anyway.

Q2: Low wealth sims will show up where there is a lack of services and amenities, such as parks, schools, hospitals. Try removing the services and see what happens. Dirty industry relies on low wealth sims requiring jobs, so getting them back will create demand for dirty industry jobs and encourage their growth..

Q3: The only way to efficiently do that is to raise the taxes, then demolish the mansions. You may have to re-zone some sections.

[usfwoody 3]

What I have done to encourage a healthy low wealth residential population is to build your city first, and place no unnecessary services, i.e. education, police, water. You need water or else you wont get higher growth stage buildings.  You need fire protection, or at least one fire truck to be able to reach all of the city, and garbage disposal. Dirty industry will remain high, and that will allow low wealth residential demand to stay high. Once you start fulfilling both, and your city population raises, you will get larger and more dense low wealth population buildings (Tenements, and Projects). Make these historical and then once you have a significant portion of low wealth residents, start to introduce education and health. That way you begin to develop the higher wealth demands while maintaining that low wealth population.

[zziobs 0]

I finally kicked out most of the "high-wealth "from "Brookfield" though I left their decayed mansions as is. It gives very nice rundown effect for a small farming village.

Dirty industry on the other hand is not being expanded in "Harrisburgh". Demand is abysmal for dirty industry. There is quite a demand for "low wealth residential" but no "low wealth res" development at all. I removed clinics and schools from one of the residential district but mansions won't leave. Other district (which is quite farther)still has few service buildings. I can't just destroy the whole city economy by removing all schools and hospitals. I cant destroy certain gift buildngs too. I dont know what effect mayors house, house of worship and city hall cause on land values but I'm sure they improve it somehow.

Is there any solution to already established city full of dirty industry and commercial buildings at the same time. I can't belive I never tried this before; to make certain group live in certain city.

Thanks a lot for solutions so far I'm trying to make them work.

[Cyrilix 0]

Grid city, eh? I like it. There's something truly beautiful with a superbly crafted grid. It feels like a marvelous feat of engineering, to have the perfectly optimized grid such that transit systems are at full capacity everywhere without overloading any single part. Usually, what happens is that I build a highly-dense fully planned (and sometimes it takes me hours of prototyping and design). Then, transit systems break down after a certain population, and I start over again, taking into account the problems that I have to overcome for even greater density.

Anyhow, mayor's house has one of the most significant effects on desirability. I think the statues and some select buildings are also good too. Houses of worship are great for residential desirability. Cemeteries, on the other hand, provide a little boost, but take up a lot of space, so I would classify them as unnecessary, but OK, if you have the room.

Also, I think degraded buildings are OK, as sometimes they will un-degrade themselves if the demand is there. I read somewhere that they are simply less efficient though.

[Markus J 242]

There is a trick with region play to get the kind of "stuff" you want to grow... to well, grow.

In my region (See Sig), I deprived my Sims of water but select areas, mostly industrial. And gave them every service possible, health, police, school (libaries importaint), then here is the importaint part... wait. Soon, ID demand will get taken over by IM and some HT (mostly IM though) and you will have masses of low wealth and medium wealth but never high wealth because without water they will not grow. And in my region this experment proved to work very well. I kept it nothing but low res and low cs but high industry (for bigger IM buildings) until my overall regions IQ kicked in hard and demand for Cs and Co was amazgly high (also a picture in my CJ). I've learned it's possible to have a large region (thus far anyway) with almost no R$$ sims.

Also it sounds like you have demand cap issues. Where you got the demand but met your cap and cannot grow more. Build more parks for Res, plazzas for Com. Reward buildings help too, the House of Worship, Mayors House and Cementaries seem to be the biggest residential boosters that are easy to get. Civic buildings also help with demand cap some to. Schools give big boost. So don't neglect these things but also make sure you can afford them too.

[zziobs 0]

Made few bold moves destroyed all schools and hospitals  demand for dirty industry is slowly increasing. It was -6000 now its -4000. I just noticed that there are adult Sims who are already educated. And it might take few decades till they RIP. May be I should have waited a bit before being panic.

I doubt high wealth will return to mansions with the demand being -4000 and tax 18%, Cyrilix. Decayed buildings are used by low wealth at the moment.

And yes Markus J your region is very nice. I'm not into CJ and stuff. But I would want to make one some day; as soon as I understand the concept. I'm too lazy for stuff like that LOL.

I thank all the helpers for their ideas and help. And this topic is almost closed unless anyone else has anything to say.

[Cyrilix 0]

This is a good FAQ, especially w.r.t. demand caps and RCI, among other things. It took me days to read and test the material presented in this guide:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/561176-simcity-4/faqs/21501

With a region population of 50K, though, unless you have been building absolutely no demand cap busters, that doesn't seem like it would be a big problem. I mean, a large plaza is +10K demand in itself. Regardless, check it out and see if there are any solutions or ideas to your problem.

[zziobs 0]

Cool FAQ I Cyrilix thanks.

@Mods or any Old Member : - There are 3 images of region and cities hanging around in this topic so take a look it and tell me if region at this stage qualify for making CJ. I guess I should try to make one.

[Markus J 242]

Originally posted by: zziobs

Cool FAQ I Cyrilix thanks.

@Mods or any Old Member : - There are 3 images of region and cities hanging around in this topic so take a look it and tell me if region at this stage qualify for making CJ. I guess I should try to make one.quote>

Thank you for the kind words toward my CJ

And as for yours, yes you should. SJ's can be as simple or complex as you like. That's the beauty! There is really only one wrong way to do one and that is to not update it. Mine I kept simple to meet my own realstic goals. I just take a bunch of pictures as I work and post them with some info, jokes, etc

But you can do whatever you like. Just a suggestion you might find more joy in starting over from the start with a blank landscape and take pictures of that progress. It could prove interesting to watch your city grow but you can also ask for help/suggestions a long they way.

Edit: I noticed you name your Mayors "Mayor [insert name here]" doesn't that look funny when your advisors pop up and say Mayor, Mayor (Power puff girls?) [insert name here]"

[zziobs 0]

BTW markus J you have done awesome job with your CJ. I can't do it that well but I can try to make this region work.

Maybe; farming village, Industrial City, Commercial City will make excellent starters IMO. This is a Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig region I can further establish new cities. I have few old screen caps. I'll always keep FRAPS on; from now on. And mayor names = Mayor[City Names]. I told you I'm kinda less creative about that. Atleast I dont have "City 1" "City 2" names for cities . I read the excellent guide from omnibus and now I name them properly. Most of the people get lazy and less creative when they are tired.

I forgot to mention I installed nam and nam related stuff yesterday Its hard to resist NAM.