Any tips to save my city/region?

[CapnLanky 0]

      So I have a region with about 125k people living in it, 3 industrial cities, a high tech city, a suburb, two high density residential cities and a central business district. One of my high res cities has been operating at a loss and I have recently almost ran out of $$. I have tried scaling back funding on the health/schools but it seems that it gives negative demand for anyone wanting to move into the area. I have the traffic mod as well as a subway system and a couple avenues (could probably use another, but no $$). Even after cutting down funding to bare bones, I still am operating at a 400$ a month loss. Sadly I am out of simoleons and the city is dependent on its neighbor for waste/power. I would be pretty upset if I let this one area with about 30k people and operating at a loss managed to take down the whole economy of my region. Oh, b.t.w., I dont really have any loans out. 

Any suggestions and thanks for the help, I am pretty new to the game and this community seems awesome. Thanks again.

[Droidika 10]

hmmmm... Now thats a tricky one. Can we have a few pics of this city? that might help us lot think a bit. you seem to be in a bit of a stick situation there!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This is the SimCoastGuard returning your mayday call. 

I suggest you use your god-like powers and give yourself more moolah.  Get buggi's extra cheats dll and put it in your plugins at the main level, start your game, and press CTRL+X.  Right click in the "cheat" box, and choose the moolah option.  Type a space, and enter any amount you like.  I usually enter 1000000.  This will give you enough time to solve your problems.

When the account gets to be above 1,000,000 again and the city is profitable, you can use the option to set the account to the amount that is has less the million.

[Bplax15 2]

Time for a loan

[weareanidiot 1]

If you focos on your other cities, creating more jobs in industry and commerce and so forth, you should get demand up and going in your residential city. Lower taxes if you have to; if it doesn't work and you just lose more money just don't save and try something else.

[CapnLanky 0]

Heres the basic layout of my failing city. I've tried improving the surrounding areas to increase resident demand, and in other zones my demand for people is higher, but for some reason the demand for residents is negative in my failing city; I'm assuming its because i have reduced funding to a number of services. If I got a loan, what should be my immeadiate action after resecuring trash/power from my neighbor?

[weareanidiot 1]

I would say raze the jail if you don't absoltuely need it, i.e. police station prison cells are full and criminality soaring. Raise taxes on heigh wealth sims and lower it for meadium wealth to get demand up. Medium wealth should always make up the bulk of your population, on a regional level. You may need to destroy some high wealth mansions for this - they take up alot of space and don't pay alot pf taxes since so few sims live in them, and medium wealth buildings can never overrow a high wealth building.

If nothing works or you just barly make it, you might actually want to obliterate the city and start over. I sometimes prefer that over trying to balance the budget by cutting down services which is frustrating and time consuming. By starting again, it's easier to know what to zone, what you need, and what you can do without for now, as well as being more effective in transport.

[CapnLanky 0]

actually I would have no problem rebuilding the city, I was wondering what kind of effects that would have on the region though, its got 31k residents and 3.5k commerce jobs.

[sircanis 0]

I would start by getting rid of the (very expensive) city jail. I doubt you need something that extreme with a city this size; if your large police station is over crowded, try building a small police station--it will give you more jail cells and reduce crime, all for a lower cost than the jail.

You have some "no job" zots, and it looks like you have a lot of residential, but only a small amount of commercial and no industrial. I would dezone some of the residential and replace it with commercial and industrial. Those will both add tax revenue, but not put additional pressure on schools, etc. The industrial will require more power, so you don't have to do too much of it, if you are worried about paying for it. You might also want to raise the taxes on Dirty and Manufacturing so only High Tech develops, which will keep pollution from increasing too much. You can start this process with the "squeaky wheel gets the bulldozer" method, and demolish those no-job buildings and replace them with commercial.

Lastly, the roads are too close together, which means that more of your land is used by roads than is necessary. If you have some loan money you might try some more radical changes and redo the road layout (or at least part of it). That would reduce the amount of money you spend on roads, and make more room for income producing buildings. This will also make room for some little parks and plazas (just the 1x1's for now, to save space and money).

I don't think there is any reason to use a money cheat at this point. There is nothing wrong with money cheats, but you learn more about the game's mechanics if you work your way out of problems on your own. I would used a money cheat only after you have a handle on things. For now, just take out a fairly small loan, maybe 50,000, and see what you can do.

Hope this helped a little. Good luck.

[SC4BOY 21]

well without getting deeply in this, I note one piece of incredible MISINFORMATION.. Those warning against a city jail is just bullhockey.. city jails are EXTREMELY CHEAP.. just adjust the funding (via the "public safety" budget item in the budget details.. it may be slightly different name, but that is very close).. adjust it so you're only funding the prisoner cells needed for your prisoners.. in most cases $4-15 simoleans/month is more than enough for all but the most riotous cities! It's probably the cheapest thing you can put in a city to take pressure off the police requirements and to prevent "repeat crimes"

[CapnLanky 0]

just wanted to give everyone an update, I took out a smaller loan, and rezoned a bunch of commercial. I initially lost 10k of my population, however once the commerce zones got built up a bit, it sprang right back. I am just shy of my initial 30k residents, was able to put fire,police,education ect back to sustainable levels, and am currently earning something like 300-400$ a month. So that is awesome!

One thing I dont understand though. My failing city is next to my central business district, which is entirely commerce, much of it is high density. The demand for low and medium service commerce was maxed, and medium commerce offices were in decently high demand too. When liberty city initially started failing I moved over to my central business district thinking that if I fast forwarded time a bit, my buildings would get taller due to the high demand in the previously mentioned areas. But they stayed the same, and it took rezoning in liberty to commerce to take advantage of the demand. What am I not getting about the buildings getting taller with demand thing? Is this a commuting issue? thanks for the continued help, you all are lifesavers.

[weareanidiot 1]

CO

[DPMorse 2]

Personally, I would not want to live there.

You have one avenue running through the city in either direction (both near one side), and the rest of the streets are very close together.

Not much in the way of parks and rec, the casino is a NIMBY and adds crime.

 What is the commute time in that city, by the way? What is traffic like? Is everything red?

This is probably the worst laid out city I have ever seen.

IMO, you should demolish the city and start over.

[CapnLanky 0]

DP. im sorry, was there anything constructive at all there? ^^ its my first region, and i'm not embarrassed. take a chill pill, its sim city. nobody is getting a career in civic planning here.

[CapnLanky 0]

DP. im sorry, was there anything constructive at all there? ^^ its my first region, and i'm not embarrassed. take a chill pill, its sim city. nobody is getting a career in civic planning here.

[sircanis 0]

Yeah, don't take the obliteration advice. There are a lot of threads around here asking about how to build "realistic" cities, and one of the best answers is to just let your city have problems and then work your way out. Like pruning a plant, salt in an oyster, any nature analogy will do.

I would take weareanidiot's advice about bulldozing some higher wealth stuff and just be patient. Sometimes the bigger buildings take a while.

[sircanis 0]

Yeah, don't take the obliteration advice. There are a lot of threads around here asking about how to build "realistic" cities, and one of the best answers is to just let your city have problems and then work your way out. Like pruning a plant, salt in an oyster, any nature analogy will do.

I would take weareanidiot's advice about bulldozing some higher wealth stuff and just be patient. Sometimes the bigger buildings take a while.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Hey, I noticed that all your city is ROADS. Roads can be quite expensive... so replace the minor ones (say ones with under 200 cars on them) with streets. This will save money.

You can also take A Nonny Moose's advice and cheat, just remove the cheat when your city is stabilised.

Anyway, good luck both with this city and future cities!

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Hey, I noticed that all your city is ROADS. Roads can be quite expensive... so replace the minor ones (say ones with under 200 cars on them) with streets. This will save money.

You can also take A Nonny Moose's advice and cheat, just remove the cheat when your city is stabilised.

Anyway, good luck both with this city and future cities!

[kolnikov inc 1]

you should obliterate the city and redesign the road ways...the system you've created is counter-intuitive...you've made the right decision by making connections with avenues..but they need to act as thru-ways (or commuting corridor) that can support high traffic volume...one way of achieving a solution is to limit the amount of intersections...i would also stray away from the grid pattern not just for visual realism (even though it does look horrendous) but also to limit intersections and to establish an efficient traffic system..

also if you obliterate the city and start over...before you zone anything go to the tax menu and adjust the tax levels...increase taxes for high wealth and low wealth development so you can aim for a medium wealth majority...you can use taxes to strategically develop a city into anything you would like...for instance maybe you want industrial development (which is vital to any city) but you don't want farms or dirty industry...then just adjust taxes accordingly.

also if you don't obliterate...i'm almost certain this city has a traffic congestion problem which effects commute times which effects demand and so on..

also as a final note..there is a good amount of people on this site (and other similar sites) that take the game seriously as an exercise of both art and civil design.....so the more you get acquainted with the community the more you will realize how much you could learn...or download........but you city definitely needs a lot of work..

[kolnikov inc 1]

you should obliterate the city and redesign the road ways...the system you've created is counter-intuitive...you've made the right decision by making connections with avenues..but they need to act as thru-ways (or commuting corridor) that can support high traffic volume...one way of achieving a solution is to limit the amount of intersections...i would also stray away from the grid pattern not just for visual realism (even though it does look horrendous) but also to limit intersections and to establish an efficient traffic system..

also if you obliterate the city and start over...before you zone anything go to the tax menu and adjust the tax levels...increase taxes for high wealth and low wealth development so you can aim for a medium wealth majority...you can use taxes to strategically develop a city into anything you would like...for instance maybe you want industrial development (which is vital to any city) but you don't want farms or dirty industry...then just adjust taxes accordingly.

also if you don't obliterate...i'm almost certain this city has a traffic congestion problem which effects commute times which effects demand and so on..

also as a final note..there is a good amount of people on this site (and other similar sites) that take the game seriously as an exercise of both art and civil design.....so the more you get acquainted with the community the more you will realize how much you could learn...or download........but you city definitely needs a lot of work..