Quick question on region strategy

[CapnLanky 0]

If your ultimate goal is a large city.... is it better to have one region focus mainly on residential, and another focus on industrial and another focus on commerce ect; or is it better to have regions that have a mix of zones? Thanks! 

[memedoug85 36]

My opinion is if you limit each city to only one type of zoning you'll end up with an unrealistic looking region. It's very profitable when you have neighbourhood deals though

[Tysons4 68]

i mix it up... but there are always some city tiles that can be all of one thing... but i think its best to mix it up

[SteveMSim 275]

I mix them up myself. The only cities that I have that are devoted entirely to one type of zoning are a few industrial cities, which I make sure they have good connections to their neighboring cities. If you're talking about regions, you'll never get anywhere if you devote an entire region to one or even two zoning types. Regions require all three zoning types, even if each zone are in separate cities.

[paulmc 391]

I always mix them up too, I think the industrial and comercial zones help the growing of the residential zone providing jobs, maybe a city only residential don't grow by lacking of jobs if you don't have a good conection with your neighbor.In my humble opinion if you want grow a sucessful big city you need mixing up, each thing in your due place.

[how_deep 2]

You can be creative with both mixed and single zones. Just note that in medium and large tiles, it is very difficult to have only one zone type, but you can have a majority of one zone in a tile without commute/abandonment issues. In my region, I'm building a ring of small Industrial tiles to surround my downtown area(C and R) but as I expand, I'll have all three zones in some tiles and in suburban areas mainly R with a few C and I at major intersections. You can try to be realistic or go crazy with it either way.

[SC4BOY 20]

Isn't it really rather more artificial to make isolated zones? I've never so much as visited a real place which did not mix to some degree all types of zoning. The most common is R and Cs, but others apply as well.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, it is up to you, but I follow a cause and effect sort of model.  If I can, I start with a seaport and around this I set up either a commercial or an industrial zone, sometimes mixed.  Then I lay down some single residential against the commercial, but cut off from the industrial so that they must travel through the commercial. 

This creates one pod (for want of a better word) in my city and I let this develop, responding to demands until there is full employment in the commercial and industrial sectors.  By this time, I've accumulated some rewards that are sitting in the rewards menu (I don't install the big ones without some planning).

If I am working on a large enough space, I look at what rewards I have, and make a decision that I will place a large reward apart from the first pod.  This reward has to be something that will attract Sims, and it is usually the university.  If it is the university, I select a spot "out of town" but not too far away, and plop it.  I then put dense commercial along one side of the ring road (all universities have a ring road, don't they?), and provide for student housing along one other side.  I try to reserve one side of the quad for the later rewards of the Advanced Research Center, and the Health Sciences Center if possible.  If this turns out to be a bad idea, I still keep some space for them.  If my population hasn't capped the I-Ag, I put down a farm at the university for an Ag research lab, and add the usual amenities for police, fire, and health.  When I get a private school, I try to place it at the university (the first one, anyway).  Makes a great educational pod.  Now, we connect to the other pods if we haven't already.

The zoo makes a great pod center, as do an airport, a vacation hotel, and so on.  It is a matter of rewards and what to do with them.  I hardly ever place the Country Club, and if I do it is a land bank subject to urban redevelopment when needed, like a farm.

So that's my current style, which pretty much says mixed is the way to go, but you can have small tiles that are all one thing, like I-Ag, especially if you power and water them from one of the main cities.

The danger in separate zoned cities is the great loop.  This bug is in the exe, and if you get it, your Sims just ride around and around.  The answer is to break the loop.  You'll know you have it when all your transport facilities across the tiles overload.

[CapnLanky 0]

What are the advantages to laying down single residentials in the early game? 

[Dumanios 35]

I seem to function mainly like this:

City A:

R=Residential Block

I=Industry Block

RIRIRIRI

IRIRIRIR

RIRIRIRI

And so on.

City B:

C=Commericial Block

RCRCRCRC

CRCRCRCR

RCRCRCRC

[Dizastrow 4]

If you are going for a realistic view of your region, its easy to have all three zones in each city tile.  I usually have suburbs near small business areas, industrial parks on the edges of forests or rivers.  Commercial centers near highrise jungles.  In some tiles there might be one factory with 37 residents in the city who work there and at the small diner, and the little colony is surrounded by dense forest.  My current region only has about 6 actual tiles with cities within them.  The rest are hills, lakes, rivers, forests, etc.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: CapnLanky

What are the advantages to laying down single residentials in the early game? quote>

Quick construction and easy population.  Singles are what the game usually demands over everything else because the developers used that paradigm when coding the game.  I generally over-zone them later.  The penalty for building a mansion is to have your zoning changed to high density.

As a city matures (pop over 50K) you'll find that the R$ tend to live in high-rise blocks, as do the R$$.  Some R$$$ will live in fancy high-rise condos and such, but most prefer single occupancy lots with a big house and lots of grounds.  This is space consuming, but you have to allow some of it or you will exclude this class of R$$$ from your game.

[9988 428]

Region full of only residentials or industrials? Regions are not connected to each other (only in some city journals). This is city.

[SirAdamSugar 0]

 I like to focus in on each city individually rather than the whole region. This way you get a realistic mix of zones and a higher mayor rating (as commercial and industrial tax revenues are useful to subsidize public services - without C or I  you have to sustain high taxes on residential to cover the healthcare, education, policing bill etc.). Plus, when build a neighbouring city to your first one you get a 'natural evolution' of zoning, with industrial moving into the new one and commercial the established one.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

As a result of this and similar discussions in the last couple of months, I've changed my zoning style.  Now, this is what I do, and it works well running in hard, but you need extra money.

1. Create an industrial pod (X-key) any size you like.  If you have a shore line, try to include a seaport.
2. Build a high-rise residential pod across the street or even butted up against the industrials.  R$ don't have cars, remember?  So if the pod is of any size, put in some RTMT bus stops in both pods.  You don't need many with the new NAM.
3. Zone some handy, high-density commercial, do an in-game save, then
4. Supply schools, fire protection and health care.  Do another in-game save and stand well back.