$6k average residential income?!?!?

[Pengwuino 2]

So I've been trying to figure out how in the world my city has seemingly fallen apart over the past decade or so. I've been investigating everything, but everything seems fine. Then I noticed something I didn't check.... residential average income.

So I looked.

$5-$10k and falling.

The first question is, is this unemployment that is destroying my city?? I don't see any buildings with the no-job marker. I don't imagine it being hte age of the population since I have a similar city with pretty much an identical age distribution and education distribution with $50k average income. I have an adjascent "rich-only" suburb that is begging for more room to build R$$$ skyscrapers and Co$$$ skyscrapers. Everything else is fine, power, water, education, health care, garbage, crime, etc.

What in the world could be causing this?? I almost spit my soda out when I first saw it!

I was thinking that maybe air pollution is a problem but it really isn't that bad. I think im going to try to basically vomit large parks and gardens onto my city and see if it helps anything.

[Yuu Caa Sim 55]

What do you mean by "fallen apart"? Is your income dropping rapidly, or are many people leaving your city, or is it something else?

I think that Residential Average Income is measured by the average of the wealth level of the jobs sims hold. If a sim is unemployed and cannot find a job for too long, they leave your city.

What does your "Jobs and Population" Graph look like?

[Pengwuino 2]

My income hasnt been dropping rapidly.....which is quite odd considering the average income has crashed. It has been dropping, I'm losing money. I have about 160k in income and use to have about 15k-20k profit each month and now im losing about 5k. My population has been stable and even growing at times. The demand for everything has just died though. And I'm seeing more and more and more buildings become abandoned or becoming filled with poorer sims.

I'm going back to my information and I noticed that almost 10 years ago exactly, the income dipped form about 23k to 13k... and a few years earlier from around 30k dropping to the 23k. Nothing else seemed to happen though at that time. No jump in air pollution, crime, anything. No real movement in the population types or job types either, things seemed normal. Surrounding cities were able to build up cities though. One city to the south has a healthy middle class demand along with lower class. A city to the north has R$$$ demand to spare heh.

As an aside, I notice my advisor keeps saying "BUILD AIRPORT YO!!!" but I already have a medium international airport . What the dealio?

[Seloloving 0]

I think your airport had reached it's capacity then.

[Pengwuino 2]

No, it is just a medium international airport with plenty of room to spare.

[Clarencegi77 0]

I seriously doubt the airport could have had any kind of effect on the above. It does'nt exactly employ much in a city large enough to have skyscrapers to be able to effect such a drastic change as mentioned.

A lot of things could be happening in your city, Pengwuino. It's rather hard to tell from the information given. First of all, are the tax rates in all surrounding cities equal to the one mentioned? If I had to guess, I'd say the suburb to the north (or any other neighbouring tile) could be robbing your central city of demand if tax rates there for high-wealth jobs/ residential are more favorable, explaining the dying demand for anything in the main city. Note that since sims can travel easy between neighbouring tiles a city can have a low average residential income despite having high-wealth commercial jobs avaliable, as its employed residents may be live in that neighbouring tile and travel across town to work.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Check out your sims ages.  You may have a lot of retirees.  There are two displays.  If the age display is mostly blue, you need to attract some younger sims.

[Pengwuino 2]

The sims are mainly 21-30 and 30-40, older people are scarce. I dont see tremendous amounts of traffic leaving the city for work or coming in but I'll recount everything. It's unfortunate this game is horrific when it comes to accurately representing the number of people who commute between cities. One second its 20,000 through a rail station, the next its 5.

[jj88 24]

If you modify the transport networks in your city, the sims may switch route.

Generally they don't like to use trains vey much and prefer to use cars...regardless of traffic etc.

[Cob92 360]

It's probably an age issue. If your city's doing too well, it attracts a lot of old people who don't work, which causes your economy to crash. If you have too much blue on the age map, gut the healthcare system so people start dying off and getting replaced by working age sims.

[Pengwuino 2]

So I checked the taxes in every adjascent city and my main city was the lowest R$$ and R$$$ and Co tax rates around! So I lowered them some more... no go. Then I decided to do the unthinkable and bulldoze the bulidings with the oldest people... and also a little less taxes. BOOM, demand went up. So unfortunately because of that last tax decrease, I'm not sure which did it.

What about the old people though? Where do they go? Poor old people Getting kicked outa my city like that. How do I build a Florida retirement community?

[lokester712 0]

i cannnot say ive ever had the problem...and as for old people they seemed to move to my rich city next to my main city...i only have old people in the old section of my town now

[Madri 3]

Older citizens want to keep the town the same. I had towns maybe 40-60 years old split by a highway. On one side there was spaced out suburban side (old people) and a commercial center on the other with 3/4 of the population. But, when I rezoned the suburban side it would not grow until it got bulldozed....ps to get a retirement community like in Florida you have to have old low-density residential areas in your city.

Older citizens want to keep the town the same. I had towns maybe 40-60 years old split by a highway. On one side there was spaced out suburban side (old people) and a commercial center on the other with 3/4 of the population. But, when I rezoned the suburban side it would not grow until it got bulldozed....ps to get a retirement community like in Florida you have to have old low-density residential areas in your city.

[Tysons4 68]

simcity is so complex that losing money can be a number of different issues. some pics would be helpful. or you could go through and check all your data views. i know you mentioned air polution, but what about water polution? what about your transportation department> are you over funding somehting? it can get tedious to look though everything, but that's what makes simcity 4 great.dont give up, it could be you have too many police, or schools, or over development, what does your demand look like? are you over taxing something, or not taxing enough? what is your mayor rating?

all of my questions are rhetorical, you don't need to answer them. im only reassuring you that the answer you seek is there and soon your city will have a positive cash flow again

[Cob92 360]

Older citizens want to keep the town the same. I had towns maybe 40-60 years old split by a highway. On one side there was spaced out suburban side (old people) and a commercial center on the other with 3/4 of the population. But, when I rezoned the suburban side it would not grow until it got bulldozed....ps to get a retirement community like in Florida you have to have old low-density residential areas in your city.

True; it may sound cruel, but old folks only hold your city back. You need young movers and shakers to keep things going.