High Demand for CO$$$ But Not Building

[Zeth 23]

I've scanned the forum for information on this one but haven't seen it -- if I missed something useful, please point it out and I will be grateful.

My city (cities, but my attention is focused in one particular) has a population of about 90,000, workforce EQ around 125. Demand for CO$$$ is sky-high (over 6000), dwarfing demand for everything else except CS$ and RS$ (which always seem high). This is SC4 Deluxe, on Easy mode, with the NAM installed and no other mods except cosmetics and things like the census repository (there are no cap problems fwiw) and industry quadrupler. So, Easy mode being Easy mode, desirability definitely isn't a problem--much of the map that isn't affected by pollution is bright green, indicating high desirability for CO$$$ (yes, I'm looking at the correct zone/wealth type on the map). Land value is also high.

So, high demand, high desirability... nothing builds. Nothing. When I zone commercial, add plazas, police, everything good, it sits empty until CS$$/CS$$$/CO$$ demand nudges above zero, then those things are built. (CS$$$ is normal--when demand goes positive, it gets built until demand is no longer positive. CO$$$ won't build no matter how high demand is.)

There is a bug I presume you're aware of, where if you plant God Mode trees in the middle of some zoned buildings, almost immediately everything there is redeveloped into high wealth, regardless of whether high wealth should be built there. If you do it when high wealth shouldn't be built there, the high wealth stuff will still be built, and then will almost instantly dilapidate or abandon. This is precisely what happens when I try it in these commercial zones--CO$$$ gets built, and within a couple months dilapidates for lack of workers. Which is odd since I have a highly educated workforce, a ton of CO$$$ demand and no significant traffic problems.

Tell me there's something obvious I'm missing here?

  Edited July 8, 2011 by Zeth  

[Cob92 360]

Get more workers? If they're dilapidating due to lack of workforce, maybe your problem is that you simply don't have enough workers. The best strategy is to always build way more than you need; that way you never have to worry about not having enough.

[Zeth 23]

Seems logical but I'm pretty sure demand wouldn't be through the roof if I lacked sufficient workers, if I correctly understand how the demand engine works. There seem to be plenty of residents of all wealth levels.

[Cob92 360]

Demand isn't necessarily proportional to the number of available workers. It is controlled by a number of other factors, and it is possible for demand to be high even if the jobs/workforce that go with that demand are not present. Case in point: R$$$ builds all over the city even when there are no R$$$ jobs available, which leads to the abandoned mansions and condos that we all hate.

[Zeth 23]

Heh. So in the case where there's demand for R$$$ and CO$$$ both, and desirability for both, and plenty of R$$$ being built and staying put... I'm still lost to figure out why no CO$$$ will be built. You say "get more workers" like attracting R$$ residents is a problem. It isn't.

[bixel 1,221]

I've found that I was usually too eager to get tall office buildings when I played. So I over-zoned, also watching property values, a Un-zoned lot with e some parks has higher value usually that a zoned lot (no building). Turns out lots of zones with no buildings attract crime. So one trick I've done and it works very well is to choke CO an only zone low and med dense commerical in 1x1 to 2x2 lots only. This usually creates a lot of Commercial Services, then after I hit about 200,000 I zone 1 or 2 4x4 High Density commercial, and POW!! I got some skyscrapers usually instantly.

I also have NAM settings to high capacity traffic and longer routes, I also learned that leaving space for mass transit - BUT not plopping it down untill waaay late in the game is best. Those lots need like 600-1000 traffic b4 you get skyscrapers.

[Cob92 360]

Heh. So in the case where there's demand for R$$$ and CO$$$ both, and desirability for both, and plenty of R$$$ being built and staying put... I'm still lost to figure out why no CO$$$ will be built. You say "get more workers" like attracting R$$ residents is a problem. It isn't.

I'm not saying that attracting the kind of workers you need is a problem. I'm just saying that if in doubt, it never hurts to have an excessive amount of workers compared to how many you actually need. Do you have any CO$$$ built in your city at all?

[jacksunny 741]

Heh. So in the case where there's demand for R$$$ and CO$$$ both, and desirability for both, and plenty of R$$$ being built and staying put... I'm still lost to figure out why no CO$$$ will be built. You say "get more workers" like attracting R$$ residents is a problem. It isn't.

it never hurts to have an excessive amount of workers compared to how many you actually need.

If you have too many workers though, the demand for residential will go down and you will see abandonment.

[Cob92 360]

Heh. So in the case where there's demand for R$$$ and CO$$$ both, and desirability for both, and plenty of R$$$ being built and staying put... I'm still lost to figure out why no CO$$$ will be built. You say "get more workers" like attracting R$$ residents is a problem. It isn't.

it never hurts to have an excessive amount of workers compared to how many you actually need.

If you have too many workers though, the demand for residential will go down and you will see abandonment.

But then you don't have to worry about having enough workers for your businesses. Personally, I'd rather have a bunch of unemployment and abandoned buildings than a city that can't grow because it doesn't have enough empty residential areas.

[jacksunny 741]

Heh. So in the case where there's demand for R$$$ and CO$$$ both, and desirability for both, and plenty of R$$$ being built and staying put... I'm still lost to figure out why no CO$$$ will be built. You say "get more workers" like attracting R$$ residents is a problem. It isn't.

it never hurts to have an excessive amount of workers compared to how many you actually need.

If you have too many workers though, the demand for residential will go down and you will see abandonment.

But then you don't have to worry about having enough workers for your businesses. Personally, I'd rather have a bunch of unemployment and abandoned buildings than a city that can't grow because it doesn't have enough empty residential areas.

If you can't get commercial to grow because of a lack of residents, you just zone more. I would rather have to simulate a few Sim Months to get the game to detect that the new residents are there than to have a bunch of ugly looking buildings in my city.

[Zeth 23]

I'm not saying that attracting the kind of workers you need is a problem. I'm just saying that if in doubt, it never hurts to have an excessive amount of workers compared to how many you actually need. Do you have any CO$$$ built in your city at all?

None whatsoever.

Bixel: I don't care about skyscrapers. I'm trying to get any CO$$$ to build in my city, and strangely not a single building is going up.

  Edited July 8, 2011 by Zeth  

[Cob92 360]

That is very odd. Post your zone maps and data views, something has to be missing. Either that, or this is one weird bug.

[Zeth 23]

Not sure which ones exactly you want to see, but here are a few shots:

That's the CO$$$ desirability view. I threw in a couple magic pollution eliminators just to drive the desirability even more, to no effect.

That's the demand chart.

And that's the census. There are two stray CO$$$ buildings left at half employment, it seems (accounting for the 306 jobs).

[Jasoncw 11,839]

I think having a cap of 0 in the report means that growth for that type is capped out. In order to raise the cap (a cap or a ceiling to what can be built) you need to building things that relieve the cap for commercial office. So you'll want to build the rewards that seem relevant to commercial and you'll want to build plazas.

[Cob92 360]

Try an airport maybe? If it's the cap, an airport will solve the problem.

  Edited July 9, 2011 by Cobhris96  

[Zeth 23]

This city has a small municipal airport, numerous connections (including two by highway and one by subway), the radio station, TV station and minor league stadium. I'm pretty sure caps aren't our problem here, either.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I've only skimmed through this thread, but with that desirability display, maybe you need some plaza's in that area. You could also try a landmark if you can afford it.

Perhaps you could also try zoning for a shopping center (CS$$) to take off some of the stress. Try zoning a 6 x 6 high-density lot, the put a couple of 4 x 4 HD lots beside it.

If you've been plopping your buildings, you may have skewed things such that it will take a long time to achieve this goal.

  Edited July 9, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Zeth 23]

Thanks, Nonny. If you look closely (hard to see through the green in the screenshot) there is a landmark and there are a couple large plazas in the commercial area as well. I'll try the zoning idea but you'll notice how my CS$$ demand is very negative (because there is already a lot of CS$$ and CO$$ in the city). I have not plopped any buildings that have anything to do with jobs.

It's a stumper, innit?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Rawthur! Why not give it about a week's rest and just think about it. Sometimes some down time helps. Play another city.

[jacksunny 741]

Does your city have enough power and water supply to support the building of CO$$$? It's the last thing I can think of that could be causing it.

[Zeth 23]

Yes, it has more than enough power and water.

[Zeth 23]

UPDATE: The bad news is I still have no idea what was going on, but the good news is the problem vanished. What happened was, while fiddling around with zone layout, I demolished a 6x6 commercial block that had two CO$$, one CS$$ and one CS$$$ in it.

Within the month, CO$$$ construction went up all over the city. Dozens of buildings, all at once.

It's not like that was the first time I ever bulldozed a commercial building (might have been the first time I bulldozed a block though, at least since I noticed this problem), but a little urban renewal goes a long way, apparently. Thanks for your help, everyone. I'm going to see if I can duplicate the problem and solve it the same way in my next city...