City Not Growing

[Plane-Crash12000 39]

Hello people!

I have an issue with SC4. Well, I started a new region and a new first city, I plan everything out and eventually start building it. The city starts out just fine, I'm getting rich $$$ residential and commercial buildings, My city is growing extremely fast and with no problems. But after my city reaches about 50,000 people, everything goes down hill. My city stops growing as fast, I only get poor $ residential and commercial, and high abandonment and unemployment rates. It's very odd because the city only has about 65,000 people but I have about 100,000 jobs and 10,000 industrial in that city so there are plenty of jobs. I also have tons of parks int that city, my health and education are excellent, I have great police and fire coverage and my demand is very high. But fore some reason, when I zone residential, it takes forever for any houses to develop, and they always end up poor. Even when I have $$$ commercial right next to the houses. I also have the CAM to help with commute and traffic. I have loads of bus stops and train stations as well. So I can't see why my city stops growing like that when conditions are perfect.

Anyways, I would very much appreciate some help and tips to make my city start growing like grass after a week of rain and 10 pounds of fertilizer dropped on it...

Here's a picture of m region for those photo-ish people... You can see that my goal is to build my city as realistic as possible so don't be shy to give me a few tips on that too.

  Edited July 10, 2011 by Plane-Crash12000  

[Ottoh11 11]

Hello people!

I have an issue with SC4. Well, I started a new region and a new first city, I plan everything out and eventually start building it. The city starts out just fine, I'm getting rich $$$ residential and commercial buildings, My city is growing extremely fast and with no problems. But after my city reaches about 50,000 people, everything goes down hill. My city stops growing as fast, I only get poor $ residential and commercial, and high abandonment and unemployment rates. It's very odd because the city only has about 65,000 people but I have about 100,000 jobs and 10,000 industrial in that city so there are plenty of jobs. I also have tons of parks int that city, my health and education are excellent, I have great police and fire coverage and my demand is very high. But fore some reason, when I zone residential, it takes forever for any houses to develop, and they always end up poor. Even when I have $$$ commercial right next to the houses. I also have the CAM to help with commute and traffic. I have loads of bus stops and train stations as well. So I can't see why my city stops growing like that when conditions are perfect.

Anyways, I would very much appreciate some help and tips to make my city start growing like grass after a week of rain and 10 pounds of fertilizer dropped on it...

Here's a picture of m region for those photo-ish people... You can see that my goal is to build my city as realistic as possible so don't be shy to give me a few tips on that too.

Hey. I'm experiencing the same problems.

A friend of mine just gave me a hint. He told me to raise your taxes in your downtown for low commercial and middle Commercial as well as industry (all kinds of) and the lower- caste residentials. Then, turn yourself to a neighbouring city, where you lower the taxes for either industry or residential. Zone and wait. lower res will move to this outer city, leaving your central business district for the rich and high commercials. then, you build another city where you zone only industry. wait until the demand is down, change to another city again. It takes time, but it helps.

best of wishes from Canada

[The Avatar 1,088]

To start off, I would suggest reading this topic on the Omnibus. It has a lot of information about Demand, Desirability, and Abandonment, which can have a lot of an effect on how your city grows. Also, may I ask, can you post a picture of the RCI Graph in your city. I think that can help solve part of your problem.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Looking at your entry to the city box, it is clear that you don't have enough Sims in your city. Take a look at your jobs and population graph and you'll see that you have far too many jobs. This is a symptom of forcing the growth of the city with the CAM. It doesn't matter to the simulation what you do to try and skew the game. The basic algorithms of the program want the city to be balanced, so you have chosen the Sisyphusian task of trying to push a rock up hill forever.

A city must grow on its own terms, and all the cheats and mods in the world won't produce metropolis in a couple of days. You can cajole it along, but you can't force it very far, as you've just found out.

Take a look at your population by age and education by age graphs. Your education level has to be up over 140 or so to support those big commercial buildings, and you have to have enough people. Watch the age graph. You want it to be a nice bell curve with the hump in the middle. There is much more to this simulation that just creating fancy skyscrapers. The tall buildings are a reward for being a good mayor. You will find that if your behavior is good, you will prosper, but like Icarus, if you fly too close to the sun, you will crash.

This thread belongs in General Discussion. You don't have a bug, just a misunderstanding.

[Plane-Crash12000 39]

@A Nonny Moose : Thanks for the help, I understand a bit more what I've been doing wrong. But just to let you know, I'm not aiming at building a huge metropolis with hundreds and hundreds of tall skyscrapers filling the landscape. I'm aiming to build a very realistic medium sized city. The downtown where you see all the skyscrapers is complete and I had no problem with that, It's just the outer parts of the city that aren't going as well.

I checked my education and it is well over 140 in the middle age area, but my younger sims could go up a bit.

  Edited July 10, 2011 by Plane-Crash12000  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I don't think you can build a city under this program from the top down. You now face the problem of getting enough Sims at the right level to operate your CBD. This is quite a challenge, good luck.

[Kifflom112 355]

Hmm, this happened to me with my second New York City. I was building in a gritty style though. Might have this problem because of commutes. Do you have NAM, NWM, and RHW? They might cure traffic.