Economy crashed.

[Sursion 0]

I was playing an island city, and everything was going spectacularily for 50 years. Then, almost in the blink of an eye, my entire economy just crashed.

-I went from +$6,000 a month to -$3,000 a month.

-My demand for everything plummeted. There was negative demand for every class.

-Population went from 147,000 to 105,000 in about 3 months.

- At least 30% of all buildings turned black and mouldy.

I have no idea why this happened. I made a save and tried everything possible. If I raised taxes, the demand just sunk even lower, resulting in even more mouldy buildings. If I lowered taxes, my monthly income went even lower. It's a no-win scenario.

Information about the island.

-131,717 Residential (was 147,000 before the economy collapse)

-58,000 Commercial (Unsure what it was before collapse)

-9,578 Industry ( was 14,000 before collapse)

-The desirability for R$$$, CO$$$, and I-HT is green for almost the entire island (except for the military base and landfill).

-3 Seaports, heavily used.

-Just finished rezoning my entire industry region, and completely removed dirty industry. 90% High-tech, 10% manufacturing.

-Just upgrading my large landing strip to a small municipal airport to accomodate more people (large landing strip was maxed out).

-Large and well-used public transit system. Monorail, bus, subway, and ferry system covers the entire island. Nothing is under-used.

-I had a few ordinances in place. Mostly to improve health care, reduce traffic, and reduce pollution (left over from the dirty industry days).

-$160,555 in bank. Was saving up for a landmark to boost commercial district.

-Power grid is 100% solar power (waiting to unlock nuclear power).

-Many residential skyscrapers. Almost (not quite all) of my residential zoning are skyscrapers.

-Only a few commercial skyscrapers. No stage 8's.

-4 hospitals. 3 of them are about 70% capacity. The middle one is over 100% (can't seem to lower it, no matter how many hospitals I place).

-3 Elementary schools, approx. 60% full each. If I remove one of them, the other two will become maxed out.

-1 High school. It's holding at about 70%.

-1 College. 1 Museum. 3 Libraries.

-EQ is between 160 and 200.

-No University. Technically I unlocked it, but after leaving and coming back, it's returned to locked and I can't unlock it (without cheats).

-Zero Neighbour connections (unless you count seaports and airports.) It's an island, nothing I can do about it.

I'm not really sure what else to add. This is my first successful city, and help would be appreciated! If you need any more information, feel free to ask. How do I return back to my wealthy, successful island?

[UncleSim 2]

Have you checked your water, power, and garbage levels? For best results, usage for water and power, schools and hospitals, should be over 80%, but under 90%. Above 90%, there are negative consequences. Much under 75%, and sims complain about wastefulness.

Did your expanded airport and rezoning reduce the amount of residential zoning available? Did you lose any police or fire stations, leaving gaps in coverage? You can notice an effect on demand with that, before you have a fire or see crime.

You should probably have at least 4 museums, and 5 libraries, so you can unlock the larger units and the opera, if you don't have them already.

Subways are expensive. Use them sparingly to reduce surface traffic, and consider placing more toll booths on heavily used roads. Toll booths have allowed me to reduce tax rates to near zero, in my cities.

Zone commercial near heavy traffic, and residential away from traffic and other nimby nuisances. Fill in medium density industrial where necessary to allow high tech to grow. High tech will grow just fine, and the monthly cost per zoned tile is less than half as much as high-density.

Once you can afford it, get rid of the army base. You'll make more from having well-developed zones than the few hundred you get for the base. Avoid any other nimby structures as well, like missile base or toxic waste dump, or the evil doctor deals. Delete these as your budget allows.

Solar power is expensive per kw. Oil is cheapest, except for nuclear. Placing cemeteries between dirty plants and zones will minimize the negative effects.

To lower/manage your hospital usage, try adjusting the service area covered by its ambulances. You might be able to reduce the center one to zero, and raise the others, to get the usage you need. Or try one of the large-capacity STEX units.

$160k in bank isn't much. And landmarks don't usually have as much effect as you're looking for, esp with limited land area. A good city doesn't need any.

Ordinances don't do a lot to clean up pollution, but taxes can limit dirty-I without industry complaining about unfair policy. Only enable them if absolutely necessary, OR if you can EASILY afford them.

[Urbanator 7]

What's your city's residential population distribution? Do you have too many of one type, perhaps? Could you have had any major employment/cap contributors within your dirty industry? What about a transport shift - could you previously been earning more from tickets and tolls?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

What's your city's residential population distribution? Do you have too many of one type, perhaps? Could you have had any major employment/cap contributors within your dirty industry? What about a transport shift - could you previously been earning more from tickets and tolls?

In line with this, how is the relative age of your Sims? If too many of them are above 60, you have a retiring work force. Look at the population by age graph. It should be a nice bell curve, perhaps skewed a bit to the left. If it is skewed to the right you need to encourage younger Sims to move in.

[Sursion 0]

Thank you all for the help. I think the problem I was having was I had too much of one wealth class. I don't know the exact numbers, But I based on tax income, I had $7,000 worth of R$$, and $4,000 worth of R$$$. I had pretty much no R$ at all, and it was causing a lot of people to go out of work (I had about 5-6 highrises with "No Job" icons over them. I should have mentioned this.) I read in another thread that you cannot have only one type of wealth class. After building some low density homes near the airport and having R$ people move in, the demand and economy definitely got better. But it was still in poor shape. I'm going to try some of the things you guys mentioned.

In terms of the age of my sims, It goes upwards from birth. More 60 year olds than 40 year olds, etc. Nothing was overly large though. It was a nice even curve upwards.

I don't have any toll booths. I don't have a lot of space left, but I will see what I can do.

I haven't rezoned any residential.

Water, Power, etc. are all covered.

I will get rid of the army base. The only other business deal I have is the Casino. Should I remove it too? I don't see any harm in it.

I will add more museums and libraries.

  Edited October 18, 2011 by Sursion  

[Loney 22]

I will get rid of the army base. The only other business deal I have is the Casino. Should I remove it too? I don't see any harm in it.

The Casino requires the the gambling ordinance and that increases crime.

[UncleSim 2]

I just realized that since your city's an island, you can't put your dirty stuff on the edges to minimize the negative effects. But I think you can still run power cables across water, so you should be able to make deals with neighbors to increase the power you generate over the threshold (25k/mo?) so you can get nuclear.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The best power solution is to use my power station with its fuel supply.

This also removes most of the pollution generated except for traffic. Nuclear is rather old hat, eh?