A question about city income

[Ltw 401]

I've experienced something weird with the city income.

Even though my city population has been grown quite quick (from 6000 to 18.000 in about 10 years) the city income doesn't grow that much. I've heard that the tax income for higher density buildings is lower but I didn't expect that the city income would grow with only $200,- in those ten years. I have mostly middle density buildings and the city population is divided normally (R$, R$$ and R$$$ are in the normal order). As you might expect this causes mayor budget problems.

Does anyone know what could be the cause of this?

P.S. I run the mac version, that might have something to do with (I doubt that though).

[husher 18]

Trying to make a profit in sim city can be next to impossible if you don't use the plug ins; one that you can use and one i would throughly recomend is the 'sim treasury ' youll find it in the STEX it costs $110,000 to plop but will give you $5000 a month (replenish your coffers by using: ctrl x and type in 'weakness pays', press the up arrow and then enter and up as many times as you need)

When you start a new city make sure all the sliders are near the bottom end of their settings except fire, police and power, water and sanitation, don't waste money on ambulances and school buses till you need them, tailor your teachers to pupils 1:10 is acceptable and keep the doctors down to 1;20 patients, the advisors will complain readily enough as the institutions become overwhelmed so just give them a little extra as time goes on for middle and large tiles use the federal prison and sky farms to give you more money per month and experiment with taxes i generally use between 9 and 10% per year. such BAT'S like the police admin building which is cheap and gives you city wide coverage in one go and will save loads, the very large fire department can give excellent coverage over a large area and is better than the default ones, get decent schools as well, theres a really good high school in the MOD'S list i'd reccomend and the educational complex is great as well, for the roads off the tile use the tool booth to collect more taxes but be care full not to give the sims any alternative routes off 'couse they will use them to avoid paying.

If you've got a falling balance sheet these fixes will solve it, just don't spend too much too quickly and monitor your expenditure closely over the first few years, set up on pause, fit your city out on slow and then move up to rhino speed once everthing's in place , it works for me and i'm always in profit now.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Are you using many plugins (BATs)?

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

Trying to make a profit in sim city can be next to impossible if you don't use the plug ins; one that you can use and one i would throughly recomend is the 'sim treasury ' youll find it in the STEX it costs $110,000 to plop but will give you $5000 a month (replenish your coffers by using: ctrl x and type in 'weakness pays', press the up arrow and then enter and up as many times as you need)

When you start a new city make sure all the sliders are near the bottom end of their settings except fire, police and power, water and sanitation, don't waste money on ambulances and school buses till you need them, tailor your teachers to pupils 1:10 is acceptable and keep the doctors down to 1;20 patients, the advisors will complain readily enough as the institutions become overwhelmed so just give them a little extra as time goes on for middle and large tiles use the federal prison and sky farms to give you more money per month and experiment with taxes i generally use between 9 and 10% per year. such BAT'S like the police admin building which is cheap and gives you city wide coverage in one go and will save loads, the very large fire department can give excellent coverage over a large area and is better than the default ones, get decent schools as well, theres a really good high school in the MOD'S list i'd reccomend and the educational complex is great as well, for the roads off the tile use the tool booth to collect more taxes but be care full not to give the sims any alternative routes off 'couse they will use them to avoid paying.

If you've got a falling balance sheet these fixes will solve it, just don't spend too much too quickly and monitor your expenditure closely over the first few years, set up on pause, fit your city out on slow and then move up to rhino speed once everthing's in place , it works for me and i'm always in profit now.

well i wouldnt say the same, its more than possible to earn without any extra money mods or cheats.

[Ltw 401]

Trying to make a profit in sim city can be next to impossible if you don't use the plug ins; one that you can use and one i would throughly recomend is the 'sim treasury ' youll find it in the STEX it costs $110,000 to plop but will give you $5000 a month (replenish your coffers by using: ctrl x and type in 'weakness pays', press the up arrow and then enter and up as many times as you need)

When you start a new city make sure all the sliders are near the bottom end of their settings except fire, police and power, water and sanitation, don't waste money on ambulances and school buses till you need them, tailor your teachers to pupils 1:10 is acceptable and keep the doctors down to 1;20 patients, the advisors will complain readily enough as the institutions become overwhelmed so just give them a little extra as time goes on for middle and large tiles use the federal prison and sky farms to give you more money per month and experiment with taxes i generally use between 9 and 10% per year. such BAT'S like the police admin building which is cheap and gives you city wide coverage in one go and will save loads, the very large fire department can give excellent coverage over a large area and is better than the default ones, get decent schools as well, theres a really good high school in the MOD'S list i'd reccomend and the educational complex is great as well, for the roads off the tile use the tool booth to collect more taxes but be care full not to give the sims any alternative routes off 'couse they will use them to avoid paying.

If you've got a falling balance sheet these fixes will solve it, just don't spend too much too quickly and monitor your expenditure closely over the first few years, set up on pause, fit your city out on slow and then move up to rhino speed once everthing's in place , it works for me and i'm always in profit now.

I always had good cities without plugins. Maybe I could try that if there's no option left.

Are you using many plugins (BATs)?

I had a new start with my plugins. My plugin folder is about 300MB big, so not that much.

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

Trying to make a profit in sim city can be next to impossible if you don't use the plug ins; one that you can use and one i would throughly recomend is the 'sim treasury ' youll find it in the STEX it costs $110,000 to plop but will give you $5000 a month (replenish your coffers by using: ctrl x and type in 'weakness pays', press the up arrow and then enter and up as many times as you need)

When you start a new city make sure all the sliders are near the bottom end of their settings except fire, police and power, water and sanitation, don't waste money on ambulances and school buses till you need them, tailor your teachers to pupils 1:10 is acceptable and keep the doctors down to 1;20 patients, the advisors will complain readily enough as the institutions become overwhelmed so just give them a little extra as time goes on for middle and large tiles use the federal prison and sky farms to give you more money per month and experiment with taxes i generally use between 9 and 10% per year. such BAT'S like the police admin building which is cheap and gives you city wide coverage in one go and will save loads, the very large fire department can give excellent coverage over a large area and is better than the default ones, get decent schools as well, theres a really good high school in the MOD'S list i'd reccomend and the educational complex is great as well, for the roads off the tile use the tool booth to collect more taxes but be care full not to give the sims any alternative routes off 'couse they will use them to avoid paying.

If you've got a falling balance sheet these fixes will solve it, just don't spend too much too quickly and monitor your expenditure closely over the first few years, set up on pause, fit your city out on slow and then move up to rhino speed once everthing's in place , it works for me and i'm always in profit now.

I always had good cities without plugins. Maybe I could try that if there's no option left.

Are you using many plugins (BATs)?

I had a new start with my plugins. My plugin folder is about 300MB big, so not that much.

try experimenting, remove plugins and see if anything changes, demolish some parts of cities and look how much the budged changes, maybe add big parst of citie and see how it changes.

as long as you dont save you can experiment

[Ltw 401]

I could try that. Let's hope that doesn't have any negative influence on my demand.

I have some more information that might help:

Current population: 18.093

Commercial jobs: 3.746

Industrial jobs: 6.057

Income:

Residential income: 2.709

Commercial income: 820

Industrial income: 1.515

Population growth in 50 years:

Income/Expenses in 50 years:

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

I could try that. Let's hope that doesn't have any negative influence on my demand.

I have some more information that might help:

Current population: 18.093

Commercial jobs: 3.746

Industrial jobs: 6.057

Income:

Residential income: 2.709

Commercial income: 820

Industrial income: 1.515

Population growth in 50 years:

Income/Expenses in 50 years:

dont worry about anything, like i sayd experiment and dont save the game, than just reload your city when you have finished experimenting.

Btw what about your taxes?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Your numbers indicate that you don't have enough population for the jobs. The usual thing is two Sims per job.

You might want to adjust your taxes downwards to encourage demand. I generally do this uniformly except I tax out (20%) I-D after four years, and drop farm rates two percent as a subsidy.

[Jim14409 448]

Is the money being eaten up by schools, libraries, clinics and hospitals? I find I need to constantly keep check on these early on in a city development and keep them trimmed. I do this with each individual building for the max in savings. Keep enough in the budget to allow for growth so things don't stagnate. In dire situations I have temporarily eliminated bus and ambulance funding but I try and leave them alone if possible. Fire and police can be delayed.

Another money eater is your power and water buildings. As you probably know they cost more as they age and sometimes it is cheaper to bulldoze and re-plop a new building rather than pay the inflated monthly $. Sometimes replacing a water pump makes the difference in whether I have a monthly profit or loss I find adding residents is the best way to increase income as they stimulate everything else and that increases taxes. Don't forget you may be spending money that you are not aware of such as streets, roads, etc.

[Superbacon 380]

What I tend to do when I'm starting a brand new city is just start building things the way I want to and get my layout. I start small. Like, a wind turbine, farm and a few lots at a time small. You do not need all the utilities and civic services so soon for such a small city. If that's what is eating into your bottom line. Typically, I never fiddle with taxes and I build my city up to a few thousand before I consider adding any budget-eating buildings.

At a few hundred in population I build a library first and then, budget abiding, a small fire station. I keep building my population and income levels to insure that I won't go broke from the services. Small schools, police, and then hospitals are last. When you've built outward enough and start wanting small apartment buildings or better commerce/industry, first build a water tower and keep the pipe lines restricted to certain areas. If one water tower reaches capacity then build another one elsewhere. Three is my limit and after that I build a small water pump. There I can extend the pipes a lot more.

When it comes to power, keep it clean and cheap. Wind power is the best way to when starting a small town. But after about six or seven of those turbines, they start to become useless. So natural gas is the way to go for an upcoming city. But it's not as good as coal in terms of power-per-simoleon. I like natgas because you can throw it in the middle of your city and it will produce low air pollution.

However when it comes time to build your first landfill you need to watch out. These will usually throw you in the red for a few months. You don't need a landfill right when you start. I usually build my first one when I have 5,000 to 10,000 sims. Right about when garbage pileup in the city is starting to get on the bad side. It's expensive to maintain but if you do all your budgeting right you should barely cut it when all the trash is collected. The garbage collection services will run into your bottom line for a few game months while they collect the build-up. When your landfill reaches capacity, build a recycling center. If you really need money, build neighbor cities and make garbage deals. But make sure it's kept under control.

Other ways to decrease your expenses or increase your income can be to not build large roads in early development (avenues, highways, too many roads instead of streets). And put toll booths on your neighbor connections. Mass transit also helps, because often the money from fares you get can be profitable. Check your different traffic volume levels to see where the best places would be for tolls and bus stops. You should also build a train line. It's cheap and also brings in money from fares.

I also noticed in one corner of a pic that you have a small airport. A small city of 18,000 doesn't really need one since demand for it is driven by your high-wealth commerce. And you don't have a lot of that, judging by the graph. Small airfield costs $700/mo to maintain, I recommend you demolish it and build it another time.

[zaclovesdogs 1]

all you need to do is send taxes to zero for commercial tax and wait for it to develop.(althogh you may need to use a cheat during your low ta

xes) then, once you have big skyscrapers, you raise the commercial tax, and youhave lots of money to spend!!!

also you don't have to improve any civil services with the commercial growth

trust me, those 0 taxes really do work if you give it about 5 months

[Jasoncw 12,030]

I would personally recommend just keeping the taxes at their defaults, except for dirty industrial, because the game doesn't allow dirty industrial to abandon because of high taxes. They'll complain about the taxes but they won't abandon and it will pad your coffers.

The reason I don't think you need to worry about adjusting taxes is because the game determines demand based on the RCI balance. If you lower the taxes you might be able to get a little more of something, but it's not going to overcome your RCI fundamentals. So I would focus on growing your city by zoning for whatever is in demand. In the long term you'll basically get the same number of residents/jobs but you won't have to sacrifice money.

The other thing I'd do is I'd demolish things like the city college. For education just make sure that there are elementary schools and libraries, and make sure that their capacities and radius aren't any higher than they need to be. Good hospital coverage is important but make sure you adjust the funding sliders on those as well.

For police and fire, total coverage isn't as important imo. Just have reasonably good coverage.

Once you get the hang of it, it's very easy to make tons of money in SC4. I make so much money that money is really no object, and even when I'm not paying attention and I'm bleeding money (plopping a bunch of fusion power plants or something lol) it still takes decades before I even notice. So it's definitely very possible without cheating!

[Ltw 401]

Thanks for your replies!

I've set my taxes on default but I could lower it to improve my demand. I think I would lower residential demand only to increase my population.

I've build the small airport to improve demand, my growth was very fast and I thought that wouldn't stabilize at this level. That's also the case with my city college. I have set the capacity lower though so my schools don't cost very much (I have two elementary schools, one library, one high school and one city college). I could lower budget for safety though.

I have a nice bus system with an option to expand to subway when my population is big enough. I don't have a train though, so maybe I could build that, with toll on my avenue to encourage sims to take the train.

I have a question about my industry though. My industrial zones are farms and dirty industry. The problem is that pollution is that high that the pump will be taken out of order almost immediately. This causes some mayor problems in order for I-M and I-HT to grow (which is eventually my goal). What is the best way to make sure that I don't get massive abandonment and a population drop when I want to change this?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Place the pump in a clean spot.

[Ltw 401]

Place the pump in a clean spot.

I did, so that shouldn't be a problem. I had to place a second one because the first one wasn't enough. When I have to place a third one I'll place the Black Hole Water Works instead, this is cheaper and has much more capacity.

In those 30 minutes I've done several things, I've demolished one elementary school which had too less students, the city college, landing strip and some police kiosks. I've lowered my taxes for residents to 7,5% and I've raised taxes for I-D to 20%. I've build a train rail between my residential zone and my industrial zone which is used a lot. I've build a toll booth at my avenue which connects those two zones, mostly to discourage residents to take the car (this will be temporarily though). At the moment my city is profitable.

Despite this good news there are some things to worry about. First of all, the higher income is mainly caused by the higher taxes for I-D. This is temporarily since they don't pay 20% forever. The second thing is that my residential demand is still fluctuating too much, I think the cause of this is too much zoning. This should mean that I should demolish residential zones which leads to a lower population and lower income. I don't know whether that is the right thing to do. What is the best way to get this demand more stabilized?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Well, to "cheat" or not to "cheat" that is the question. If you look for my items in the STEX you will find two lots that make most pollution problems go away and give you enough water for a large tile. Look for the Fusion power plant and the Artesian water supply. This is a pair, but if all you want is lots of water you can use the water plant on its own. The power plant uses water for fuel.

[defacto123 14]

Despite this good news there are some things to worry about. First of all, the higher income is mainly caused by the higher taxes for I-D. This is temporarily since they don't pay 20% forever. The second thing is that my residential demand is still fluctuating too much, I think the cause of this is too much zoning. This should mean that I should demolish residential zones which leads to a lower population and lower income. I don't know whether that is the right thing to do. What is the best way to get this demand more stabilized?

By your first issue, it appears that in the long run, your budget is still unbalanced. It may help to revisit how taxes are computed. Each building has a value which depends on its developer type, wealth, and size. That value is multiplied by the tax rate to give a certain monthly income to the city. I performed some experiments and have computed the following (very rough) values for each resident/job:

R$: $0.6

R$$: $1.4

R$$$: $4

CS$: $0.6

CS$$: $3

CS$$$: $11

CO$$: $0.5

CO$$$: $1

I-Ag: $4

I-D: $2.6

I-M: $2.6

I-H: $2.6

For example, a single CO$$ skyscraper with 4,000 jobs and taxed at 9% is expected to bring in 0.5*4000*0.09 = $180 per month. Note that CS$$$ is worth a lot, so try to encourage it. In my city of 800K sims and 400K commercial, CS$$$ takes up only 40K but brings in a third of my income.

For your second question, no, it won't help.

  Edited August 3, 2012 by defacto123  

[Ltw 401]

Despite this good news there are some things to worry about. First of all, the higher income is mainly caused by the higher taxes for I-D. This is temporarily since they don't pay 20% forever. The second thing is that my residential demand is still fluctuating too much, I think the cause of this is too much zoning. This should mean that I should demolish residential zones which leads to a lower population and lower income. I don't know whether that is the right thing to do. What is the best way to get this demand more stabilized?

By your first issue, it appears that in the long run, your budget is still unbalanced. It may help to revisit how taxes are computed. Each building has a value which depends on its developer type, wealth, and size. That value is multiplied by the tax rate to give a certain monthly income to the city. I performed some experiments and have computed the following (very rough) values for each resident/job:

R$: $0.6

R$$: $1.4

R$$$: $4

CS$: $0.6

CS$$: $3

CS$$$: $11

CO$$: $0.5

CO$$$: $1

I-Ag: $4

I-D: $2.6

I-M: $2.6

I-H: $2.6

For example, a single CO$$ skyscraper with 4,000 jobs and taxed at 9% is expected to bring in 0.5*4000*0.09 = $180 per month. Note that CS$$$ is worth a lot, so try to encourage it. In my city of 800K sims and 400K commercial, CS$$$ takes up only 40K but brings in a third of my income.

For your second question, no, it won't help.

Your list is very helpful. I think I'm going to increase my CS$$$ then.

I also have to increase my population though, because of the jobs/population problem A Nonny Moose pointed out earlier.

<p>I alr

[cogeo 960]

First off, it's true that higher-density buldings pay lower taxes per occupant. Much lower than many players may think. The property that determines the taxes paid is Building Value (for Maxis buildings it is located in the family's Building Cohort rather than the Building Exemplar - use iLive's Navigator tool to see the list of lots and buildings). The pic below shows most (but not all) R buildings in the Euro tileset:

As you can see, in general the bigger the building the higher the taxes paid, but the lower the taxes per occupant. Some buldings, like Pane View Condos are not in line with the others. This is just poor modding. This is a tall building with many occupants, but put into the same family with other buildings (in the other three tilesets) accommodating much fewer occupants; the only thing they have in common is the building's base size, and that's why they put it in the same family (and therefore lots). Stats (incl taxes) should be different.

I think the reason why you are getting low taxes is the wealth mix of the development in the city. Too many R$ residents, very few R$$ and much fewer R$$$. You need better jobs, if you want to attract more R$$ and R$$$ sims. The building types that offer the best wealth mix are CO$$, CO$$$ and I-HT. Take a look here. But these require a highly educated workforce, so you need to provide full educational coverage to all wealth levels: elementary & high school and library locally, also college/university and museum (these have city-wide coverage). Play with the sliders so that the bill is affordable; you can also play with bus/ambulance funding (don't serve uninhabited areas). After some time, EQ and subsequently CO$$ and CO$$$ demand will rise, and you will be able to attract richer sims.

Another problem is the abudance of dirty industry. It consumes a lot of power (so you need more power plants), produces garbage (yet more expenses), pollutes (you will need water treatment plants, or import water), takes up a a lot of space (it has eaten up ca 1/3 of your land and you 've got just some 6000 poor jobs) and doesn't pay well unless you overtax it! So I would suggest keep overtaxing it and let it replaced gradually by I-M and I-HT (get rid of the too). But still, it takes a lot of space and employs few workers, so consider rezoning part of it to commercial. Don't worry about your low-wealth sims (you don't want more anyway, do you?), if demand for R$ turns negative you can zone some little more C and get CS development (even CS$ is better than I-D) if you have demand. Finally demand for I-D will drop as EQ rises, and your sims will no longer want to work there, so it won't be a real "loss". As soon as R$$ and R$$$ demand starts picking up, try to "satisfy" it (cause development). And don't snub CS either, CS$$ and CS$$$ pay a lot of taxes, while CS$ can provide jobs for your poor sims.

About taxes, I always suggest setting them to their otherwise it tends to cause imbalances in demand. So if you have lowered them try to raise them slowly to the neutral level (unless demand is negative) - except of course for I-D, which you should rather keep them high for this particular city.

You may also want to check your utilities. Set funding to 100% and export the excess production. Don't build more and hope to make money from exports, it doesn't work. Esp try to reduce the garbage that goes to landfills (if you have any) they cost a lot ($3.3/ton), and don't build recycling centres ($20/ton).

Now I would like to showcase a city I'm playing. I don't have zoned for industry at all in my region (neither farms) so the only jobs can be civic and C. I play hard difficulty level, without cheats or cheaty lots, and mostly Maxis stuff. I also made a mod that sets the startup funds to zero, so I can only start with a loan ($1000, which has to be paid back in three years - made another mod for this). And despite all the above restrictions, it does work!

Here is a pic with the city stats:

Budget:

Taxes:

A pic of my main C, R$$ and R$ area:

Part of my R$$$ area (mostly small villas).

As you can see in the pic, most of the R$$ development is condos and most of R$ Ellery Elm Tennements (along with some few larger tennements). There's some lowrise development too. Not sure what will happen when I start getting hirises, but as you can see in the table the difference in taxes per occupant between R$$ condos and R$$ hirises isn't that high. A big source of income is CS$$$ and CS$$. CO$$ and CO$$$ don't pay really high taxes, although they employ the most sims by far.

If you are interested in how to build a region (or city) without industry, take a look at Also take a look to see how you can get the development type you want. See some money-making tips

Let's see how it turns out.

[Jim14409 448]

Well, to "cheat" or not to "cheat" that is the question. If you look for my items in the STEX you will find two lots that make most pollution problems go away and give you enough water for a large tile. Look for the Fusion power plant and the Artesian water supply. This is a pair, but if all you want is lots of water you can use the water plant on its own. The power plant uses water for fuel.

I do not recall seeing any of your work but would like to. I have just returned from looking on the STEX but found nothing. (I'm sorry, but I have always found the STEX to be searcher unfriendly). Anyway, if you have a link or some search tips I'd appreciate the help.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

I am not a prolific BATter. I did these shortly after the BAT came out, and haven't really found anything that needed doing lately that I couldn't find. I try not to invent the wheel.

[Jim14409 448]

@ A Nonny Moose, Thank you for the links.