Re-zoning

[Phate06 2]

Hi

I have go to the stage where my once careful planning of a city has gone to pot....

I have housing zones where I now need space for motorways and/or railroads and i have business zones where I now want housing.

My question is, what effect will it have on my City in demolishing an entire zoned area and changing it to another - I want to basically relocate my inhabitants to the area.

Is this possible?

Thanks

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, what keeps you from trying? Unlike real life, SimCity makes it possible to simply quit the game and reload if you didn't like the outcome. If you want to be extra careful, you can even back up the city file so you can go back to a previous state at any time. This means that you don't need to fear anything, but you can experiment with your city and learn in the process.

Redesigning a city is a common challenge faced by many, and of course it's possible. All you need to remember is that the more you throw your city off balance, the more problems you may encounter. If you execute your plan step by step, chances are your city will continue to run as it used to. If you do it all in one great step (or generally in a more radical way), there may be a period where your income turns negative or you encounter dilapidation and traffic problems.

However, I'd really like to encourage you to go ahead and try! I think what makes SimCity so great to play is that your city almost develops a life of its own - things that you didn't expect can happen all the time, and while this sometimes means there's a problem you didn't reckon with, other times something happens that's even better than what you had in mind and totally changes your plans.

[Phate06 2]

Brilliant answer thank you very much

[cogeo 960]

I have housing zones where I now need space for motorways and/or railroads and i have business zones where I now want housing.

My question is, what effect will it have on my City in demolishing an entire zoned area and changing it to another - I want to basically relocate my inhabitants to the area.

This is possible, and while many might say that with a good city planning you could avoid having to do so, changes in planning may sometimes be needed. I would advise the following:

- Perform demolishing and rezoning in small steps, eg no more than a row of 6 houses, 1 medium-sized condo or one medium-sized commercial building per month, so you don't cause a big imbalance in the simulation (demand etc).

- Before bulldozing take a look at your demand status. Don't bulldoze a building if you have high demand for its type (high demand rather means that there's a lack of buildings of the certain type, so doing this will cause a gross imbalance in demand). Instead, grow more buildings of the certain type so that demand drops, before bulldozing. For example, don't bulldoze R$$ buildings if R$$ demand is high up, instead grow some R$$ condos or hirises (depending on your demand level and playing style) first, and demolish the R$$ development you (don't) want when R$$ demand has dropped (as a result of the new development).

- Demolishing residential en masse may cause a drop in education level (and therefore CO demand) if the residents in the buildings are highly-educated. Not sure if they really "relocate" or they just disappear (meaning that all efforts and money it took to educate them is "lost" - don't count on newcommers, they have a very low EQ), so better use the bulldozer with caution, and as I mention above, in small steps.

- Demolishing commercial reduces jobs and will cause your R demand to drop, or even become negative, so demolish them in small steps as well.

For some tips on "how to grow the buildings you want where you want" take a look at and this pic.

If you want to be extra careful, you can even back up the city file so you can go back to a previous state at any time.

I would rather suggest backing up the whole region folder (and when getting it back get the whole folder again) so as to avoid possible inconsistencies in regional stats - it is unknown in which city tile(s) the game stores them and which one it reads.

[Phate06 2]

Thank you Cogeo for the assistance

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Urban redevelopment is a fact of life in the real world. The municipal planners I know say there are only two seasons: winter and construction.

If you need to change the type of zone, just do it. The buildings will be automatically demolished. The only time they won't is if you don't change the zoning class.

Don't worry about running a new right-of-way through some neighbourhood. Just do it. If you have to, use the dezoning tool (v) and the bulldozer (b) judiciously. Part of these kinds of operations is that you get to have the fun of watching the character of the city change.

If you have doubts, or just for safety, save a copy of your city outside the game by copying the city tile to some safe place. That way, if you goof or want to start over, you can. This privilege is denied to real life city engineers and planners. Once you've ripped something up there is no going back.