How to increase population density?

[Glandrex 3]

Hi people, this is my first time playing the new simcity. I've played a few reigons and restarted them too because i wasnt too sure what i was doing and i messed up. How do i increase the population density from a small house to a flat,condo or something? 

[kallafon 0]

Just started myself but if you improve your roads to make them bigger and maybe add gardens etc to increase the land value then you should see density increase

[MrBomba 9]

Make sure your people are happy and all their needs are satisfied then proceed to add parks and such to increase happiness and flats will eventually pop up. 

[MOWS 4 U 169]

You need 3 things to get condos/apartments:

 

Upgraded roads

 

Happy Sims

 

And the third and most important thing is TIME

 

 

 

I always start with a small section of the town paved with dirt roads to get some cash rolling in after that I use exclusively high density roads.  Eventually bigger buildings start to pop up.  I haven't yet found anyway to go straight to apartments so patience is key.

[Glandrex 3]

Do i need health, school or certain minimum population to get it? 

[GoalLineStalker 0]

Do i need health, school or certain minimum population to get it? 

Not specifically, but generally, yes.

 

Happiness is the only thing that matters. Adding healthcare, education, fire/police protection, clearing trash, minimizing pollution, etc all add to that. There's no minimum population, to my knowledge, though it does seem to have time as a component.

[Spatzimaus 77]

Happiness is the only thing that matters.

 

As the wise man said, "all you need is love".  Like the above posters said, it's all about Happiness.  Being near a police station, fire station, or clinic adds happiness (and "near" in this case has multiple levels; being very close gives a lot of happiness, being further away gives less).  Being near a park adds a lot more, especially if it's a big one; the baseball diamond costs 10k, but it's got enough coverage to make half your city happy.  There are other things that add to happiness, but those are the easy ones for upgrading density in a specific area.

 

As to road density, I'd suggest starting with medium-density roads.  Dirt roads and low-density roads just don't have enough lanes, and will bog down if someone's trying to make a turn.  Medium roads are still fairly cheap, and have two lanes each way.  Also, since they allow medium-density buildings, you'll know when it's time to upgrade within an area.