Losing to abondonment

[yayaya1 22]

I hate when residents move out and abandon your city. I lost thousands of residents.

[Turjan 1,048]

Heh, they react very easily to changes. I once built some residential areas in small industrial cities, and the people moved there from a medium tile city nearby. The inhabitants of the latter changed from about 410,000 to about 260,000 within a short time. It's currently up to 330,000 again, but I just take it like the weather. It gives me opportunities to reorganize.

[Cefien 361]

You lost thousands of residents?. They must be really hate you Mayor 

[yayaya1 22]

maybe not thousands, but you know what I mean. Every single high wealth resident in my city complains about commute times. I added subways/buses and it went away for a while, then it came back. I'm  like "what else do you stuck up spoiled people want from me!?"

[Cefien 361]

Lol. Take it easy. They (High wealth residential) are indeed finicky. You must give them or provide them all the things they need in SC4. Educations, Parks, a good road connection, a nice workplace not too far from home, and all other desirabilty factors. They like, "give us what we need, or we leave your city" sort of thing. ckck...

Annoying people with good money, i must say.

 

The NAM will help you solve your problem i suppose. Do you have it?

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

The NAM will help you solve your problem i suppose. Do you have it?

 

Yeah, the abandonment problem has been pretty much fixed by this mod.

[Cyclone Boom 16,965]

It's very hard to prevent abandonment, but it can be minimised through good city planning strategies. The main causes of abandonment are:

 

1. Lack of power supply
2. Lack of water supply
3. No road access
4. Occupants have no job
5. Negative demand for developer type

 

If the first four requirements aren't met, as a warning, you'll be notified by the corresponding zot. To determine the cause of abandonment, use the Query Tool to select the abandoned building. The reason will be displayed at the top of the window. If there's a general pattern (i.e. the reason is the same among multiple buildings), you'll need to focus on improving this aspect.

 

Power and water can be taken care of fairly easily. Simply use the Data Views to make sure all areas have an adequate supply of each. You can check by querying a building, using the Query Tool. Also, all RCI buildings require a road/street connection, that leads to the main transportation network. You can't have an area of your city that is isolated, as this will only promote abandonment.

 

Jobs can be a bit tricky to manage. Job abandonment is caused when a Sim cannot make it to work, either through excessive commute times, or through a lack of employment opportunities. To promote efficient commute times, it's a good idea to build a range of mass transit options. Start small with bus stops, connecting residential to the commercial and industrial areas. But not all Sims will have the desire to use public transport, so it's key that your road networks are well laid out. Make core central avenues, that connect to branching roads and streets. You'll also need to provide enough industrial and commercial zoning. Your city's residential population may outweigh the number of jobs. As Cefien said, the NAM can help in this regard, as it completely overhauls the game's transport simulation, adjusting commute time values.

 

Negative demand can affect a city without any obvious signs. Be sure to expand the RCI indicator to view the full demand for each developer type. I recommend starting small with zoning, only expanding as the population grows and funding is able to support it. By doing this, It helps to balance the RCI demand, ensuring there is adequate housing and employment for the population.

 

Hope this is helpful.

[Turjan 1,048]

The NAM will help you solve your problem i suppose. Do you have it?

 

Yeah, the abandonment problem has been pretty much fixed by this mod.

 

Don't forget the I-HT fix. With the shift from I-D to I-HT, those rich guys who had their nice jobs running the buildings with the smokestacks are suddenly out of luck. They probably have to commute to the neighbor city.

[Bdub01 201]

Also as soon as the demand drops to negative stop playing the city before sims start to leave. Go to another city to build the demand back up. Keep moving around all your cities and demand will grow!

[yayaya1 22]

Lol. Take it easy. They (High wealth residential) are indeed finicky. You must give them or provide them all the things they need in SC4. Educations, Parks, a good road connection, a nice workplace not too far from home, and all other desirabilty factors. They like, "give us what we need, or we leave your city" sort of thing. ckck...

Annoying people with good money, i must say.

 

The NAM will help you solve your problem i suppose. Do you have it?

I gave them all they want. There are high wealth and medium wealth jobs and I have the NAM mod. I gave them hospitals/schools, fire/police, park/gardens, and plazas.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

What is the ratio of R$$$ with respect to all Sims?  If it is more than 15% your game is out of balance.  Remember that R$$$ are all high-level managers, CEOs, CFOs, COOs, etc.  The R$ do all the miscellaneous low level stuff, and the R$$ are supervisors and knowledge workers.  An orchestra can only have one conductor.

[z1 566]

Lol. Take it easy. They (High wealth residential) are indeed finicky. You must give them or provide them all the things they need in SC4. Educations, Parks, a good road connection, a nice workplace not too far from home, and all other desirabilty factors. They like, "give us what we need, or we leave your city" sort of thing. ckck...

Annoying people with good money, i must say.

 

The NAM will help you solve your problem i suppose. Do you have it?

I gave them all they want. There are high wealth and medium wealth jobs and I have the NAM mod. I gave them hospitals/schools, fire/police, park/gardens, and plazas.

 

But you didn't give them lots and lots of subways and stops, did you?  And I mean lots of subways and stops.  That's what they really want (along with the NAM), and that's why they're leaving your city.

[yayaya1 22]

I found out how to keep towers up. Finally! But that is in another city. I may add a few more subways because it looks like they abandon stuff too.  

I used the ninja boulevard stops.

[lhrob 213]

I'm confused.  (What else is new, huh?)  I thought high-wealth Sims preferred to drive, instead of taking mass transit...?  Maybe that's part of the problem....you need higher capacity roads, and more residential zones that are closer to high-wealthy commercial and high-tech jobs.

[juhov 0]

It's funny how the bigger problem actually is keeping the high-wealth people from moving into your city rather than attracting them in the first place.

 

In my experience it's necessary to tax them at least couple percentage points higher than low- and middle-wealth residents. I check the Census Repository Vault every now and then and if there are jobs available for R§§§ I'll lower taxes a bit and wait. Usually a lot more rich people will move in than my city can support so I raise taxes again and demolish their mansions before the dreaded no job briefcases show up

 

What means are there for limiting R§§§ growth apart from high taxes? (And a horribly polluted city without any services I guess, but I don't want to inflict that on my less affluent residents.)

[yayaya1 22]

I'm confused.  (What else is new, huh?)  I thought high-wealth Sims preferred to drive, instead of taking mass transit...?  Maybe that's part of the problem....you need higher capacity roads, and more residential zones that are closer to high-wealthy commercial and high-tech jobs.

You know what else confuses me? The fact that 2/3 of my city is commercial. And that medium wealth love the area, yet low wealth are complaining about commutes. And even more confusing, my roads are not popular if you are talking about cars, but when you talk about pedestrians, that is a different story. I see red spots with pedestrians!

[lhrob 213]

It's in the water, yayaya1.   This game is just....well, stupid....at times.  For instance, I had a SLIGHT problem with some congestion in a part of town where there really shouldn't have been any.  So when I conceded and put in one-way roads, the Sims all griped and moaned and abandoned their homes.  So I put the two-way roads back in, and they were all pacified.  NOW I keep getting notices that the same part of town is congested, so I put in an avenue to increase capacity.  Suddenly people started quitting their jobs.  

 

[Mr Saturn64 742]

This has mostly been said, but to prevent abondonment...

 

Make sure your residents are powered, watered, have low garbage, good safety, healthcare, and education.

 

Make sure commute time is not too high, if it is, try public transit

 

If your mayor rating is low, do U-Drivve it missions.

[z1 566]

I'm confused.  (What else is new, huh?)  I thought high-wealth Sims preferred to drive, instead of taking mass transit...?

 

The key here is the word "prefer".  Yes, by default, the vast majority of high-wealth Sims (80% in the NAM) prefer driving to mass transit.  But that simply means that when the traffic simulator checks out different possible routes to work for them, it adds a very slight time penalty to mass transit.  If mass transit is more than a tiny bit faster than driving, high-wealth Sims will take it.

 

The main effect here is that you don't see many high-wealth Sims on the buses.  Since driving speed is so close to that of buses (again, in the NAM), high-wealth Sims will rarely take the bus.

 

In my experience it's necessary to tax them at least couple percentage points higher than low- and middle-wealth residents.

 

A lot of people do this, but it's not really necessary to have a completely healthy and balanced city.  If you keep all your civic services fully funded and have them cover the whole city, use the NAM traffic simulator and lay down plenty of subways and stops, you will have happy Sims at all wealth levels.

 

This has mostly been said, but to prevent abondonment...

 

Make sure your residents are powered, watered, have low garbage, good safety, healthcare, and education.

 

This much is true.

 

Make sure commute time is not too high, if it is, try public transit.

 

Commute time is only an issue if you're not using the NAM, in which case public transit may help a little.  The commute time graph is broken, though, even in the vanilla game; you should ignore it, and focus on the Traffic Data Views and the Route Query tool instead.  And without the NAM, abandonment due to commute time is unavoidable, especially in larger cities.

 

If your mayor rating is low, do U-Drivve it missions.

 

Although these can boost your mayor rating, they shouldn't be necessary if you run your city properly.

[Pinstar 13]

I'm just starting up a new region and have more of a problem with down-shift abandonment...where $$$ or $$ buildings abandon and get re-occupied by $ residents. I had a few R$$ apartments doing well. I had just built up a I-M sector on an island on the same zone. The apartments grew in response to the surge in R$$ jobs. Once built, R$$ was at a very slight negative demand. The traffic between my R$$ and their I-M jobs was fine, no congestion. Yet after a few years they abandoned and were replaced with R$ (which has a high demand) and just built some low density 2 story homes elsewhere.

 

What caused the down-shift abandonment? And will my R$$ apartments ever kick the R$ out and have R$$ move back in?

[Bdub01 201]

What caused the down-shift abandonment? And will my R$$ apartments ever kick the R$ out and have R$$ move back in?

I can't answer all your question however I have been having the same cycle of wealths moving in and out. So when demand for R$$ grows again they SHOULD retake the building they started in again. It's just something that happens. I have an Ong Condo that has wealthy sims after several months it drops to R$$ then sometimes down to R$. But then will always go back up to R$$$ and start the cycle again.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I work diligently to keep R$$$ out of my cities until I can handle them properly.  The trick is to force low density R to be laid out in such a way that mansions are impossible.  I generally hand zone my R in early stages as 2 x 1 so that I get blocks that are only 2 grids deep.  Mansions need at least three by three.  If there aren't any, no mansions.  You can zone medium and high density lots at 2 x 1 as well, but if you do, get some lots off the STEX to help things along.  1 x 1, 2 x 1, and 2 x 2 C lots at low and medium density stave off the big office buildings until you are ready. 

 

Remember, you can change the zoning on a lot any time from one density to another without bulldozing.  However, if you change the size of the lot, you have to do some urban clearance first.

[Turjan 1,048]

I have never seen the R$$$ mansions as problems, except for aesthetics, and that can be helped. They hardly ever delapidate, except if they end up alone in a sea of highrises. The problem are the R$$$ mid- and highrises that grow like weeds and then end up housing R$$ or R$ people. The mansions make for great spots to plop later rewards. Plop the courthouse in exchange for losing one 12 people home? Yes sir, thank you.

[yayaya1 22]

It's in the water, yayaya1.   This game is just....well, stupid....at times.  For instance, I had a SLIGHT problem with some congestion in a part of town where there really shouldn't have been any.  So when I conceded and put in one-way roads, the Sims all griped and moaned and abandoned their homes.  So I put the two-way roads back in, and they were all pacified.  NOW I keep getting notices that the same part of town is congested, so I put in an avenue to increase capacity.  Suddenly people started quitting their jobs.  

 

Wait, my city is made up of only one-way roads. Then I have the subway. Should I use two-way roads instead?

[lhrob 213]

It's in the water, yayaya1.   This game is just....well, stupid....at times.  For instance, I had a SLIGHT problem with some congestion in a part of town where there really shouldn't have been any.  So when I conceded and put in one-way roads, the Sims all griped and moaned and abandoned their homes.  So I put the two-way roads back in, and they were all pacified.  NOW I keep getting notices that the same part of town is congested, so I put in an avenue to increase capacity.  Suddenly people started quitting their jobs.  

 

Wait, my city is made up of only one-way roads. Then I have the subway. Should I use two-way roads instead?

 

I would say probably not.  One-way roads have about twice the capacity of regular roads, which is why I don't understand why my Sims griped so much when I put them in.  But just because the avenues didn't work for me, it doesn't mean they won't work for you.  You could try replacing your one-way roads with avenues.  Avenues are basically one-way roads running parallel to each other, but in opposite directions.  The thing is, when you install them, you're going to demolish development on one side, because avenues are 2 tiles wide.

 

Have you considered using the Network Widening Mod?

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

One-way roads have about twice the capacity of regular roads, which is why I don't understand why my Sims griped so much when I put them in.  But you could try replacing your one-way roads with avenues - which are essentially one-way roads running parallel to each other, but in opposite directions.

Wrong.

Avenues and Roads have more in common to one another than either would have with One-way Roads. Aves and Roads have the same by-tile capacity and the same speed, but OWRs have a higher speed and a higher capacity than either.

[lhrob 213]

One-way roads have about twice the capacity of regular roads, which is why I don't understand why my Sims griped so much when I put them in.  But you could try replacing your one-way roads with avenues - which are essentially one-way roads running parallel to each other, but in opposite directions.

Wrong.

Avenues and Roads have more in common to one another than either would have with One-way Roads. Aves and Roads have the same by-tile capacity and the same speed, but OWRs have a higher speed and a higher capacity than either.

 

Isn't that what I said?  I said one-way roads have about twice the capacity of regular roads.  That's according to the game's manual.  I said avenues are basically the same as two one-way roads running parallel to each other, but in opposite directions.....which is true.  That's what they are.  I didn't say anything about the avenue's capacity compared to the capacity of one-way roads.

 

EDIT....According to the game's manual, avenues have even higher capacity and speed than roads do.  So who's wrong NOW, huh?

 

I wonder why I bother paying attention to you guys.  All you do is confuse me, and my cities get screwed up as a result of listening to your so-called expert advice.  Everybody acts like they know what they're talking about, and it just confuses people because you get different advice from different people.

 

SECOND EDIT...I just wanted to temper my anger a bit, so I removed a sentence.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

For the record, the NAM changes some blasphemous numbers that the original traffic simulator had, like the Ave having four times the capacity of Road.

In fact, the numbers used for the NAM are found: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=6812.0

Also, saying that Roads have twice the capacity as OWRs is not an accurate statement, because of how lane count works in the game: There isn't any. So instead, we count capacity on a by-tile basis. So in that regard, OWRs don't have twice the capacity of Road, but rather 50% more capacity.

Under Simulator Medium, the capacities for Road and Ave is 4000 (or 2000 if you wanna go on a by-lane basis), and OWR is 6000 (or 3000 on a by-lane basis). In other words, OWRs have more capacity (or rather, stringing two of them together) would have more capacity than an AVE.

[z1 566]

EDIT....According to the game's manual, avenues have even higher capacity and speed than roads do.  So who's wrong NOW, huh?

 

Nobody.  The manual, naturally, refers to the vanilla game.  Capacities and speeds were changed somewhat in the NAM; the improved pathfinding in the traffic simulator and compatibility with the NWM made this necessary.  To summarize, in the NAM, OWRs have a speed and capacity that is 50% higher than roads on a tile-by-tile basis, while avenues and roads have the same speed and capacity on a tile-by-tile basis.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One of the things about avenues is that if you have a long stretch you need turnarounds every eight to ten grids or even more often.  You don't want traffic U-turning at an intersection and coming back half a block to get to a destination.