Am I going to run into trouble organizing my city like this?

[Michonder 4]

I've only for the first build a city this size (~100k) on large map in SC4 and I'm worried I might have been to ambitious. I'm already having a few cases of abandonment due to commuting time and my (newly built) highways already have some congestion, while I was hoping to expand the population several times over. It's been my intention to expand my industrial area along the southside, but perhaps it would have been better to create multiple smaller industrial parks.

 

I'm using NAM.

 

 

 

[Superbacon 380]

When you can afford it, connect those highway sections. 

 

At some point soon though, you'll be needing to build some bus stations and subways. Also, your city seems to have a very low wealth level.

 

The way you built the city isn't such a huge issue. Though you already boxed yourself in with dirty industry on both sides with heavy pollution. That's a lot of industry, too. Oddly I don't see much commerce or upper-wealth buildings...or schools. Are you using your neighboring cities at all?

[Wiimeiser 452]

Even if it means destroying houses, connect the top and left highways, and make one to the north. I could make a test city to show as an example, as well.

 

And ignore Commute Time, Maxis was going to fix it as DLC but never got around to it.

 

EDIT: This is an example:

 

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Michonder 4]

It was my intention to connect to highway sections, just don't have the funds yet. And I have bus stations everywhere and some rail as well.

 

 

Are you using your neighboring cities at all?

 

I have a bunch of neighbour connections yes.

[JJogurt 18]

At 100k your city should be well educated and have much more commercial jobs as a result. Those industrial zones are absolutely huge. Consider using Industry Doubler Mod.

 

I prefer using multiple smaller industrial zones like you mentioned. Small I-D zones have don't make those massive pollution clouds, while small I-M zones barely produce any pollution. Plus it helps with the traffic because your jobs are more spread out.

[Michonder 4]

At 100k your city should be well educated and have much more commercial jobs as a result. Those industrial zones are absolutely huge. Consider using Industry Doubler Mod.

 

I prefer using multiple smaller industrial zones like you mentioned. Small I-D zones have don't make those massive pollution clouds, while small I-M zones barely produce any pollution. Plus it helps with the traffic because your jobs are more spread out.

 

Well, that's the thing exactly, I'm worried that I'm going to completely jam up my city because I've concentrated my industry in 2 big blobs. As I said, I already have some abandonment due to commuting time while I haven't started rezoning to high density yet.

 

It's actually my intention to create an industry heavy, low education city.

[Ltw 401]

I've experienced that industry doesn't result in that much traffic jams. Mostly commerce is a problem since those are large high buildings which leads to a lot of traffic. So you might not have these problems at all, if you have problems with traffic you can try to bundle the traffic in a few avenues/highways to avoid traffic-jams in backstreets. You can also make public transport free and discourage people to go by car with toll booths etcetera.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You have too much industry and not enough commercial to support it.  The game is oriented towards commercial when our population gets to about where you have it.  I'd expand the commercial areas by rezoning some of the industrial.  During the transition, tax the I-D at 20%.  You might as well harvest them while you are taking them out at the same time.

 

Generally I put low density commercial right beside industrial to supply needed services to the industrial pods.  Lots of it, too.  Look at your demand graph and consider it to be a set of available building permits for this purpose.  Your low density commercial is probably off the scale.  With the tax increase you should be able to join your highways sooner rather than later.

 

If you don't have it, add the extra cheats .dll.  If nothing else you can make a grant in aid to your city by giving it all the money it needs using the moolah command.  The drawpaths command will also help you assess your traffic.

[Michonder 4]

You have too much industry and not enough commercial to support it.  The game is oriented towards commercial when our population gets to about where you have it.  I'd expand the commercial areas by rezoning some of the industrial.  During the transition, tax the I-D at 20%.  You might as well harvest them while you are taking them out at the same time.

 

Generally I put low density commercial right beside industrial to supply needed services to the industrial pods.  Lots of it, too.  Look at your demand graph and consider it to be a set of available building permits for this purpose.  Your low density commercial is probably off the scale.  With the tax increase you should be able to join your highways sooner rather than later.

 

If you don't have it, add the extra cheats .dll.  If nothing else you can make a grant in aid to your city by giving it all the money it needs using the moolah command.  The drawpaths command will also help you assess your traffic.

 

Does any of this concern commuting time issues? I have a surplus of +$5k/month, connecting the highways only took half a year or so.

 

Which brings me to this, now they're connected, the highway on the west side of town is now being used at 300%. Newly constructed buildings still are regularly afflicted with abandonment due to commuting time.

[Turjan 1,048]

On a large tile, you probably need subway connections if you have your residential and industrial areas separated like that. I tend to intermix the areas more, which solves most of the traffic problems without subways, at least in a relatively small city of 100,000 inhabitants. Low wealth people don't mind living next to a factory, and high wealth just needs a few trees in between their house and the factory. They don't like too much air pollution, though.

 

Personally, I don't care much if my highways are deep red all the time. It doesn't seem to matter up to a population of about 1 million.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If you are having commute time problems its usually a layout goof.  It is important to get the Sims to work as quick as possible.  Without the NAM you want the shortest route as the crow flies.

 

Subway is an expensive way to make this happen.  Cheaper and nearly as quick is commuter rail.  For long hauls try monorail.  Forget the commute time graph, it is hopelessly broken.

 

To get some of this in, you may very well need to pick up RTMT (Road Top Mass Transit mod) if you don't have it.  Transit stops go on the roads, and save a lot of space.  With this mod you cannot put a station so that it masks access to an R lot.  But you can put it around the corner.

 

Subway/bus stops need to be every couple of blocks.  Train stations, if you use rail, should be fairly frequent and have bus service to them.  You need buses in the job areas to get from train stations to the work place.

[Michonder 4]

On a large tile, you probably need subway connections if you have your residential and industrial areas separated like that. I tend to intermix the areas more, which solves most of the traffic problems without subways, at least in a relatively small city of 100,000 inhabitants. Low wealth people don't mind living next to a factory, and high wealth just needs a few trees in between their house and the factory. They don't like too much air pollution, though.

 

Personally, I don't care much if my highways are deep red all the time. It doesn't seem to matter up to a population of about 1 million.

 

Yeah, normally I would have intermixed more. I got a bit carried away laying the industrial blob to the south thinking I could get away with it because of the capacity boosts NAM provides.

[.anonyman 28]

 

 

Does any of this concern commuting time issues? I have a surplus of +$5k/month, connecting the highways only took half a year or so.

 

Which brings me to this, now they're connected, the highway on the west side of town is now being used at 300%. Newly constructed buildings still are regularly afflicted with abandonment due to commuting time.

 

 

Hang on. You're using NAM, so your highway is being used at 300% of normal road capacity; that's a good thing and shouldn't be considered congestion. Is abandonment still a problem? Have commute times gone down? It seems to me that transport isn't the problem.

 

Nice city design, BTW. If you want to stick with industry only, it will be more difficult to grow. I'd suggest growing out before growing up. You could gradually replace the polluting industry with high-density, then replace that with residential. Some well-placed parks and patience should do the trick.

[Wiimeiser 452]

How does the city look now?

[Michonder 4]

I didn't realise the % in the traffic volume map referred to regular road.

 

Well, I've been extending my highways further to create 3/4th of a circle around the city. I've also constructed a fairly extensive elevated railsystem throughout the inner city, connecting those to several railway stations (which in turn lead to the industry zones). Moreover I've replaced a suburb west of town with industry (yes, even more factories!) to bring the jobs closer to the workers, connected by road, avenue, highway, bus stations, rail station and el-railstations.

Yet despite all the effort, I still have abandonment issues. Especially R$$ and R$$$ get constructed and then abandoned again. Even some R$ buildings are abandoned due to commuting time.

 

I'm a bit miffed at this point that despite spending heaps on transportation infrastructure with little population growth, I don't really seem to have solved things.

 

New industrial park east of the city centre:

 

 

 

[Michonder 4]

PS: I'm rather proud I managed to squeeze a highway between the R and I areas here.

 

(you can also see examples of abandoned R$ buildings and residential lots that stubbornly stay undeveloped)

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Water in the second shot looks polluted.  Are you getting any warnings about it?

 

You still don't have enough C to satisfy the need of all that I for services. How much of your R traffic goes out of town?

[FreewayofFlight 41]

I would suggest moving your industrial zones farther from your city center or even into another city altogether, the pollution could also be a factor in the city stagnating.

[Bdub01 201]

More commercial stat!!!

[Michonder 4]

It seems all the investments paid off afterall. I'm not having any abandonment due to commuting anymore and people are commuting from newly constructed buildings as normal. It seems that after a certain point the simulator suddenly realised people were having a lot more options to commute. The only issue I'm still having is that it can take some time for newly laid zones to start developing.

 

Now busy laying out new suburbs, rezoning some parts of the inner city from medium to dense and expanding the eastern industry zone.

[Wiimeiser 452]

Zone up the north and build that bypass. Also, do you have the RHW?

[z1 566]

I'm glad your commuting problems cleared up!  Meanwhile, here are some pointers to make things easier in the future.
 

It was my intention to connect to highway sections, just don't have the funds yet. And I have bus stations everywhere and some rail as well.

 
Buses don't reduce abandonment due to commute time, especially in the NAM, except to the extent they are used to carry Sims to rapid transit.  Think about it - in RL, which is the faster way to commute:  driving a car or taking the bus?
 

You have too much industry and not enough commercial to support it.  The game is oriented towards commercial when our population gets to about where you have it.  I'd expand the commercial areas by rezoning some of the industrial.  During the transition, tax the I-D at 20%.  You might as well harvest them while you are taking them out at the same time.

 
This was true in SC3K, but is not at all true in SC4.  The Sims have no preference of commercial over industry, or vice versa.  In one of my cities, I have about a million Sims working in industry, and about the same number working in commercial businesses.  The city is very healthy, and there is exactly one abandoned building.  All the industry is bunched up in one place, just like the real city on which this one is based.  There are subways all over the place, of course.
 
Other cities in that region reflect other aspects of a real city.  In one, I have three quarters of a million Sims working in industry, with two thirds of a million working at commercial businesses.  There are no abandoned buildings.  This city is zoned almost completely at medium density for residential use.
 
On the other hand, my Downtown city has 1.6 million commercial jobs, and only 160,000 industrial.  That's because of the way I zoned again, again reflecting the city's RL counterpart.
 
I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
 

If you are having commute time problems its usually a layout goof.

 
I beg to differ.  The cities I described above are all part of my Chicago simulation, which simulates the city down to the street level.  Zones are where the real Chicago zones are.  The layout here violates every rule in the SC4 manual, simply because the real city of Chicago wasn't built according to the SC4 manual.  But it doesn't matter; the city runs beautifully.  There are really only three major causes of commute time problems.  In order of importance:

• Not using the NAM traffic simulator.
• Not having extensive subway coverage, especially for large and populous cities
• An imbalance in the number of jobs available versus the population.  This is much rarer.

These points are the fruit of many years of testing all sorts of cities, where much of the testing was specifically directed at getting rid of abandonment due to commute time.
 

It is important to get the Sims to work as quick as possible.

 
Not with the NAM, where they have effectively unlimited commute time.  It's important to have a decent traffic system, though, or else the traffic simulator's destination finder might decide that Sims can't reach their jobs even when they can.  This is actually the whole reason for needing subways; the Sims actually have enough commute time to walk to work, as has been shown numerous times.
 

Subway is an expensive way to make this happen.

 
Subways had a permanent markdown in monthly costs last June; they're now one-third cheaper.  They're still expensive, but this is partially to compensate for the fact that the NAM traffic simulator does make the game easier.  And SC4 subways are still a tiny fraction of the cost of their real world counterparts.
 

Cheaper and nearly as quick is commuter rail.

Actually, commuter rail is faster than subway in the NAM - 140 kph versus 105 kph.  It's faster in RL too.  Commuter rail is great for cities, and if it weren't for that stupid destination finder, it would be quite sufficient.  But because of the way the traffic simulator works (the hard coded part that we can't change), at some point you can't satisfy your rapid transit needs with surface rail alone, and those subways have to go in.  What point that is varies by city.
 

For long hauls try monorail.

Even the Prima Guide gives this advice.  But it's only partially correct.  Monorails work perfectly well for short hauls too - in fact, they're a great method for moving Sims around town.  As for long hauls, the faster the network, the better, which is why monorail is recommended.  But all the rail networks are actually good for long haul travel.  Finally, the availability of faster networks increases the chances that Sims will commute to other cities.
 

Yeah, normally I would have intermixed more. I got a bit carried away laying the industrial blob to the south thinking I could get away with it because of the capacity boosts NAM provides.

Intermixing is a relic from the days of the Maxis traffic simulator.  With the NAM traffic simulator and good subway coverage, intermixing is now completely unnecessary.  This was another one of the goals of the NAM traffic simulator, since real cities usually have large separate sections.

[Michonder 4]

Actually, commuter rail is faster than subway in the NAM - 140 kph versus 105 kph.  It's faster in RL too.  Commuter rail is great for cities, and if it weren't for that stupid destination finder, it would be quite sufficient.  But because of the way the traffic simulator works (the hard coded part that we can't change), at some point you can't satisfy your rapid transit needs with surface rail alone, and those subways have to go in.  What point that is varies by city.

Commuter rail = regular (heavy) rail, right?

And does elevated rail serves the purpose as good as subways?

 

 

Intermixing is a relic from the days of the Maxis traffic simulator.  With the NAM traffic simulator and good subway coverage, intermixing is now completely unnecessary.  This was another one of the goals of the NAM traffic simulator, since real cities usually have large separate sections.

That's good to hear. It's what I was hoping for when I installed NAM. Don't understand why I was abandonment issues then though.

[Camlon 50]

Its not due to commute times, as NAM makes commuters travel any distance. Forget about subway, it won't make a difference.

 

Your problem is lack of jobs for high wealth citizens. You have massive demand for industry, and high demand for commercial. Do something about it and your abandonment problems will disappear. 

[Turjan 1,048]

That's good to hear. It's what I was hoping for when I installed NAM. Don't understand why I was abandonment issues then though.

 

I don't know, do you have neighbor cities? If you have a perfect traffic network in your city, "long commute" usually means that these Sims work in a different city. If you then improve that neighbor city and, for example, the residential areas there grow while you do that, the Sims in the first city might lose their jobs. I experienced this once when I added residential areas to former purely industrial cities. One of the neighbor cities went down from 400,000 to nearly 200,000 inhabitants and showed lots of abandonment due to "long commute". I then restructured the first city, which is back to 330,000 inhabitants, but now has nearly as many jobs as inhabitants (I guess I overcompensated ). I find it fun to watch such developments.

[Michonder 4]

I did not have a neighbour city when the problems started popping up. I now have a very small one (population ~1000, with over half that in jobs).

Its not due to commute times, as NAM makes commuters travel any distance. Forget about subway, it won't make a difference.

 

Your problem is lack of jobs for high wealth citizens. You have massive demand for industry, and high demand for commercial. Do something about it and your abandonment problems will disappear. 

Doesn't explain abandoned R$ and R$$ buildings. And as far as I understand the simulator in SC4K it does not matter whether R$ sims go work in low-wealth services or industry, it's all jobs for them.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

R$ are the grintz for want of a better word.  They are farm hands, cart pushers, burger flippers, etc.  It is possible to not have enough R$ jobs just like it is possible to have insufficient jobs for other classes.  To employ your R$ try building some more CS$ lots, 1 x 1, 2 x 1, 1 x 2, 2 x 2.

 

R$$ are the middle class.  Knowledge workers, supervisors, owners of small businesses, etc.

 

R$$$ is the upper crust.  The upper crust is usually pretty thin.  However the jobs the R$$$ hold also form a pyramid that employs the others.

 

So organizing your city is a balancing act.  Requires more subtlety than force.

[Wiimeiser 452]

Can we see the adjacent city tiles?

[Michonder 4]

(the neighbour city has somewhat been expanded by now)

[Cottoncandy Cyanide 145]

! WARNING: UNLESS YOU'RE GOING VANILLA SIMCITY ON MODS( EXCEPT NAM ), THEN DO NOT USE ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW!!! !

 

I'm gonna try to be helpful( even though most of my advice may be a bit TOO much, so be aware of it ):
> You seem to have too much dirty industry and pollution. Add education facilities and increase I-D taxes to 20%

> Also, add desirability. Like parks. I recommend: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=437

Or, you can add more civics. I prefer cubes since they look more fitting for most cities( in my opinion ): Here is a link to one of the civics I use:

> For R$$$ unemployment problems, add subways, buses, or trams. They will help clear traffic problems allowing more sims to commute to their jobs. Including high wealth. Also, a side note. I like putting commerce next to residential and industry FAR from residential and commerce. Unless the industry is high tech. :l

> For pollution, you can either cheat your way, or wait for it to go away.

> Water pollution = this plant:

That plant is SMALLER and WAY MORE EFFICIENT than the default Maxis one

> Try using clean energy sources. Like:

or the default ones.

 

Hope I can help. Even though I think I didn't. Or did, with alternate problems. Beats me, :l