Benefits of Commercial vs Industrial

[Themaroonday 40]

I usually think of industry as a way to promote quick and short growth and think of Commercial as a way for slow and sustained growth. What do you guys think?

[.anonyman 28]

I think of industry as essential for both a balanced game/region and for realistic cities. I-D provides jobs for any and all Sims at the beginning, but then provides the best jobs with short commutes once you get I-HT. Therefore, it's an integral and visible part of your cities' development. In the real world, you'll find some industry in every built-up area. Therefore, completely removing it to a separate tile leaves a city looking odd.

 

It's easy to look at SC4 the way you described, since city growth quickly leads to office towers and then has nowhere else to go. It seems to be the natural goal of the game. (Launching a shuttle from the space port is an alternative goal, but not very much fun because I-HT is so repetitive-looking.) Plus, even the game manual and tutorials suggest you have to start with I-D, then replace it as soon as you plop an elementary school.

 

But I don't really think in terms of quick growth anyway. I prefer to plan long-term. RCI + utilities.

[Janbiya 71]

Both industrial and commercial zones provide jobs, thereby promoting growth. The question is what kind of growth you're going for. Personally, I find dense office tower sprawl to be very artificial looking so I try to avoid zoning too much commercial, especially before the city I'm working on is already well-established. Plus, almost all major real life residential/commercial hubs got their start as agricultural and industrial oriented areas so these zones are a natural pick for providing jobs to newly developed areas.

[Cob92 360]

Industrial growth actually fuels commercial growth. What I've noticed is that industry develops first, and demand for commercial offices follows closely behind. High tech industry pushes up CO$$$ demand.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

Industries also produce goods and help your economy. I just don't see the benefits of commercial buildings so much aside that they provide jobs for your growing city population. Actually I having a hard time getting my industrial development to peak lately. Commercial demand was high but when I build a few plopable buildings that have jobs integrated with them the commercial demand went down,way down. If you build plopables be warned as they can affect your city demand. Also industries make air pollution which in turn leads to their own abandonment so build a few air filters (search STEX) to deal with it. I recommend the following.

 

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1968

Also industries make many garbage so build many recycling centers in your industrial zone.

[atsummerlin53 47]

Well, they're going to be intertwined to some degree. Unless you're using some serious mods that alter your demand for dirty industry and CS$ or CS$$, even when you have really high education levels, clean air, and all the water you can drink, there will still be some need for those types. You might not notice them in your city because they will be much less dense than anything else, but they'll still be there.

 

Ploppable lots are awesome, but they have abandonment issues just like everything else, so you have to redevelop them sometimes if one demand drops too much and another grows too high. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it's pretty annoying.

 

If you think about it, neither commercial nor industrial development truly fuels short or long-term growth, it's the civic services that do that. You can't get HT jobs without education or water, and you can't get large-scale development without a large population of smart, long-lived people. Without water, clean air, education, a decent healthcare system (it doesn't have to be great), and good transportation options, you'll get better development, but it'll abandon pretty quickly.