Can't get high density low wealth residential

[MOWS 4 U 169]

Okay, this may sound stupid, but for the last week I have been unable to get any high density low wealth residential to develop.  I've tried in multiple cities in multiple regions with no luck.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong here.  In my 2,500+ hours on this game I've never had this problem.  What do I need to do to get my low wealth residential to upgrade to high density?

[Noobi-Wan 22]

Do you have any screens of the happiness, density increase overlays?

I know it is an obvious one but what about the road density and spacing?

[laks_lucky1988 0]

Im having the same problem... 

I got roads and avenues connected to those zones with enough parks in between zones

pls help

[12thDoctor 14]

It's a bit hard to give you an answer without more information or screenshots, but I can try...

 

The first two obvious things that, after 2500+ hours, I'm quite sure you'd already be aware of, but just in case, I'll still mention them:

• Is there enough room? A High Density residential is the same size as a "Large Field with Parking" (I believe it's a $-wealth park) or a high school... so if you can't fit one of those in the location, it isn't going to be able to expand. They'll also have a little complaint in orange stating "Not enough room to increase density."
• High Density requires being built on either a high density road or avenue. 

 

If those aren't the issue, then it's going to boil down to happiness. Buildings upgrade when they reach a specified amount of happiness. Medium-density low-wealth will upgrade to high-density once they reach 540 happiness tokens. Happiness for low-wealth residential is received from three things: Shoppers returning to the building after successfully purchasing something. Residents visitings parks and returning with happiness. Low taxes (7% or lower). 

 

So you'll want to watch you happiness overlay. My guess is that they aren't gaining enough net happiness very quickly... and this will make it seem like it takes forever for them to upgrade. It may simply be an issue of waiting and patience. Low wealth residential doesn't gain happiness from too many things, so if anything is causing them to lose happiness, it can make a big impact on the time it takes to upgrade.

 

So to get them to upgrade faster, you can lower taxes, add more commercial buildings nearby (and make sure that you have a good % of shoppers fulfilled via the Details tab on the Population window), adding a few low-wealth parks nearby, and even temporarily lowering taxes. You can also check and make sure there aren't anything causing them to lose happiness... which can be a large number of things, like crime, sickness, etc... Clicking on the building details or even the approval rating window and checking to see what sort of things they are complaining about. Most things in orange will cause them to lose some happiness. 

 

If none of this works, then you're going to have to give us more information to work with, here. 

 

Hope this helps. 

[Ghetzi 1]

Low taxes (7% or lower). 

 

Great tip.  This is a major key to rapid development.  If you grow your city and keep it in the green with 7% on R$, once you reach your population goal (whatever that number is) you can hike them up to 12% and run a very profitable city without significant population loss.  I highlighted the tax comment, but this assumes you've met all of the other points that 12thDoctor brought up.  You've got a lot of hours in the game, so just in case I want to pass aong that I have not seen any recent issues with HD R$ development if you're wondering about server/techinical issues.