Creating the right conditions for strong CO$$$ demand

[jaredhighwindII 4]

Hey I can't really find a definitive answer on this. If it has been covered redirect me to the topic and lock this

Ok so I am starteding to realize that creating a CBD with strong Co$$$ demand requires a entire region. I have seen that some people use a whole city for CBD, a whole city for industrial and a entire city for residential. Is this a good way to go about it?

Also how do I create a high volume of customers in the CBD, I've seen some youtube videos which I have gotten a lot of good ideas with layouts, aves highways and one way roads. Now do cities with CBDs need to have people living in them or will they commute from the next city tile? Also a large industrial cityy in the region is required for future commerical growth?

[infamousjbe 592]

As a bit of some insight, CBDs definitely take time and patience. The demand can be increased with certain custom content (some will consider it cheating) if you so chose, but it's not needed. 

 

Main factors for CO$$$ is high education, traffic, & desirability. 

 

You want to make sure you have very good education coverage from all of the various educational types. The smarter the Sims, the better the jobs.

 

CS & CO do well with high traffic on as many of the adjacent streets as possible. You'll want to try and funnel your Sims to your CBD. If you spread out the COs across your cities, it will reduce the demand in your main CBD which is counter productive. I would still suggest supplying some low density COs in the other cities, but as little as possible. If not, then you'll still end up with some complaining Sims. You'll definitely want to have an array of transportation options to allow your Sims to travel across the boarders into your CBD.  Subway & Rail are usually the two best options for moving lots of Sims across the boarder. To help with this, you'll want to install the NAM mod if you haven't already. Without it, you're basically shooting yourself in the foot with building anything significant in SC4. 

 

The last, and easiest IMO is the desirability. All that means is making sure you place park/plazas around your CBD area. Easy as that. 

 

As far as having Rs in your CBD, it would be beneficial to have high density in the same city as the CBD. Most RL cities have a business and residential district. Who wouldn't want to live in a high rise penthouse downtown???  Know I would.

 

Main advice, be patient. And if you're not, I would suggest looking into mods like the CAM, or other various demand raising mods to speed up the process. 

[jaredhighwindII 4]

I'm using the latest nam on a new custom PC

I had a city that I ran for 101 years and it did get a commerical boom for a while then it just slugged off. A lot of high rises were abonedend because of the commute time. A think a big problem was I didn't have my city layed out properly. I realize after watching a lot of YouTube let's play videos that I wasn't properly utilizing avenues all over.

Should I be using the biggest city tile for the CBD or a avg sized one?

[IljaS 54]

That is a matter of region layout. I have built a CBD in to a small city tile, altough I usullay use only large city tiles.

 

Avenues don't mean a thing at alone. You have to remember that connected tiles share common demand factors, but they really don't share any definite information with each other.

 

Avenues allow you to raise demand caps, but zoning,demand and region layout are equally importan. Your city won't grow beyond caps, but caps won't get tested withoud demand.

[JJogurt 18]

I have seen that some people use a whole city for CBD, a whole city for industrial and a entire city for residential. Is this a good way to go about it?

It is doable, but I wouldn't say it's a good way to do it.

My preferred way is to start a region with a capital city where CBD will eventually be located. I just place a normal commercial zone at a good central location and eventually it will grow into a full sized CBD by cannibalizing the surrounding residential and industrial zones. Other towns in the region also have their CBDs, although much smaller.

 

Also how do I create a high volume of customers

I would't worry too much about that. Just place your initial commercial zone at a busy road, such as between your residential and industrial zone. Even the game's tutorial uses this layout if you remember. As it grows it will eventually create so much traffic that it will start sustaining itself with customers.

OneWay roads are perfect for CBDs because they spread the traffic over a larger area. Use them if possible.

 

Now do cities with CBDs need to have people living in them or will they commute from the next city tile? Also a large industrial cityy in the region is required for future commerical growth?

As I said I prefer to have my cites mixed, so a city with CBD will always have residential and industrial zones as well.

[Prophet42 1,501]

For a CBD it is also beneficial to use a variety of mass transit into and within the district.  For example you can use Rail, El train, or monorail to bring in commuters from neighboring cities and then use bus or subway to move sims within the CDB.  This will greatly increase the number of sims in your CDB and help increase the CO desirability within the district and also help with the 'high customer' value.

[APSMS 1,892]

An important Mod to get if you haven't already is the NAM. I had a large number of abandonment issues with all my cities, not just the really big congested ones, before I installed it. I have had almost no such incidents since I installed it about two years ago. This seems to be your issue. Avenues are really overpowered in the MAXIS traffic simulator; the NAM balances out Roads and One Way Roads (OWR) so that they're more useful, as well as adding a number of additional and very useful transit tools. Mass Transit usage is also more frequent with the NAM, though it may require some tweaking.

 

Hey I can't really find a definitive answer on this. If it has been covered redirect me to the topic and lock this

Ok so I am starteding to realize that creating a CBD with strong Co$$$ demand requires a entire region. I have seen that some people use a whole city for CBD, a whole city for industrial and a entire city for residential. Is this a good way to go about it?

Also how do I create a high volume of customers in the CBD, I've seen some youtube videos which I have gotten a lot of good ideas with layouts, aves highways and one way roads. Now do cities with CBDs need to have people living in them or will they commute from the next city tile? Also a large industrial cityy in the region is required for future commerical growth?

Mixed cities are always better, imo. People will commute to cities where the jobs are, but it takes longer to develop the city and will result in long commutes in all of your neighboring cities. I would say that region play is absolutely necessary for a large CBD, with about half of your working feasibly commuting in. I would also suggest that having a lot of workers in the city will allow you to avoid building repetition (more hi-rise buildings for the game to choose from) and increase traffic noise, which is the game's equivalent to customers (well-utilized roads lead to high customers at business; the parameter just happens to be the same as the residential "traffic noise; the NAM allows for more customers for a given traffic volume, as businesses are more sensitive than residentials in this respect).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

As usual, there is no 'definitive' answer for this question.  I have found that a mixed city containing carefully placed pods of all types generally is what the game is looking for. 

 

The very first Timbuktu tutorial tells you how to build a CBD.  Force as much traffic as possible past a central pod that contains the zoning and environment for CO$$$ to be grown.  If the Sims have to cross this area to get to work it increases the traffic density.  Setting up bypasses to the work-place can be a detriment.

[fefenc 77]

lower your taxes.

[zahrul3 471]

For me, I simply zone high density commercial in areas where the traffic is at its highest, for me it's the main arteries, as long it has lots of traffic, skyscrapers will grow. A very busy intersection my my city(Medang) has attracted some tall commercial offices, while a busy district around the university is also seeing high desirability for offices. To spread out commercial zoning to where it's most busy rather than making it into one CBD might not be realistic for American cities, but it is realistic for Asian and European cities alike.