what am I doing wrong?

[Calibancat77 3]

I've been playing this region for a few months now.  (don't have tons of time each day to play though.)   I'm not trying to get skyscrapers in all my cities, trying to make cities that are nice and liveable and pretty, but I'd like skyscrapers in some of them...).  It seems like people make cities that are "specialized" : residential city next to commercial city, the residentials go to the commercial to work... that kind of thing hasn't worked for me.  If a sim needs to leave the city to work he has a "long commute" and abandons because his commute is too long.So I've been building this region up city by city in hopes of  increasing general demand, but each city needs to have enough jobs to fulfill the needs of its citizens.  So every city has industrial, residential, commercial.  And I'm having a hard time keeping commercial demand up across the region despite lots of Sims living in it.  (About 700,000 sims in region at this point.) Placing landmarks, airports, tourst traps etc.  My cities get to a certain level (60-70 k sims) and just plateau out.  My biggest (large tile) city Cassadaga has about 75000 and is starting to show "no job" zots and since the commerical demand isn't there, how can I grow it??  Any advice?

[Bdub01 201]

First and foremost use NAM. Second, not everyone agrees, but it works for me. Raise taxes for CO$$ and CO$$$ in cities you don't want skyscrapers. Then demand should shoot up for those type of buildings in the city you want them in.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

For skyscrapers, besides the advice earlier, you need to do a little city planning.  Set up a pair of crossed roads/avenues and at the intersection create a 4 x 4 high density lot on each corner.  The traffic density on this intersection must be very hot, for skyscrapers to grow there, but as things warm up, they will.  It is a matter of patience.

 

Funnel traffic past this intersection in all directions by laying out residential pods and industrial pods on opposite sides of the this CBD.  Expand the CBD with other commercial properties, but not too many.  Don't be shy about laying down a neighbourhood of 4 x 2 high density R in the blocks behind the CBD.  Eventually, you will get a nice King & Bay Streets (Toronto) type of corner.

[Bdub01 201]

You could just "cheat" and plop some high rises down but that's not near as rewarding as watching them grow in their own. FYI I played for half a year (literally, not in sims time) before my first true high rise grew!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Unless forced by means I wouldn't use, cities grow naturally from rural agricultural districts into cities, well supported by neighbouring towns.  No rush.  This is a leisure time pursuit.  If a city has a shore line, I start with a fishing village or a port if it is not the first city in the region

 

You are probably not doing anything wrong.  You are on the learning curve, and this will all work out in the end.  When I started out with this game, I had several false starts trying to force things.  Sometime in 2004 I did finally manage to get a city going over 1 Million Sims.  it took several months of spare time play.  Now, I don't worry about this, and mostly try for a nice, green rural area.

[Calibancat77 3]

Thanks for the replies.  I have learned through a few false starts to play "slow and steady wins the race," so I am growing my region gradually rather than rushing.  I'm trying to do that anyway   I will keep at it!  And yes it is very cool when something awesome grows on its own rather than having me plop it there. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Have fun.  This game has held my attention since the first edition came out.

[cogeo 960]

First off, there's nothing wrong with having mixed cities. Actually there are benefits instead, like seeing the effects of your actions on demand immediately and not having to switch between cities to perform the stability-demand-growth cycles (separately for each city, because of the different development types).

 

Second, I don't think you need more industry or farms anymore. These are only good for kick-starting your region, when CO demand is low (as a result of low EQ) and thus CO won't give you the jobs you need. But now you have a region with 700,000 residents, and industry won't get you far; it will just create some few more jobs, if at all, as due to high(-er) EQ demand for industry may have already turned negative (so you won't be getting more industrial development, even if you have empty I zones). In such a case, you don't need to dezone your industrial zones to make room for other development types (although this may be very tempting, because of the very low number of jobs for the space it takes) - so leave this for the moment you run out of space; you can instead leave the industrial area as is, and it may change to I-M (polluting less, offering a better jobs mix but a rather smaller number of jobs); you can also try planting some trees around, or putting some police etc, to help the transition. It may even be possible to change them to I-HT, when I-HT demand starts picking up, but players tend to put all their undesirable structures (jails, landfills, incinerators, power plants etc) "at the city's corner", just next to the I-D area, and because they suffer from low desirability (not to count in the pollution generated by the industry itself), this area cannot develop anything better than I-M at most.

 

And third, the driver for continuing growth is CO demand (and development). To get additional CO$$ and CO$$$ demand you need a fresh load of educated workers. These cannot be "imported" (newcomers have a very low EQ), instead you must educate them yourself, so build elem and high schools, libraries, college/university, museum and finally the Opera House (get the fix), to provide full educational coverage to all your residents, even R$ - play with the sliders (esp ambulance/school bus) so the bill becomes affordable. Then run your city for some gamemonths, and you will see CO$$/$$$ demand rising slowly. At some point it will rise enough to cause CO development (on a new zone, or as an upgrade to a higher growth stage or wealth level), which means more CO jobs, and therefore more demand for R (of all three wealth levels) and thus more R development and more R population. Now, these additional residents increase demand for CS (each R wealth level for it's own respective CS level), which you can satisfy too, which again means more jobs, and some more workers. The jobs mix offered by CS is worse than COs', but it is essential that you satisfy CS demand too, because you absolutely need more people (to educate them and become the CO workers in the future); industry and farms won't give you these jobs (it may even be impossible to create more I-Ag and I-D jobs), so you need to use that CS demand. Don't snub even CS$. While it employs R$ only, it doesn't pollute, takes up much less space than I-D and consumes very little power.

 

At some point demand (for all R and C types and wealth levels) will be all "satisfied" (turned to development and flattened). All you need to do then is run the city for some more game-months, and EQ will rise again (or rise more), starting another CO->R->CS->R growth cycle. Or the "cycle" may not be so much distinct, eg you may have CS demand then R, then R again, then CO etc, but the mechanism is as described above.

 

Some hints:

- I generally recommend against playing with taxes (to trigger demand), instead set tax levels to the neutral (for your city size) rate. However, if you have lowered them below the neutral level, don't increase them sharply, but only in small steps (eg 0.1%) and only if the corresponding demand type is positive, otherwise demand will hit the bottom.

- You don't need so many parks, landmarks etc, unless you have caps or desirabilty problems, instead of demand ones. Otherwise they just cost you money.

- Take a look at also Pretty much cover the same matter, plus they describe how to get the desired development where you want it, as well as a city layout you may be interested in (traffic from the residential areas directed to central arteries, along which you develop commercial).

 

Hope you find this useful.