Rich and stupid

[enchant 2]

I created a city and slowly built it up so that it was about 2/3 full (geographically) and fairly self-sustaining.  About 30k population and 6k/hour profit.  Then I went into the electronics business.  Financially, this worked out spectacularly well.  At this point, my population is about 300k, I've got 30 million simoleans in the bank and my montly profit is 2.5M simoleans.  My hourly profit is negative 30k, but who cares at this point?

 

My industries have been screaming for skilled workers, so I've been trying to do what I can to get my tech level up.  I had a grade school, a high school, three community colleges and a university.  I wasn't getting enough students to the university, so I closed the other schools.  This worked well, and my university was full.

 

My problem is that my tech level continues to be nil.  From time to time, I'll get one tech badge filled in, but within a day, it's gone again. 

 

I built two more universities and got them all upgraded to level 5.   5k students/day attending.  Still no tech and still my industries are pissed.

 

I'm at a loss here.  I'm building parks wherever I can to get the land value up, but that's not helping.

 

As a possibly related side issue, if I look at my population, I've got a LOT of low-income people without jobs.  I have very few middle and high income sims, but plenty of jobs available.  I tried altering taxes to make a difference.  20% on low income, 0% on mid/high income.  Didn't make a difference, and I've got oodles of homeless in the parks.

 

Any ideas what I can change to fix either of these issues?

[asasa45454 4]

Try building the Vu Tower. Don't bother'releasing minions' just use it for the tech level boost.

[enchant 2]

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

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Are you talking about an addon that I have to buy? If that's the case, then I'd be interested in other options.
  Edited April 30, 2014 by Cyclone Boom  
Merged posts.

[Bacons 0]

I was just doing some knowledge network testing yesterday. I found that I need 7 universities with 3 dorms each and maxed out the wings just to barely support 10 processor factories and 1 computer factory. This is without any industry in the city, with industry I don't think they will get any tech level with the electronic factories sucking the knowledge dry. Electronic factory eats up knowledge really fast. 

[enchant 2]

Well, THAT's interesting.  I had my cpu and tv factories working very well before I put in my first university.  I'll plow some of them down and see what effect it has.  Thanks for that info.

[enchant 2]

Good call, Bacons.  I turned off all of my electronics-based facilities and immediately got one yellow shield.  After 3 days, all shields were full.  I'm losing money, but I've got plenty to spare.  And my industries are happy.