Hit rock-bottom RCI bars: Please help!

[mayorlucario 20]

So I'm building my city on a custom region that is made up of basically a ton of the largest square tiles possible (config.bmp customization). I build a main city and a neighboring feeder city just to get some nice skyscrapers.Along the way, I create a city connected to the feeder city that houses all of the high-tech demand I build up to foster commuting rich people in the feeder city (which in turn spawns CO$$$ growth in the main city). Everything goes to plan, until one time, after using up the demand present in the feeder city, the main city does develop skyscrapers but the residental demands are hit so hard, as is the rest of the commercial demand. The population was around 841K, and has been decreasing. Accompanied with such low demand is the possible abandonment of my precious rich people skyscrapers

 

 

This is the RCI of the main city. I've tried manually removing residential districts but that pushes the commercial demands even lower.

 

 

This is the RCI of the feeder city, if that is relevant.

 

 

This is the demand for a new neighboring city after leaving God Mode (when you first start a city) if this is relevant.I still have never quite understood the regional RCI system...if there's demand in one region it should carry over to the others!

 

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Before I wreck my demand bar any further I want to see if there's something I can do about this. I've theorized that this is part of the fact my main city is simply a dumping grounds for Commercial Office demand exclusively, with residential buildings moving to the outside cities, but maybe during the process of developing the feeder city I went WAY past the residential growth cap.

[piercing_arrow 76]

I'm not an expert at the RCI, but from what I understand, all new cities connected to another city will have the same demand as the other city, unless it is connected to two cities, in which case the demand will be averaged out (approx.) 

 

I am sure the only way to get residential demand up is by removing residential zones. But since that did not work, I really have no idea. Commercial demand is solely based of how many residences you have in a city/interconnected city network, so removing residential zones will lower the demand for commerce. If possible, could you try adding more industrial jobs and seeing what happens then?

 

If it helps:

 

 

Residential demand is created by having jobs in your city. Most commonly, this includes commercial and industrial jobs, but civic jobs raise residential demand as well.

 

Commercial demand is generated entirely by the amount of sims in your city.

 

Industrial demand is determined by the amount of goods transported. (http://strategywiki.org/wiki/SimCity_4/Zoning_and_Demand#Demand)

 

Edit:

 

If the main city is full of CO$$ and CO$$$, that will automatically drop the demand if there isn't any other type of commercial left. I developed a city that soon was overrun by CO$$ and $$$, and the demand dropped like a rock. However, seeing that you have no demand for CS$, CS$$ and CS$$$ in the feeder city, I think your problem is industrial related.

 

Try adding some industry. I have no idea if industry directly influences commerce (In real life, if there are no factories to produce anything, the stores cannot sell anything, etc.), but it may. In the new city that you have shown in the last picture, I would add what the demand is for. R$, R$$ and all the industrial types.

 

Add CS$ and CS$$ for the lower wealth residents to work in, but in small numbers.

 

Tell me if anything works.

[mayorlucario 20]

Well I can generate some commercial office demand (and service?) by building another feeder city. Though, when I do that it steals a lot of residential demand. In the past it's been manageable but I think that will worsen the problem. Unless that's the only way to go from there, then I'll have to remove almost all of my residential zones by the time I'm finished with the city. It'll be an office paradise!

[piercing_arrow 76]

Well, a prime example would be most of the major metropolitan areas of America. Most downtown areas have virtually no residents (although many are working on reversing that), and mostly offices. Since SC4 mechanisms were based off of California-style growth, I would remove residents from the inner-city core and move them to the outside, as California is. Most people commute into the city to work, then commute back. That's why there's always such a big rush-hour in the cities

 

None of my cities are like that, but I have several suburbs outside that accommodate all the lower-wealth demand from the main city and supply workers into the main city itself.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Jobs, jobs, jobs!  You simply must have more jobs either in the current city or in adjacent ones.  Create a number of low density C lots where you can.  I recommend 2 x 1 blocks of low density (A key) jobs, hand tailored of course, to get your cities back on track.  The low density C jobs will attract all types of R.

 

And try to keep the Sims to Jobs ratio at 2:1.

 

Above all, do not attempt to force a CBD with huge buildings before you have the income and the traffic to sustain it or the buildings will simply abandon due to low traffic.  The thing that sustains big commercial development is high traffic passing on all sides.

 

And satisfy some of that industrial demand.  Put I-D and I-M along the edges of your city.  The pollution spills over into the bit bucket.  I-HT is OK anywhere, even in the downtown.  The requirements for I-HT are the same as for CO$$$.  Don't forget the parks and plazas.

 

Parks attract R.

[mayorlucario 20]

Okay, so I took your advice and built high-tech industry on the outskirts of my city. This was able to stabilize the high wealth demand (thank you!), so that's good. In order to recuperate the medium and low wealth, I decided to build a manufacturing district right next door. So I build it up somewhat, and then come back to the city in hopes of a more stable RCI. Commerce is still down though, I think I'll need another feeder city to get that back up.

 

What really ended up happening was the low and medium wealth bars went down FURTHER, yet I somehow yielded two more rich people condos (Ong Condos & Walkup Tower) and the high wealth was still relatively stable. I guess the city is gentrifying? 

 

 

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As for CBD development, I already have two main districts, with guaranteed high traffic. My city is pouring with dough (must I lower taxes then?). Also, how much do parks raise the R cap? I'm thinking of making this gigantic park for the sole purpose of stabilizing the area.

[joshua43214 8]

Industrial and residential make a very good mix.

I always zone in some high density industrial near my high wealth residential. I make little industrial parks like you see in most cities close to highways and major avenues. They should mostly grow HT, and you can demolish the occasional manufacturing building that pops. Rich Sims do not like to commute, they like having good jobs right in their back yard.

Likewise you should always zone in some low density commercial in residential neighborhoods and along large roads. Sims like to walk to the corner store, and pick up groceries on the way home from work. The space behind commercial is excellent to zone in some med industrial if it backs up a freeway or railroad. Manufacturing will pop into those spots.

If you are growing the cities over 500,000 population, you will want to use some air cleaning bats since parks will not do a good enough job.

It is also a good idea to zone in some high density residential into your commercial city. A few choice spots for tall high wealth condos is a very good thing, and a few more ugly spots next to the freeway for some big low wealth tenements. make sure you are using mass transit of some kind as well.

 

I only have issues like you describe when commute times are too long (need mass transit), or I am trying to force everyone to live on one tile and work in another.

[mayorlucario 20]

I am aware that industrial and residential complement each other very well. Most of the high-tech industry is another city tile though, at the time I needed space in the main city for expansion. I made sure that in my city planning that commercial zones were accessible and in an optimal location for growth. And commute time problems are a thing of the past for me: NAM somehow makes the commute item algorithms more feasible to work with (the main city has an average commute time of around a minute for some reason) and incoming commuters from feeder cities must use the highway to get here. And there are plenty of residential zones in the main city (commercial city) since I needed them for growth earlier in development.

 

I really have no reason to put mass transit as of now (I have buses though), since commute times are fair (I haven't had unemployment problems in ages) but the resulting volume of car traffic causes an awful lot of pollution. Though the desirability is only affected by this, so that will have no effect on demand. I really think I just broke past a population cap...

 

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Okay so I tried lowering taxes, that didn't help. I think I just did something wrong with the RCI, and bashed through a demand cap(s) at the same time. The only area of the city where I can do any developing is creating another feeder city. If that worsens it even further, then I guess that's all I can do with that city I guess I'll just put parks where proposed skyscrapers would be. Also this is my region, so you can see why I can't just add more zones. Also, adding industrial neighboring cities did little to solve the problem: I think it actually made it worse, since I saw one of the residential bars drop even lower.

 

[cogeo 960]

I would say install the Census Repository (or get my Chamber of Commerce and Industry from the STEX), to check your cities' taxes and caps state.

 

The neutral tax rates depend on the city size. The bigger the city the lower the taxes should be. Please take into account the following:

- The "neutral" tax rates suggested by the CR are calculated using a script-implemented function, which takes into account the residential population only. I really suspect that this might be wrong, and the total population (R+C+I) should be used instead. For example, what happens with a CBD-like city tile (lots of skyscrapers, and very little R population)? Is the neutral rate for such a city indeed 9%? Dunno. There is a game-supplied value in the scripts, and the CR report should use this one instead. I would do this myself, but I have lost my interest in SC4, and I have also changed the computer and haven't installed SC4+tools since. it's not a very big job though.

- The effect on demand of lowering taxes may take at least 6 game-months, even 1 year to materialize.

 

Also check the caps status (they are shown in the CR Query), and if you have hit caps (for any of your cities), or you are close to hitting any, take the appropriate action (usually plopping certain rewards, parks, or adding networks connections or airports).

 

And I see you have strong positive demand in your "feeder" (?) city. Why not simply use it up ("satisfy" it)? This will create an influx of new residents, which in turn will increase (immediately) the corresponding CS demand types (some additional, but not very good jobs). And if you provide them with full educational coverage (elem+high schools, and libraries - even for R$ - as well as college/university and museum(s) and finally the Opera House - get the fix) and run this R city for another 5-10 years (without switching immediately to the commercial one) so that the EQ of all these newcomers rises, you will see higher CO$$ and CO$$$  demand as well.

 

Hope this helps

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I generally don't have this kind of problem and it is probably from my method of play, which is natural growth starting with CS$ and 2 x 1 R$, then growing slowly from there.

 

What approach did you take to create this city shown in the screen shot?  Did you try laying it all out at once, or grow it around that river junction?

 

I've found that the default zoning of 1 x 2 is often fatal because it can be combined easily to produce 4 x 4 low density lots that get occupied far too early by R$$$.

[jlt122 46]

Question for you Mayorlucario. Do you have the Opera house fix and such for you residents educational needs?