Raising Commercial demand

[danny30 1]

Hi all, I have yet another set if queries which I would appreciate some advice with. I have built my city up to 160,000 and am now ready to start building my main commercial district to get skyscrapers. I have had healthy demand up until I reached a population of about 120,000, however since then the Co$$ and Co$$$ has been very low or on the minus, in fact the Co$$ is all the way at the bottom negative. I did raise taxes at a point but have now reduced them again to increase demand but to no avail. I have even removed some commercial zones and replaced them with residential but it makes no difference or at best a very tiny one. Now the really strange thing is that my demand for residential is high in all areas, If I build a high density residential zone it fills up straight away with a high rise R$$ or R$$$ with 2000 - 4000 residents, but the commercial demand stays the same.  I do have very high demand for high tech so am not sure if this is affecting my commercial demand.

 

My predicament is if I built high rises I then get the No Job symbol on some buildings and one or two will abandon. This means simply building residential, even with high demand is not a solution. If I remove commercial zones then I assume that the No Jobs symbol will again pop up as I have removed the sims jobs. 

 

I have built plenty of parks and plazas so am certain that this is not the issue. I'm all out of ideas, if anyone has any suggestions, then please let me know. Thanks

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A screen shot would help.

 

One of the things that often causes trouble is too many zones.  If you have picked a spot for your CBD, then start slowly with some high-density 4 x 4 C lots on the main corner.  How about three and a plaza?  The rest should be other stuff, and not too much of it.  A residential band back a block or so to support the new CBD is not a bad idea.

 

As you get your new CBD buildings populated and working, add a new one occasionally, building very carefully.  Make sure you have residential and, perhaps, industrial support.

 

Big downtown districts do not pop up overnight, even in real life.  Smaller buildings with lower expectations happen, then some of them get redeveloped into the bigger units when demand makes it possible.  Pincushion downtown areas are built like everything else, slowly, carefully with tender, loving care.

 

Do not be shy about taking a set of lots in the prospective CBD and rezoning/demolishing them.  It is called 'urban renewal' and it happens all the time.  If a building gets abandoned, remove it and rezone one level lower;  its time has not come.  Sometimes you feel like a brute, but that's what needs to be done.

[danny30 1]

Hi Noony Noose, I have tried adding plazas, lowering taxes, using all the gift buildings, and reducing some commercial zones from high density to medium but still the demand is in the negative. It is actually getting worse if anything. How can I add residential if there are not enough demand for jobs? Surely I will just keep getting abandoned buildings. I seem to have been capped but cannot understand why and how to remove the cap.

[monkeywater 910]

do you have neighbor connections?

[danny30 1]

I have connected roads to my neighbours but they are uninhabited  as I have not built them up yet.

[Prophet42 1,500]

Building other cites in your region will help raise commercial demand.  Demand is shared region wide.  Satisfy your residential and industrial demand in other cities.  This will create a higher commercial demand that you can fill in you Central Business District.  Make sure you build any rewards you get, place a fair amount of plazas and plenty of neighbor connections.  This will help relieve any demand caps that may also be limiting commercial demand.

[danny30 1]

So can I not increase the cap without building a neighbouring city then? I would have preferred to build one city at a time.

[SimCoug 5,972]

Neighboring cities do not really have an effect on the demand caps, but they will influence regional demand. For example, by building residential neighboring towns you will be able to relieve some of that residential demand and create traffic coming into your commercial center which will both help increase commercial demand.

[.anonyman 28]

The problem may be the demand cap on CO. In order to check, make 1-2 highway connections to 'SimNation'. Then run the game on Cheetah speed for a few months. You can exit without saving - this is just a test. You can plop the Convention Center to raise CO$$ and CO$$$ demand a lot.

 

Or the problem may be education. If your residential population increased drastically and recently, those Sims may not be suitable for $$ and $$$ jobs. In this case, improve the EQ of your city and be patient for a few game years.

[danny30 1]

I have already built the convention center and have a highway connection to all 4 sides of my city. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Aha!  Thereby hangs a tale.  Empty tiles attached to other tiles don't do much for you.  Also, you'll notice I suggest you may have over-zoned.  Try using the dezoning key (v) on some of your C lots and just leave them empty.  You can put whatever you need in them when the time comes.

 

Meanwhile, start up those neighbours.  One of the neat tricks I use is to supply power and water from the big city to the neighbours and I pick one of them to be my garbage dump using the PEG Garbage Docks.  You need a tile with a sea coast for this.

 

Your current city will wait until you catch up.

[danny30 1]

Should I zone residential in the second city and very little commercial, so that the sims come to my current city for jobs?

[SimCoug 5,972]

Should I zone residential in the second city and very little commercial, so that the sims come to my current city for jobs?

 

Yes.  SC4 does a decent job of emulating real life - where a commercial core is surrounded by residential suburbs that funnel into job central.  You can line some of you main roads with smaller commercial shops that will suck up some of the CS demand (and they will be happy for the extra traffic), but the majority of zones should be residential (if your goal is a large 'downtown', which is what I think you are trying to achieve). 

[Jasoncw 11,840]

There are problems with the way the game handles traffic and some other things that makes using the region feature less than ideal. If you want to build on the neighboring tiles then go ahead, and if not then just stick on your current tile. I don't play very consistently so I rarely ever get around to building out the neighboring tiles or even filling out the main tile and I have no problems getting nice downtowns.

 

It's very easy to satisfy the cap if you're placing rewards, plazas, and landmarks.

 

iirc CO demand is based on education. CS demand is based on your population (so if you have a lot of R$$$ residents you'll have more CS$$$ demand).

 

But I think in this case your RCI graph is telling you what to do. You need to zone more residential. C and I jobs creates demand for R residents, and R creates demand for C and I, so there's a positive feedback loop. When a jobs building is built it builds a little more than there's demand for, resulting in negative commercial demand but positive residential demand. If you fulfill the residential demand the same thing will happen. Your R demand is so high and your C demand is so low because your C got way overbuilt, but while this is a problem for C demand right now, it's a good opportunity to add more R to your city which will in turn increase C demand. But you need to add a lot of R.

 

If you're getting no job zots ontop of residential buildings, despite demand, it could be that they're having trouble commuting (yeah the no job zots can be misleading). If that's the case then try improving your transportation network.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

Should I zone residential in the second city and very little commercial, so that the sims come to my current city for jobs?

 

Yes.  SC4 does a decent job of emulating real life - where a commercial core is surrounded by residential suburbs that funnel into job central.  You can line some of you main roads with smaller commercial shops that will suck up some of the CS demand (and they will be happy for the extra traffic), but the majority of zones should be residential (if your goal is a large 'downtown', which is what I think you are trying to achieve). 

 

But be sure to have some shopping zones for them locally.  CS$, CS$$ and even a 6 x 6 CS$$$ (shopping mall) isn't a bad idea.  And maybe a few local farms.  Sell power and water from the main city and take garbage in from the main city.

 

Don't be shy.  Start more than one satellite city.  One of them can be heavy industrial with some workers nearby.