I can't get skyscrapers!

[Zeether 0]

I've got my population over the amount needed for skyscrapers, so I started making commercial zones like this:

 

 

However, despite having a good commute to there and power and water I've seen NOTHING as far as skyscrapers go. I've dezoned a few existing zones and tried making large lots too, but no dice. What am I doing wrong?

 

Edit: I'm starting to feel like I planned the city poorly and I will never get them. I have my zones sort of haphazardly laid out and there's no grid pattern to them in any way, plus I don't have a lot of plazas. I feel like I have to blow up everything and redo and that's going to take forever. Ugh. Here's another shot of my city where I think I could get skyscrapers going but I think I'm screwed:

 

[Andersen 7]

Well if you feel the need to blow up your city, there's always those handy disasters ready at your disposal. You could always plop a Nuke Plant and set on fire. However you choose.

 

On the other hand you could tough it out! Skyscrapers don't really start happening until your population is big enough to support them. You also needs tons of parks and plazas to raise desirability. Also an important note. If you have large swaths of commercial zoning, when the time is right you can dezone those, turn them into residential and zone high density your downtown area. But again you need a large enough population to do this.

 

And make sure they are edgamacated.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Ed Quotient needs to be > 120.  Population > 80 K of which 15% should be R$$$.  Lots of parks, plazas, an airport, and fewer C$$$ lots.  And no pollution in that area.  Watered, powered, no garbage, lots of transportation access past the lot.

 

If you want sky scrapers, pick a likely corner in your CBD and put a C$$$ 4 x 4 lot on it, and run for a couple of Sim-years.  Remove all the other C$$$ and try replacing them with a mix of R and C lots at lower density.  Some allowance for mansions (R 4 x 4) may attract some R$$$.

 

I never worry about it, and when they are due, they happen if I have zoned for them, which is not often.  I hate pin cushion cities.

[defacto123 14]

As long as you have the demand, it's all about desirability. Unfortunately, as soon as the desirability reaches a certain level it becomes a sea of bright green and you can't tell which areas are more desirable than others even though it does make a difference for development. But the two key things that determine desirability are 1) traffic; and 2) plazas/landmarks. CO loves traffic, and it's very hard to get skyscrapers to develop in a remote part of town. Of course, we run into the chicken and egg problem here: in order to get lots of traffic, you need very dense jobs for people to commute to, but in order to create those jobs, you need lots of traffic.

 

Fortunately, one thing you can do is spam plazas and landmarks (this is useful even if you do already have the requisite traffic). Place a large plaza here, a Faneuil Hall there... smother the entire area with plazas and landmarks. It doesn't matter if you don't plan on keeping the plazas, this is just to make the skyscrapers develop; you can always demolish them later. (Of course, this assumes you have a lot of money to burn, but if you don't then skip the landmarks. It's only a moderate improvement over plazas alone.)

 

What if you want a skyscraper to develop but there is surrounding development you don't want to demolish? Then demolish the roads that no building is currently facing (you can do that by going to the zones view and seeing where the arrows are pointing), and replace them with small plazas or Big Bens. Rebuild them once construction has started on your desired skyscraper. Less effective than the preceding approach, but hey, it's saved me when I wanted another level 8 to grow between my Cahalane Communications and Van Prooijen Trading.

 

An important tip: save your city before attempting any of this. Randomness is inherent to the game, and if the strategy doesn't succeed the first time, then reload the city from the last save point and try again.

[bartmill 0]

Have a look at

There is a lot of useful info about skyscrapers. Minimum requirements for lvl 8 CO$$$ buildings to develop are:

 

80k population
Regional wide commercial Office: 40.000 (CO$$ and CO$$$ combined)

 

In the topic there is also this link which shows you the odds of a certain stage building to be built! 

 

Besides that, the required R$$$, EQ and desirablity is also very important.