Deeper zones? Well, why not?

[DethKwok 238]

On February 19, 2016 at 0:27 PM, boformer said:

We already have the "backyard expansion" feature that extends lots to the back.

It would be great if the mod could also add "sideway expansion".

An even better solution would be the ability to import a building in the editor, then create multiple plot size variations of it (all with their own prop setup). All those variations are then saved in a single crp file so that the loading times are acceptable

Replacing the upgrade mechanism would also be in scope of this mod:

On upgrade, their should be a chance that neighboring lots merge so that a bigger building spawns. And it should be possible that a lot splits up into multiple smaller lots.

This would make creating themes, a whole lot easier, especially for buildings that need to upgrade to bigger size lots, that level 1 buildings look wierd in

[ethansprang 41]

On 2/20/2016 at 9:14 PM, boldlybuilding said:

...And because I never shut up about it, to elaborate on my point about 1:1 buildings not actually being too big and the game's buildings just being too small...

<snip>

So that's why I refuse to scale down my buildings, and instead expect either the game to be modded, more big buildings made, or CO to jump in and give us bigger zones. 1:1 isn't unrealistic, and maybe it looks strange when you first build these big towers in the game, but that's no different from real life. Just get bigger zones and more big buildings, then we truly can have great skylines, and not these low-rise, small scale deals everybody does.

I think the real issue with 1:1 vs 1.5 is that the default assets make that scale change between 6 and 10 floors.  I disabled all my custom assets for Snowfall, and I'm struck by how odd it looks.  When you get an area of mixed R3 and R4, you really notice it.  There's a 10-12 story 1920's American style tower that's taller than several 17 story apartment towers.  One R4 6 story is almost as tall as other R3 and R4 12-15 story bulidings.  There's some slight variation, from perhaps 1.4 to 1.7 scale - and most of these down-scaled buildings are 3x4 or 4x4.  CO clearly wanted to make buildings that *looked* bigger, but they were constrained by the 4x4 lot size. 

So, with larger lots, a good early project would be to simply use the asset editor's scaling feature to rescale all the shrinky-dinks to proper 1:1 on larger lots.  1.5 scale 4x4s should look just fine on 6x6 lots, and BOOM!  Instant bundle of larger content to launch with the mod.

Question: would simply resizing a default asset into a new asset like that preserve it's AD and Snowfall lighting and snow changes?

[Darf 1,439]

Resizing assets shouldn't be a problem for either. The thing with resizing or changing plots is that you would need to add all those buildings as custom assets again. Unless someone makes a mod that allows to not load the default buildings. (This would be a great start for this imo.)

[ethansprang 41]

14 minutes ago, Darf said:

Resizing assets shouldn't be a problem for either. The thing with resizing or changing plots is that you would need to add all those buildings as custom assets again. Unless someone makes a mod that allows to not load the default buildings. (This would be a great start for this imo.)

Yeah.  I kinda had that idea when I saw boformer's post about default assets and the texture replacer.  I got all excited thinking, hey - do it all at once!  But then I realized that probably wouldn't work, because each upscaled asset needs a new lot size and thus probably has to be treated separately.

Although, maybe we're wrong. Maybe boformer's awesome enough he could do an entire city of growables, all zones, levels, sizes, with unique textures, all from the same single model.  Kinda like this, but with colors:

Spoiler

 

 

[Ocram's Razr 964]

The underscaled buildings could get a properly scaled version and a retextured version made to have fewer storeys. All stories (besides lobbies) should be 2.5-4m tall. Retexturing default buildings of multiple scales (possibly combined by manually making towers shorter or taller in a 3D program) would be a good way to turn 5 upgrade levels to 2 densities into 3 (or 4) wealth levels and 20 growth stages (though upgrades of 2 or more stages at a time should be possible while upgrades of 1 stage should be much faster).

[Avanya 2,605]

Sounds like a very good idea to me. And I always disable all the 1x1 buildings in my themes anyway. They just don't look right - especially the high density ones!

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I think that 1x1 buildings should continue to exist but have their growth stage reflect that. Assuming a low density household is 2 adults plus children, a 1x1 house would be growth stage 5 (and stage 4 should grow in both low density and medium density) which would be better suited as medium density. A 1x1 condominium with 5 units (now assume 1-4 adults per apartment) would be growth stage 6 so it would grow in fully developed medium density zones, ideally between high density buildings. 1x1 businesses would also be medium density or high density by the same logic. These filler buildings would have much lower capacities compared to the buildings that would rather move to the block and would include some of the only low wealth, high density buildings but they should still function.

 

Therefore, I suggest doubling the number of zone buttons. There should be low/medium/high density Residential, low/high density shops, low/high density offices, low/high density offices, AND low/medium/high density hotels. Medium density should always allow 1x1 zones and low density C/I/O should too. 1x1 zones would have 0 capacity (look like empty lots, possibly with plaza, greenery, or parking).

It shouldn't be too hard to give hotels their own demand bar since tourism is already implemented. Offices should have demand equal to the unemployed educated workers and industry should have demand equal to the unemployed uneducated workers plus orders for generic freight (freight trains and cargo ships could order freight as well).

  Edited February 25, 2016 by OcramsRzr  
Previously lost train of thought

[Ocram's Razr 964]

54 minutes ago, AJ3D said:

I've never seen a real 8m x 8m lot before. And if they do exist, they are probably less than 1% of all lot sizes in any given city. I don't know if hotels are worth their own zone. I haven't studied the code, but I don't think they do much more than regular commercial buildings. Maybe they can just spawn in regular commercial areas based on demand. I think LD, MD, HD for residential, with LD and HD for office, industrial, and commercial is enough.

Limiting the total number of lot sizes means:

-Its going to be easier to make assets to fill each lot size.

-The spawning algorithm will be easier to write.

-Players can get a handle on what lot sizes spawn under what conditions, and can design their road networks accordingly. So dirt roads spaced 16 units apart is ideal for farms, 8x16 blocks with avenues is ideal for spawning big towers,  long thin narrow blocks spaced 6 units apart is good for low wealth suburbs, and larger roads spaced 12-16 units apart is good for industrial. Mines, oil fields, and forest will have their own distinct lot sizes that will require different street patterns.

Default After Dark Hotels don't grow or function properly in any way. However, the Rush Hour mod overhauls hotels (and night clubs, among other things) to function (but not grow) properly because it changes the behavior of tourists (and residents). 

 

Micro-homes and pencil towers are becoming increasingly common in major cities and 8x8 (and smaller) row houses were/are not unheard of in Industrial London or Edo. Normal 2-lane roads with parking (and only them) should allow 1-tile deep zones but low density zones should have filler lots (yards) with all statistics being 0, medium density should have small wall-to-wall housing (single family homes, duplexes, and triplexes), and high density should have pencil towers. Other 2-lane roads should zone 2-6 tiles. Avenues, big roads and dirt roads (or wide gravel roads, if added) should zone 2-8 tiles.

[ethansprang 41]

For reference, in pre-Hausmannian Paris, standard lot sizes were about 5m.  In Baltimore, the famous rowhouses are around 13' wide, or 4m.  San Francisco's "Painted Ladies" victorian homes are 20 ft wide.  NYC's grid system is also built around 25' lots, as Feindbold's Brooklyn themes attest.

BUT... those houses are all deeper, typically 30-40ft deep.  The lots are generally deeper still, and for game purposes we want the lots to be variable depth for more zoning flexibility.

 

8m x 8m corner buildings are less common for historical reasons.  First, many of these lots in American cities were part of grided land developments where the lots were totally uniform - the corner lots were long skinny rectangles too.  Given the realities of walkable retail the 1800's, more shop windows are better, so your building will fill the available frontage - which is deeper than 8m x 8m. Second, the absence of zoning codes at the time meant that corner lots were more likely to be converted to commercial uses.  The corners are also noisier and less desirable for residences, so owners of them would have been more likely to sell than long-time mid-block residents. The valuable location then made them more likely to be consolidated with neighboring lots for larger structures.  So the lots didn't persist.  In European medieval quarters, by contrast, you can still find tiny 5mx5m square corner shops.  But they are very rare.

In our game, most of these historical examples are found on the workshop, but in multiples, as part of larger assets, both corner and regular.  But if you want any odd-angle streets, you'll want the 1x1 corners for your hard-to-fill street corners.

[ethansprang 41]

On 2/22/2016 at 10:51 AM, Darf said:

Resizing assets shouldn't be a problem for either. The thing with resizing or changing plots is that you would need to add all those buildings as custom assets again. Unless someone makes a mod that allows to not load the default buildings. (This would be a great start for this imo.)

Darf, 

Is there a way to do this with the built in styles manager? Because when you play without European building unlocker, the default ones don't load up at all, even on the new snowfall maps.  So clearly the CS styles/themes manager will disable default buildings.  But is that just because the Euro buildings were tied to the boreal map theme?  Could you create a "No Defaults" Style for all maps so the game simply never loads the "European" OR "International" assets?  

If so, a "1:1 Only" Style could do the same.  Then if you load up custom re-sized versions of the defaults, you've only loaded the assets once.  I admit I've never used the built-in themes - boformer's mod is sooooooo awesome.

If it's a map type problem, I suppose you could create a new map theme ( "life sized"?), but that seems to have a lot more drawbacks.

[ethansprang 41]

4 minutes ago, AJ3D said:

The other big idea was to reverse the current dynamic of high wealth meaning more density.

As an areas wealth level increases, the population density should decrease. That's the trade off you have to plan for.

Why?  I mean, as long as "wealth level" is tied to land value, that's purely a result of restrictive zoning laws.  In the real world, you will ALWAYS get more money from building more homes/flats on the same lot.  Anywhere you see the opposite, it's because whoever owns the land has been prevented by law from increasing density.  (Or is a billionaire who can afford to ignore the large sums of lost income from not developing their land.)

But restrictive zoning laws are driving out poor residents, strangling cities, and turning them into absentee  playgrounds for the super-wealthy - why should you want to replicate that in the game?  That seems perverse.

[Judazzz 1,936]

Also, don't forget that when you use curved roads, there will be lots of small plots where zoning blocks overlap (think 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 2x2, 2x3, etc.) - I doubt it's desirable to implement a hard restriction of the number of building types that could grow there. For example, even in the densest parts of my city I still fill up rogue 1x1/1x2 plots with tiny buildings (of all kinds) rather than just pave them over with area fillers or decal props.
So personally I prefer an approach in which the player has full control over what he/she wants to grow where (I often zone large, uninterrupted zonable area's with 1 or 2 block wide buildings, complemented with a sprinkle a wider buildings): if someone wants 1x8 low density (for example shotgun-houses with a large front- and/or backyard, or pillbox-size shops/kiosks with a large parking lot, benches, greenery or whatever in the front/back), it shouldn't be impossible because of certain design/mechanics choices.

I also agree with EthanSprang's comment: I don't think anyone is really wanting to London/NYC-ify their cities by making whole sections of the city financially out of reach of a large portion of the population (resulting in huge buildings and neighborhoods that are devoid of life). In real life the effect on the cities mentioned (applies to others as well) is devastating for the livability of a city in the long run.

It seems fundamentally against the spirit of sandbox games (something C:SL will always wile be, regardless of how the simulation aspects will progress in the future) to force severe restrictions on the freedom of what players can and cannot do. Personally, although the prospect of much larger growables is very exciting, I'm not waiting for a mod that put restrictions on how and what I can zone where and makes such decisions for me.

[boformer 3,169]

1-cell wide buildings are not uncommon in the EU (think of the UK teracced homes).

I think 3 things should be taken into account when we talk about growth stages:

lot size (especially lot width)

lot-building-size ratio

household/workplace count (set for each building, not auto-calculated)

The average lot size of each stage depends on the wealth level and zone type.

Stage 1 Low Density Residential ($) would grow 1- to 3-cell wide lots depending on zone depth. The average plot size would be 9 cells. The average building size would be 60m² (so the current 1x1 buildings of the game) with one story. Gaps would be filled with 1-cell wide lots.

Stage 1 Low Density Residential ($$) should grow 3- to 5-cell wide lots depending on zone depth. The average plot size would be 20 cells. The average building size would be 200m² with one story. Gaps would be filled with 2-cell wide lots (not smaller).

Stage 1 Low Density Residential ($$$) should grow 5- to 8-cell wide lots depending on zone depth. The average plot size would be 35 cells. The average building size would be 350m² with one story. Gaps would be filled with 4-cell wide lots (not smaller).

With higher growth stages (increased density), average plot size would decrease and building height would increase (at least for low density residential).

For how many growth stages would you go? I think 3 per density (so 9 in total) would be sufficient.

[Darf 1,439]

I think if CAM has proven anything, is that's it hard to capture growthstages in 8 lvls. I think looking at high rises, there's atleast a difference you can classify between:

• Condo's. ($$$) 80m to 150m
• Flats ($ & $$) 80m to 150m
• Skyscrapers ($$ & $$$) 150m to 300m
• Supertalls ($$$): 300m+

Below that should be a couple of medium density. That's 6 alone I'd implement .

[Judazzz 1,936]

The thing is that imo. it is pretty tough to capture these things into unified rules. Wealth isn't necessarily related to plot/land size in a linear fashion. Just think of simple trailer houses with a large plot of land as you will see often in more rural area's: the inhabitants could be dirt-poor, but at the same time have acres of (waste)land surrounding their humble abode (obviously littered with car wrecks, sofa's, farming tools and empty beer cans  ). On the other side of the spectrum: if you compare a low wealth high density tenement building with a high wealth high density apartment (both with same foot print and floor count) the density - or number residents per square meter - will be much higher in the low wealth building. And in between these extremes is a myriad of possible relations between plot size and wealth, between plot size and environment (urban, sub-urban, rural, etc.), and so on. So what kind of general rules can one distill from this?
In theory there's not much wrong with the idea of a relation between plot size and wealth, but in practice it may be a seriously tough nut to crack if you want to get it right. For the simple reason that the amount of variables to come into play is astronomical.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Why not allow all lot sizes from 1x1 to 8x8 (plus 10 and 12 wide of 4, 6, 8 deep) but have the simulation only make 1x1 lots as a last resort. What buildings are put into odd size lots would depend on the theme. The first theme for Deeper Zones should have only filler lots for low density (no production or consumption) and may have only filler lots for others. Corner lot shops would likely be 2 wide, 1 deep but corner lots have special algorithms.

[QuantumChicken 89]

This is awesome and seems interesting. MAYBE I might play C:SL again.

[boformer 3,169]

The most important question is how we define growth stages:

1. Is a growth stage tied to a building model, or to a certain variation of it (wealth level, lot size)?
2. Is the first thing that grows on a lot always growth stage 1?
3. Is it possible to skip growth stages on "upgrade"?

For me the growth stage is directly related to population/workplace density per zone cell. And that density depends on the land value. Land value depends on service coverage, pollution, noise level and the buildings that exist in the neighbourhood.

Higher growth stage buildings will only spawn when a certain population milestone has been hit (depending on the calculated building area of a map). Otherwise an "advisor" would tell the player to buy more map tiles or zone more land or (if there is still unoccupied land, why would a skyscraper spawn?)

It will never be 100% accurate (and that's not the goal). The goal is to make the different wealth levels and densities visible to the player. And larger lots would really help with that.

The 1x1 houses (1 household) of the game placed on a 4x8 lot (or anything with a similar size) could be growth stage 1. The same houses placed on a 2x8 lot could be growth stage 2 (higher land value = families can only afford smaller lots).

One great thing is that the addition of a growth stage system removes the need for a medium-density zone type (would be nice to have, but I would wait with this until the official development stopped). After all the zone type is just a limit for the allowed growth stages (low-density could be 1 - 5, high density 1 - 9).

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I changed my mind and now agree with you. A 1x1 house on a 4x8 lot should be growth stage 1 for R$$ with a 1x1 shack (or trailer) on a 3x4 or 2x6 (or 2x8) being better suited for R$ and a 1 story 2x2 mini-mansion on a 4x8 lot being best for R$$$ (a2x3 2-story mansion on a 6x8 lot would be stage 1 R$$$$, if implemented).

I also think that only the current lot sizes in vanilla Cities: Skylines plus the lot sizes you propose should be included. The 2-lane roads with parking should have a 4-tile deep zone limit, other 2-lane roads should have 6-tile deep zone limits and wide roads and avenues should have 8-tile deep zone limits, which would require a wide suburban street (with parking PLUS curb, grass, or trees) and wide rural street (dirt, dirt with grass and bushes, gravel with trees).

[boldlybuilding 873]

There seems to be a lot that has to be done to make these bigger zones happen. The actual mechanics of the bigger zones, which seems to be mostly solved. Interface. Making the asset editor and game allow and recognize larger growables. Making an algorithm or whatever for how these larger growables will spawn, and what levels. But it seems like the hardest and most time-consuming part will be deciding what types of buildings grow at what level and size 

[Avanya 2,605]

I really like AJ3D's idea and distribution in the spreadsheet. Higher density uses larger lots and lot sizes increase with the wealth level. I get the argument that high land value means you can afford less land, but I find it strange that lots would get smaller as I make my citizens happier (with parks, services and so on). It would make more sense to me that the lot size either stayed the same or increased. I'd prefer the house "upgraded" with additional floors, newer/cleaner/fancier look and more decorations (flowerbeds, patio and so on).

I also like the idea that I'd have to plan for what kind of density/wealth level, so if I want big fancy buildings I'd need more space than in my suburbs. Will be really cool to see how this develops.  

[boformer 3,169]

2 more thoughts:

Automatic Calculation of Growth Stage

Instead of assigning a fixed growth stage to every asset, it should just be calculated automatically using these factors:

• Plot Size (that was requested by the spawning system)
• Home/Workplace Count (defined by the asset creator)
• Wealth Level
• Building Height/Number of Floors
• Building Base Width
• Building Base Length

There could be a different formula for every zone type and wealth level. Think about how the formula should look like!

The growth stage would just be a float value (e.g. a value between 0.1 and 100.0).

There could even be different selectable formulas in the options (e.g. one that gives more importance to building height).

Lot Expansion

Right now the game expands lots to the front or the back when there is extra space (e.g. 1x1 ---> 1x4).

It would be relatively easy to implement the same for the lot width. The only issue of that is that you never know where the lot border is, so you can't place stuff like walls, fences or hedges (that's already an issue of the current lot expansion system).

But the mod could do this automatically (so it does not add to the prop count)! In the asset editor you just define "I want a fence around the lot" and where the entrances are, and the game automatically renders fence props along the lot borders. When there are 2 lots next to each other, it would make sure that only one of the 2 spawns fences on that side. I think realistic lot separators would boost the realism

The actual asset size you set in the asset editor would be the minimum values.

[boldlybuilding 873]

The problem with the floor height is that it's never an accurate count. For example, the Empire State Building is 103 floors, but I had to set the material floor height to 900 just so it would appear all the way to the top. Even a building that's 10 floors high, the floor material has to be set higher. It's just weird. And many creators may not bother much with setting it.

[boformer 3,169]

45 minutes ago, boldlybuilding said:

The problem with the floor height is that it's never an accurate count. For example, the Empire State Building is 103 floors, but I had to set the material floor height to 900 just so it would appear all the way to the top. Even a building that's 10 floors high, the floor material has to be set higher. It's just weird. And many creators may not bother much with setting it.

I'm not talking about that floor height you are setting in the asset editor. All of the values must be defined manually in a custom data structure.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Since there are 5 quintiles of population (5 distinct wealth levels plus the top 1% in their own league) and 5 upgrade levels for residential, the wealth level could become the upgrade level. By default, buildings should start as L2 but L1 starts growing after certain events (triggered when the player does poverty-worsening things). L1 housing pays no taxes but consumes no water and no electricity before medium density (and only complains from cold before high density) L5 should be extremely picky and require L3 businesses, university education, and super-high land value. Hospitals and Schools should have smaller impacts on land value, forcing the player to build parks and landmarks to attract wealth). Low density zones should restrict buildings to no more than 12 meters tall but allow for higher growth stages (on smaller lots).

Growth stages should be saved in the districts (based off population density, areas of outside districts use city population) and new policies to include not only 'Ban High Rises' but also 'Ban Mid Rises' and 'Ban Skyscrapers.' High density would start at 10 meters tall (low-rises) and contain the majority of growth stages.

[Judazzz 1,936]

Would it be possible to have the spawning/leveling mechanisms 'look' at, or analyse if you will, what's already present in the vicinity and calculate an average based on a number of parameters, which would form a set of properties a building has to adhere to when it is going to spawn or level up (for example by taking an average of the nearest streets, or within a 20-unit radius)? As opposed to looking at services, transport, land value and other properties that currently play a role.
That would mean that zoning in a sub-urban neighborhood would automatically result in more sub-urban houses, zoning in a high wealth area would immediately result in high(er) wealth buildings (it would be weird if houses in such an area would have to make the usual progress through trailers, semi-detached, etc. all the way up to fancy low density apartments - it doesn't happen like that in real-life either). Having said that, why would buildings always have to start at level 1 (or the lowest level of whatever system powers the mechanics) when spawning?
Obviously this leaves a whole lot of if's and but's (like, what happens when you start a new neighborhood that lacks nearby references [fall back on the game's default spawning/leveling mechanics], or what if you want to create an mixed-development district or an area that forms the transition between - for example - low wealth and high wealth, or low density and high density), but it would give us an dynamic, adaptive system (with even a hint of Building Themes logic) that would take the surrounding area in consideration when the spawning/leveling mechanisms kick in, resulting in a more uniform development (and thus end-result).

[boformer 3,169]

19 minutes ago, OcramsRzr said:

5 distinct wealth levels

Actually there are only 3 wealth levels in the vanilla game. Upgrade level 1 and 2 maps to low wealth, 3 maps to medium wealth and 4 and 5 to high wealth. It's quite strange.

28 minutes ago, OcramsRzr said:

High density would start at 10 meters tall (low-rises) and contain the majority of growth stages.

Many buildings in the European set are higher than 10m, and I would consider them medium-density. 30m might be reasonable.

16 minutes ago, Judazzz said:

Would it be possible to have the spawning/leveling mechanisms 'look' at, or analyse if you will, what's already present in the vicinity and calculate an average based on a number of parameters, which would form a set of properties a building has to adhere to when it is going to spawn or level up (for example by taking an average of the nearest streets, or within a 20-unit radius)?

Of course. If the radius is not too large that should not be a problem. That would also be required to implement accumulations of uniform buildings.

18 minutes ago, Judazzz said:

Having said that, why would buildings always have to start at level 1 (or the lowest level of whatever system powers the mechanics) when spawning?

I would make that dependent on land value and other factors like pollution.

 

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Now I'm confused! I thought we decided against medium density? Therefore, there would be only 2 zones: single family houses and multi-family/household condominiums.

There are 4 education levels in this game with jobs ranging from illiterate laborer to well-educated office manager. Real life USA has poverty, lower-middle/working class, middle-class, upper-middle class/wealthy, rich (multimillionaires) and top 1% billionaires. I don't know about Scandinavia but it's possible they only have working class, middle class, and upper-middle class. I've seen the buildings and 1x1 L1 look impoverished and 4x4 L5 look medium density upper-middle class. Changing lots and textures can give the appearance of R$$$ and R$$$$, with R¢ buildings only spawning when things go wrong (lots with 1 row of 1x1 L1 buildings and 3 rows of shantytowns could pop up if there are a lot of unemployed & uneducated workers and the mayor has built certain prestigious unique buildings (mayor's mansion, city hall, police HQ, court house, corporate offices, fancy malls, etc)...

Shacks could also be props added to the yards of R$, Stage 1 lots (1x1 L1 building on a 2 deep, 3 wide lot).

[boformer 3,169]

Little update on the wealth levels. here is the code:

// Citizen
public static Citizen.Wealth GetWealthLevel(ItemClass.Level homeLevel)
{
    switch (homeLevel)
    {
    case ItemClass.Level.Level1:
        return Citizen.Wealth.Low;
    case ItemClass.Level.Level2:
    case ItemClass.Level.Level3:
        return Citizen.Wealth.Medium;
    default:
        return Citizen.Wealth.High;
    }
}

So Level-1 buildings are low-wealth, 2-3 medium-wealth and 4-5 high-wealth.

27 minutes ago, OcramsRzr said:

There are 4 education levels in this game with jobs ranging from illiterate laborer to well-educated office manager.

Correct:

public enum Education
{
	Uneducated,
	OneSchool,
	TwoSchools,
	ThreeSchools
}

 

32 minutes ago, OcramsRzr said:

I don't know about Scandinavia but it's possible they only have working class, middle class, and upper-middle class.

For sure they also have billionaires in Scandinavia, but I think it does not make sense to simulate them. 1% is just not enough, and they don't really differentiate from $$$ residents.

Adding new wealth levels and that would be out of scope for this mod. I also think that the slum buildings should not be regular growables. Their spawn behaviour should NOT be controllable. They could spawn in backyards, in parks or right in front of the majors house. And slums would grow quickly. It would be a very interesting additional mod.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I'm talking about the 80-99 percentile, which own 50% of the wealth in the USA and are as common as the 60-80 percentile (upper-middle class). The top 1% shouldn't move into zones; they live in sprawling MegaMansions (level 6 unique building that should unlock with a high R$$$$ population). The poverty rate is only 15% so R$ would hold 35% of the population.

I'm just suggesting the addition of actual upper class, which should probably go in its own mod (that is cross-compatible with Rush Hour, Deeper Zones, and Total Overhaul).