City development stopped forever?

[Mayornaise 2]

Hey guys,

I've experienced a strange behavior of 2 of my cities: both cities (each built on the biggest segments of the "New York" landscape) have reached a high population of about 480.000 and 390.000 sims. Most r/c buildings are $$/$$$ and the (little) industry consists of 95% high tech. Then suddenly things became weird. Instead of growing the cities remained static and then even started losing inhabitants, got more and more unemployment, buildings decayed and nothing seemed to be able to stop this progress. I built new avenues/highways to connect the areas and/or expanded the public transport with underground/monorail which didn't help much. I demolished whole neighborhoods (loosing 50.000 sims each) and focused on enhancing the remaining ones.

But here's what makes me really wonder: now even new designated zones with perfect conditions (nearby parks/plazas, avenues, stations, mixed r/c zones) aren't getting inhabited at all or just very very slowly. In fact I have to wait 1-2 in-game years on the fastest tempo until something develops even on low-density areas. And even then, I often get only poor $-buildings with little customers or residential buildings that decay some minutes later because of too long commute time. At the same time the need for $/$$ r/c is very high ($$$ jumps around 0), the mayor rating, too (70+). I've got plenty of parks, plazas and landscape/bonus buildings. So at the moments it seems that I just can get rid of buildings and sims but without the chance of getting anything new. Luckily the smaller city is stable now (but can't grow anymore) but the bigger one keeps "bleeding" … I also experimented with new traffic concepts, tried low and high density zones, fast-forwarded for 10 years and so on but that didn't work.

I've not experienced this anytime before and the cities in the neighborhoods (pop. 30.000/120.000/130.00/190.000) seem to run normal and they all are built in a similar way (much public transport, very "green", fully developed education and health systems and so on). The whole region has about 1,4 Mio sims. All cities are connected via highways and public transport and have at least one neighbor deal running (trading power or waste). I usually don't touch taxes.

I'm not quite sure, if this might be more a technical problem due to my laptop specs (i5 2,5GHz, 4GB RAM, AMD Radeon 7470M, Samsung Evo SSD, Win7) and the cities became just too big or if this a mistake of my gameplay. That's why I also tried some technical tips (cpu-core: 1, adding my GPU to the graphics card list, switching between hardware/software mode and AMD GPU/built-in Intel HD, low settings etc.) but non of those could fix my issue. And of course I'm playing with NAM (v35).

 

So, any comments or recommendations?

[matias93 7,535]

Can you upload an image of the traffic data view?

Also, how many rewards have you plopped on the city tile?

[rsc204 21,808]

There are a lot of potential possibilities that could cause such issues. But from the description provided, I wonder if you simply do not have sufficient levels of R$ sims to keep a healthy economy working. Because much like in the real world, those R$ sims are what makes everything work. Without people to work in retail, doing menial work in businesses etc, how will those businesses requiring cheap labour stay afloat? Take a look at the distribution between R$, R$$ and R$$$ sims, you should need around 50% R$ to keep the region functioning.

[RobertLM78 1,597]

I think it's a combination of what @rsc204 pointed out (lack of R$ - the primary culprit) and possibly city age/education level.   I've noticed that even with all the educational facilities, education hits peaks and troughs on it's way up to the ultimate maximum level.   During that time you can have employment issues, even with a healthy R$ population.

[Mayornaise 2]

Thank you for your thoughts. I will make some screenshots as soon as I'm at home tonight.

Well, the lack of R$ could actually be the cause. Most cities in the region are highly developed without any industry or just high tech, biggest employers are C$$ and C$$$. At least the biggest city has a huge industry site in the neighbor hood connected via railway/highway/rural. But what next? Demolish $$/$$$ areas?  More neighbor cities with $ areas?

@matias93

I usually plop all rewards (except the opera) I get across my cities.

[RobertLM78 1,597]

17 hours ago, Mayornaise said:

But what next? Demolish $$/$$$ areas?  More neighbor cities with $ areas?

Depends on connections... and  what your goals are.  I tend to try to make each individual city as independent as possible, so in that case you'd want to make room for more R$.  I also try to go for the following percentages (roughly):

50%  R$

40%  R$$

10%  R$$$

Check out RaphealNinja's Census Repository for a good breakdown on the city's population and job numbers.

 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 8/22/2017 at 9:43 AM, Mayornaise said:

I've experienced a strange behavior of 2 of my cities...

Have you looked at the census repository report (or its equivalent)? If not, then do. If you have and can't see the problem, post it here.

[Mayornaise 2]

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. I just made some screenshots from both of my cities including traffic data and zone arrangement.

At the moment both cities have huge demand for R$/$$ and C$/$$ but new designated zones stay empty while the demand for C$$$ is completely negative.

City 1: Atlanta

[Mayornaise 2]

 

On 23.8.2017 at 8:41 PM, RobertLM78 said:

Depends on connections... and  what your goals are.  I tend to try to make each individual city as independent as possible, so in that case you'd want to make room for more R$.  I also try to go for the following percentages (roughly):

50%  R$

40%  R$$

10%  R$$$

Check out RaphealNinja's Census Repository for a good breakdown on the city's population and job numbers.

Thank you, I'll have a closer look at that!

[RobertLM78 1,597]

6 hours ago, Mayornaise said:

At the moment both cities have huge demand for R$/$$ and C$/$$ but new designated zones stay empty while the demand for C$$$ is completely negative.

The negative demand on C$$$ isn't too surprising - even in the best of circumstances that fluctuates.

As for the zones that are staying open, it may sound weird but it usually works - try planting some Mayor Mode (MM) trees or God Mode trees on top of the zones that aren't developing.   (You can re-enter the full God Mode by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift and clicking on the God Mode button on the top left.

[Mayornaise 2]

1 hour ago, RobertLM78 said:

The negative demand on C$$$ isn't too surprising - even in the best of circumstances that fluctuates.

As for the zones that are staying open, it may sound weird but it usually works - try planting some Mayor Mode (MM) trees or God Mode trees on top of the zones that aren't developing.   (You can re-enter the full God Mode by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift and clicking on the God Mode button on the top left.

Interesting I'll give it a try!

[licoricebomb 93]

Here is an additional building that op may find helpful in gathering data they can use to solve their problem: