Commercial Services vs Offices: Differences between where they like to build?

[Psiman 177]

What are there differences between Commercial Services and Commercial Offices regarding where they like to build?

Looking at the Developer Exemplars in Reader, I see a couple of differences:

1) Commercial Services dislike being away from Residential zones of the same wealth class.

2) While they both like to be on roads with high traffic volume, Commercial Services like it more.

Are there any other differences?

Here's a look at how commercial zones have developed in different areas of my city.

In the highest-density Central Business District (CBD) area, it's nearly all Commercial Offices.

Alongside arterial avenues in the city, it's a mixture between Services and Offices.

Commercial areas situated within predominantly residential areas are mostly Services.

Do other people see similar patterns in their cities?

Looking at the SC4_RCI_Buildings_List.pdf  (2.02 MB), Commercial Services' buildings don't get that big compared with Commercial Offices - all the biggest skyscraper buildings are Commercial Offices. Also, if one looks at the Commercial Office buildings on the map, many of them have what look like shops at ground level. 

Anyone else have any thoughts on this subject?

[RobertLM78 1,597]

It seems to me from my experience it's the game's 'mood' factor...... I'll try a run of a start to a city, and it'll get way too many of one or the other and then leave without saving and trying again and getting completely different results.   I'm not sure if there's some sort of randomized thing going on but it can be annoying, especially when it CS that grows since those usually don't provide as many jobs as CO. 

[twalsh102 1,601]

You've found the two primary desirability differentiators between CO and CS:  proximity to Residential, and traffic volume.

Since there is no low-wealth low-wealth CO, obviously the majority of initial Commercial growth will be CS.  My experience (at least where I've specifically noticed it) is that once a lot has grown as CS, it is likely to remain CS.  

The only other difference I can find is that while Proximity to CO of the same wealth is a desirability factor for both, there is a stronger negative effect for CS$$$.

Other than that, values for other common Desirability factors are the same for CO and CS.

[Psiman 177]

33 minutes ago, twalsh102 said:

The only other difference I can find is that while Proximity to CO of the same wealth is a desirability factor for both, there is a stronger negative effect for CS$$$.

Ah, missed that one.

Also, Commercial Offices have lower Baseline Desirability, and when checking the Desirability status of a Lot using Ctl + Shift + Alt and checking the Query.txt file, Commercial Office Desirability values are lower than Services. So I guess this means that Commercial Offices are harder to please when it comes to the Desirability of any given location.