Parks in industrial regions

[brianc1327 161]

Recently, there were some forum entries here that talked about building all the cities in a region, and I assumed that what was meant was one of the randomly generated regions rather than one of the "prefab", smaller regions such as Fairview or a custom region that contains only 10 or so cities.  I kinda took this as a challenge, or at least pondered what would be the best strategy to attempt this.  I have experimented a bit, and what I am doing is making the 4x4 cities (3 in this particular region) all industrial, calling them "Central Producer1..3," and making the cities surrounding them into cities that are zoned residentail and commercial, and calling them CP<whatever number> HB<whatever number> (standing for "Central ProducerN Houses/BusinessesN").  I have not yet decided what I will do with the cities that do not fall into either of these definitions.  Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here is a picture of what I am doing.

  There are several cities calles "New City that just have roads/avenues in them, and that is because I decided to first put the roads/avenues in all the cities, making sure they were all properly connected, then go back into the cities, and develop them as either I or RC and rename them "Central ProducerX" or "CPX HBX" as I develop each individual city.

Let met get to my actual question now that I have described what I am doing.  In the reidential areas, I am putting in several parks, in the form of recreation centers I described in a post called "New neighborhood design" that I made several years ago that consist of a small park, open grass and paved areas, tennis and basketball courts, and a skateboard park.  I also have replaced 2 of the recreation centers with a softball field and a soccer field.  I am also putting in the rewards such as the mayors house, the churches, etc. 

As an aside, I dont usually put the statues in, but in the last 2 cities I developed (CP2 HB5 and 6) I did put the statues in, and the number of R$$$ residents appears to be noticeably higher, about 15 to 20 percent rather that about 10 percent.  I have not made enough cities with the statues to definitely conclude that this is why there are more "rich people" in these cities.  Also since I am using the "infinite money parks" in this particular region, I don't know if they are worth their maintenance cost, though if indeed they are what is causing more rich people, they are probably worth it.  When I finish this region, I will perhaps do a region that does not use money cheats to see if they indeed are.

In the Commercial regions, I am putting plazas, either large or medium, since according to all the charts I can find, those increase the demand cap for commercial more than any other park.

In the Industrial regions (Central Producers), I am putting a bus stop at every other intersection, every 12 (or 13 if there is an avenue in between the bus stops) tiles.  On the other 3 corners of these intersections, I am putting a small park, a small plaza, and a gazebo.  My uhh.. "pretend" reason is that they give the sims a nicer area to wait for the bus than sitting on the benches at the bus stops.  I know that they have a "park effect" that reduces the pollution in the immediate area around them, but I am using the MCP water/air purification plants as my main pollution control method, and their "park effect" adds nothing to what the MCP stations are already doing, at least in terms of pollution control.  According to all the charts I can find online, none of the parks increase the demand cap for industrial, either.

After all that babbling, my ultimate question is this:  are the parks in the industrial areas doing anything at all besides being decoration and serving my "pretend" function of giving the sims a nice place to wait for the bus?

Brian Christiansen

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, brianc1327 said:

After all that babbling, my ultimate question is this:  are the parks in the industrial areas doing anything at all besides being decoration and serving my "pretend" function of giving the sims a nice place to wait for the bus?

As parks do help increase land value they will be a significant factor for High Tech industrial along with other requirements like low pollution.

[Terring 6,473]

I remember I was building an industrial district in a city with heavy demand for industries. Initially I got some factories, but when I started buildings plazas I got even more factories. I guess that parks does bring industries close to them, especially the cleaner high-tech ones.