Neighborhoods abandoned due to commute time

[The Angry Convert 20]

Lately, in 2 different cities, I've had the same issue with middle- and upper-class neighborhoods being massively abandoned due to "commute time". The whole nighborhood becomes unemployed, then abandoned, and then occupied by lower-class residents. All of this despite a lot of "black" streets, avenues and highways, public transport and local services (schools, clinics etc), high desirability and land value, and plenty of both commercial and/or industrial jobs right around the corner within walking distance.

 

I have installed the Network Addon Mod and then some other mods. It's possible that the NAM can have caused this, but otherwise it should've prevented this due to the complete extermination of traffic jams and such.

[Propfam 2,295]

9 hours ago, The Angry Convert said:

Lately, in 2 different cities, I've had the same issue with middle- and upper-class neighborhoods being massively abandoned due to "commute time". The whole nighborhood becomes unemployed, then abandoned, and then occupied by lower-class residents. All of this despite a lot of "black" streets, avenues and highways, public transport and local services (schools, clinics etc), high desirability and land value, and plenty of both commercial and/or industrial jobs right around the corner within walking distance.

 

I have installed the Network Addon Mod and then some other mods. It's possible that the NAM can have caused this, but otherwise it should've prevented this due to the complete extermination of traffic jams and such.

This is an usual issue for middle and upper class neighborhoods, including mine. Aside from very bad networking, this usually caused by lack of respective wealth jobs. Due to the difference of each education level, the cause can't be just identified by looking up the population data panel or even the Census Repository. For instance, I have 50K R$$$ population, 200K CO$$$, and 170 of EQ (as I recall) and yet my neighborhood still has abandonment due to "commute time". After I increased the CO$$$ jobs to 250K, the problem disappeared. New residents have low EQ. They can't just pick up jobs even ones with the corresponding wealth. They have to choose the correct wealth jobs with low education entry. To increase the chance, you have to have more respective wealth jobs.

This is purely from my experience. If you have different experience, you can correct me below. Thanks.

[The Angry Convert 20]

OK, as I've understood it, people simply need more wealth jobs, not just around the corner but in the city as a whole, and also educational opportunities. After that, I guess all I can do is wait for more wealth jobs to appear and replace existing low-wealth jobs, a thus, wealthy people will return to their old neighborhoods. Whether or not that's the case, thanks for the help. I am hopeful this'll work.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

14 hours ago, The Angry Convert said:

...and local services (schools, clinics etc),

Alert: I recall reading years ago that sims will preferentially seek jobs offered by civics buildings. Until every last civic job is filled, all eligible sims will try to fill it, and those that fail will go unemployed like you're seeing. This can happen if, for example, you have a disconnected part of your city with a civic building but few or zero residents. Did you put a library or school on an island in the middle of a lake?

Task: Hunt down every civic building and be sure that labor can reach it (or demolish it and maybe build elsewhere). When all of your civic buildings are fully staffed, your routing problems should abate (after maybe a half year at turtle speed).

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

@jeffryfisher

How exactly could I test this theory? I tried these two scenarios and the workers go right past the jobs they cannot get to:

^ In this one, the ag and res were zoned and the clinic plopped before anything grew.

 

^ Here I bulldozed the clinic, plopped the fire station, and ran a year's time.

[The Angry Convert 20]

8 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Did you put a library or school on an island in the middle of a lake?

Of course not. But I kind of get it and I guessed a while ago that more hospital beds and school benches will create more middle- and/or upper-class jobs, although the buildings don't need more just for patients and students. Right?

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 6/7/2020 at 10:25 AM, CorinaMarie said:

I tried these two scenarios and the workers go right past the jobs they cannot get to:

OK, so a civic sans road is not holding sims in thrall. What if the civics have road connections, but the roads do not join the net that has labor?

If that case doesn't cause trouble, then we need to doubt the claims I'm vaguely recalling from my early reading.

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

2 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

What if the civics have road connections, but the roads do not join the net that has labor?

Good idea.

Here's a new variation with a Maxis Hospital and Stratton Biotech (IHT) (which can both employ R$$$ Sims) located on an isolated brick street.

^ And we see again how the Sims are willing to drive to jobs farther away than those nearby.

 

Is it possible the trouble is/was with some specific civic building? Tho I'd guess it would either apply to every situation like this or none at all.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

19 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Here's a new variation with a Maxis Hospital and Stratton Biotech (IHT)

I see trucks from the farm, but not employees in. Did you create enough employees to overfill the civic buildings they reach? We may be on to something...

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

8 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

Did you create enough employees to overfill the civic buildings they reach?

I'm uncertain what you mean. Are you suggesting there needs to be more Sims than the available, unreachable jobs? If so, why would that be relevant?

The only residential in that most recent test city tile are the two R$$$ homes you see there.

As I understood the premise, the potential problem is if there are Sims who can see available civic jobs closer to them as the crow flies compared to other available distant jobs. When that occurs, they will (supposedly) realize they cannot get to the closer ones and then abandon their homes rather than travel further away for employment. The example scenarios I've created show that is not the case.

If there are specific mitigating circumstances, I'll need to know what those are. How about showing an example where the problem actually manifests itself?

[Alfany 1]

On 6/9/2020 at 11:08 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Good idea.

Here's a new variation with a Maxis Hospital and Stratton Biotech (IHT) (which can both employ R$$$ Sims) located on an isolated brick street.

^ And we see again how the Sims are willing to drive to jobs farther away than those nearby.

 

Is it possible the trouble is/was with some specific civic building? Tho I'd guess it would either apply to every situation like this or none at all.

How the sims reaching to hospital? If you simulated as it, you have to use subway to take the sim from home to hospital, the road on hospital not connected to main road.

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

31 minutes ago, Alfany said:

How the sims reaching to hospital?

They deliberately cannot reach the hospital. That is the basis of the test.

Starting in @jeffryfisher's post above, the presumed idea is if there are civic jobs between Residential and other more distant jobs, but with the nearby civic jobs unreachable, then said residential will abandon. As jeffry recalls it, it seems to be from something written long, long ago and is a situation he takes care to avoid.

What we might be learning now is that with NAM's better path finding algorithm this problem no longer occurs. Three different scenarios I created show it is not an issue.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

I've tried to find early references to the issue, but the haystack (with my own echoes) gets in the way. My vague recollection is that a Maxis elementary school of unknown size caused the problem. Maybe (some) schools must find labor as a proxy for kids reaching the school?

Those commuters who drive around the isolated brick street... they still don't work at the farms. They go on off the top of the picture... to where?

It's encouraging that the sims don't claim unemployment because they can't reach the hospital, but it's also surprising that nobody stops to work at the farms.

[twalsh102 1,601]

Since the two existing residences are high-wealth, why would they stop to work at a place of employment that doesn't provide any high-wealth jobs (unless CAM is in play).  Remember that 1) IR is (supposed to be) like all other low-wealth job providers: 100% low-wealth jobs; and 2) The default Maxis IR Census Exemplar (which is supposed to delineate the distribution of available jobs across wealth levels ) is broken.

Where do the Sims travel to off the top of the picture:  one should probable assume someplace that provides high-wealth jobs.

 

I should have probably said low-wealth developer types rather than low-wealth job providers, as it can be accurately said that all developer types provide low-wealth jobs.

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

50 minutes ago, twalsh102 said:

Since the two existing residences are high-wealth, why would they stop to work at a place of employment that doesn't provide any high-wealth jobs (unless CAM is in play). 

Yep. There is no CAM and those farms offer only low wealth jobs.

 

50 minutes ago, twalsh102 said:

Where do the Sims travel to off the top of the picture:  one should probable assume someplace that provides high-wealth jobs.

Yep too.

[twalsh102 1,601]

On 6/6/2020 at 6:32 PM, The Angry Convert said:

Lately, in 2 different cities, I've had the same issue with middle- and upper-class neighborhoods being massively abandoned due to "commute time". The whole nighborhood becomes unemployed, then abandoned, and then occupied by lower-class residents. All of this despite a lot of "black" streets, avenues and highways, public transport and local services (schools, clinics etc), high desirability and land value, and plenty of both commercial and/or industrial jobs right around the corner within walking distance.

 

I have installed the Network Addon Mod and then some other mods. It's possible that the NAM can have caused this, but otherwise it should've prevented this due to the complete extermination of traffic jams and such.

Some things that have maybe not been taken into consideration:

1.  Despite "plenty of both commercial and/or industrial jobs right around the corner within walking distance", are those jobs still taken after your neighborhoods abandon?  If so, that would imply that those who had abandoned their homes were working farther away.  Have you noticed any abandonment of office buildings or Industrial facilities anywhere in your city or region?

2.  You are aware that the number of jobs available at any business (other than low-wealth businesses, which provide only low-wealth jobs) are actually distributed across all wealth-levels according to fixed percentages, and based on the wealth level of the business?  The developer type with the highest percentage of high-wealth jobs is CO$$$, and that is only 15% of the total number of jobs available.

3.  What does the desirability of your Commercial and Industrial zones look like?  A drop in Commercial and / or Industrial desirability causes the occupancy of buildings in those zones to drop, which translates to fewer jobs being available in those buildings, all while maintaining the same distribution of jobs across wealth levels.  Every developer type has a certain desirability threshold (titled appropriately enough "Desirability Threshold Growth") above which Growth is allowed to occur.  There is also a threshold titled "Desirability Threshold Decline" (go figure!).  Maxis (in its infinite wisdom) decided to make those two thresholds the exact same number.  So a decline in DQ (Desirability Quotient) of as little as 2 points can cause the above mentioned decline in occupancy.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

23 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

farms offer only low wealth jobs

D'oh! I use PEG's SPAM, which does offer a small number of $$$ and $$ jobs at farm buildings (the fields though are all $).

I asked about the off-screen traffic because I wondered if an unseen neighbor connection might hold a special fascination for wayward sims.

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

1 minute ago, jeffryfisher said:

I use PEG's SPAM, which does offer a small number of $$$ and $$ jobs at farm buildings (the fields though are all $).

Ah. Easy enough to do once playing with a certain mod long enough it just seems normal.

 

2 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

I wondered if an unseen neighbor connection might hold a special fascination for wayward sims.

Yes, there is indeed a neighborhood connection those 8 R$$$ Sims are traveling to. Does this make a difference? Those are still jobs beyond the test Civic plop.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

22 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

there is indeed a neighborhood connection those 8 R$$$ Sims are traveling to. Does this make a difference? Those are still jobs beyond the test Civic plop.

Ah, but that's the question. We're exploring the tortured logic of coders long past -- so the lure of a connection could be significantly different than the opportunity of something home grown or even something civic.

BTW, do any of the old-timers here remember the assertion that sims would seek unfilled civic jobs to the exclusion of local industry? I have never been inside the simulation to analyze its search, but others seem to have experienced it at some time.

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

25 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

We're exploring the tortured logic of coders long past -- so the lure of a connection could be significantly different than the opportunity of something home grown or even something civic.

New test for you.

No neighborhood connection. $$$ Commercial and Industrial High Tech further from the Residents along with a Museum and a School that cannot be reached. I also grew some R$$ and another R$$$.

They are all not the least bit concerned about the civic jobs they cannot reach.

[mattb325 28,890]

On 6/13/2020 at 9:43 AM, jeffryfisher said:

do any of the old-timers here remember the assertion that sims would seek unfilled civic jobs to the exclusion of local industry?

There's a few assertions at play here.

* The pathfinding: i.e., can the sims reach the jobs in question? In these experiments they can't reach the jobs so that point is invalid and you can dismiss that: the same would hold true if C&I buildings were cut off from the pathfinder; the SIMs would work at the civic jobs, or leave town on their commute, instead.

* The nature of workforce and occupation demands in terms of sims seeking employment and what education levels they require to be gainfully employed by C&I developments. The percentages were listed by Ripplejet, and you can read them here as pertaining to non-CAM SC4: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=963.0. In the experiments you see desirability from the plopped civics enabling higher wealth RCI buildings which may not otherwise have grown without the hospital, but these still use the pathfinding logic to get to work.

* Civic jobs versus C&I jobs and the inherent questions of Demand, Supply and CAPs. Civic jobs are often referred to as more 'desirable' because of the exemplar 'Demand Created' which is a listing of pairs that does not count towards the demand CAPs that are at play in city and regional development. In the instance that, say, a grown or plopped CO$$ which supplies 40 jobs is placed in the city (even if only 10 Sims work at the office), then a total of 40 jobs will be clocked against the city and regional demand CAPs. Additionally, civic jobs don't require the same education prerequisites as listed by Ripplejet when being filled: a civic building will just have X number of jobs for an R$, XX for an R$$ and XXX for R$$$. To ensure that nothing is counted towards the demand CAPs, it will have an identical listing of amenities pairings. That means if a civic building has a total of 40 jobs, but only 10 or even 0 SIMs work there, then there is no issue for overall demand.

Civic jobs are therefore 'desirable' from the simulation point of view and possibly the player's point of view because you can plop functional buildings down without screwing up regional demand even if few or no SIMs actually work there. It may well be that poorly educated SIMs will first look for work in a civic building as opposed to the other C&I categories, but looking at Ripplejet's table on SC4D shows that poorly educated SIMs can find work in IR, ID, IM, CS and even CO, so that would be a separate (and rather complex) experiment to determine if dumb SIMs wanted civic jobs over low value C&I categories.

 

Perhaps, it is a combination of the issues between the second and third points that have lead to the statement that civic jobs are filled first, but there isn't any evidence that I know of to say that sims will fill civic jobs first, prior to, or even to the exclusion of, looking for work elsewhere. 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Another myth busted

I'm now leaning toward the behavior noted years ago being a pre-NAM (pre sim-Z) thing. Something like the sims trying to get at civic jobs that they just can't reach (or can't reach in the limited time allowed by the vanilla route finder). They'd then sit unemployed despite there being perfectly good unfilled jobs of all kinds near by.

If in my travels among the discussion archives I run into one of those old observations with an explanation, I'll make a note of it so I can share when this unemployment problem (inevitably) comes up again.

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

2 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

I'm now leaning toward the behavior noted years ago being a pre-NAM (pre sim-Z) thing.

And I'm leaning towards @mattb325's explanation as the most logical.

It seems likely the full, complex aspects have over the years inadvertently morphed into an inaccurate, scaled down, bite-size concept which has lost all of the real nuances of the complete concept and that's the part which peeps offer as guidance.

With what we've now learned we can retire this misnomer.