Buildings "lowering" their wealth

[Lfelipe06 11]

First of all, I apologize for my english. Im colombian, spanish speaker, so some words might sound weird, but I hope you can understand my point.

Second of all, I am not a pro player. I discovered the game around 10 years ago, I loooove it, but just this year I found out that there was a community dedicated to enhance it with mods and many more, I used to play the Vanilla game (I didn't even know it had a name LOL), but now I added the NAM, it is very useful. Apart from that, I still play a Vanilla game.

Ok, so to the point. I have 12 city tiles running now, 5 or 6 are fully developed, the other ones are on their way. I've seen in some cities that some buildings (specially commercial, but it happens in every type of building) kinda "drop off" their wealth, so I had a beautiful shiny C$$$ tower, but in a sudden, it becomes dirt and C$$. I am a skyscraper mayor, so I don't want to see that kind of things happening. Is there any way to mantain the wealth of the buildings? What kind of things should I be aware of to keep my towers all shiny and clean? I see this is not just a problem of traffic because it can happen in an important road or avenue, or in a district away from everything. Oh, and my RCI shows the 3 residential bars totally green (in fact I tried to create fully residential cities, and it is not easy, they want to work crossing the street, I always end up mixing things) 

I added images of my region and an example in one of my cities. Hope you can give me some advice!

Wish the best to all of you, keep safe in this difficult times!

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

In a nutshell, the easiest way to deal with those buildings which have dilapidated is to bulldoze them and de-zone where they used to be. Then keep playing focusing a bit more on residential growth. Later, come back and re-zone for commercial where the old building was, run time, and see how it goes.

Ofc, there are mods that can help if you want to go that route. The most useful being the Less Abandonment Mod by @Bones1. What this one will do is make the buildings wait until the demand for building growth is more stabilized. Do stay away from the Abandonment Dilapidation Modd tho as all it does is mask the problem. It makes a dilapidated building appear new for a long time and that'll cause more trouble when trying to figure out what's really going on.

Then there are lots of game play techniques which the experts will prolly explain when they arrive.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Commercial buildings need traffic to help them thrive, so look at your traffic volume view and then zone your commercial where you see yellow, orange and red.

Also keep an eye on pollution, water/power shortages, crime...

If some of your SIMs have difficulty walking to work, then give them buses. You don't need to place jobs across the street from residences.

[Mr_Robotico 52]

¡Hola amigo!

First of all, it is always a pleasure to meet another Spanish-speaker here in Simtropolis. However, I am answering you in English, but If you have any doubts, don't hesitate and write me a message.  Cualquier duda escríbeme 

I am not an expert in SimCity either, although I can give you advice based on my own experience.

What I think are the main reasons of abandonment or downgrade are desirability and demand.

 

The former, desirability. Any minor changes in desirability in the area near the building can have an impact. Any park destroyed, a change of the range of services or more commonly an increase in air pollution, crime and garbage, as these are usual problems that appear with high-density cities.  Take in mind that an abandoned building have a negative desirability effect in near buildings and can cause a chain reaction. Abandoned buildings also have more flammability and crime. So keep the city clean, with parks and plazas for high desirability.

 

The latter, demand. As I see most of the classes have a 9.0% tax rate I would say that you have not changed this so demand has not been affected. Despite of this, I see that residential demand is overwhelming. If you don't want to delete those pesky greyish downgraded buildings (fastest solution), as @CorinaMarie has said try focusing on residential growth.

In fact, in one of the pictures you can see that the demand for CO$$$ is low (approx 500) and really lower compared to residential demand.

 

I will explain you what can happen in a city (personal experience):

The city has enough demand for a CO$$$ skyscraper and enough desirability in an area so it appears. Time passes and due to whatever reason (desirability, traffic...) the building downgrades. As a consequence, the demand for CO$$$ rises again as that building is now for $$, and another skyscraper CO$$$ appears. If the desirability decreases again, another downgraded building you have and the cycle might repeat. Eventually, the city ends up with lots of filthy, geyish buildings. 

Commuting and freight times might also have an impact if they are too long as @jeffryfisher has said.

Not having available jobs imply abandonment in residential buildings, as every mayor knows. However, if you are playing "vanilla with NAM" you might not have the patch for the HT-Industry and thus wealthy residents might be downgrading to middle class because Hi-Tech industry is not providing the correct amount of jobs to wealthy inhabitants. Check out this great post: 

 

To sum up: 

1. Desirability -) Parks (residential) and Plazas (commercial). Control air polution, waste and crime in big cities as usual problems.
2. Demand: if CO$$$ downgrading -) residential growth
3. Traffic
4. Jobs (if residential abandonment)

 

I hope this can help you. Let us know! Espero que te sirva!

 

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

@Mr_Robotico Very nice thorough explanation your posted.

There is new info about the I-HT bug fix tho: Empirical Data shows the I-HT Fix does not need to be Dat Packed to Work (Turns out it's not necessary to jump thru the hoops of DatPacking it.)

[Lfelipe06 11]

On 03/08/2020 at 4:04 PM, jeffryfisher said:

If some of your SIMs have difficulty walking to work, then give them buses. 

This is something I really keep in mind while zoning, as you see in the picture, there is ninja station crossing the street in one pic, and a bus stop in the other pic. I love mass transit and I think I do a good job at thinking how to make them use it. In fact, I used a NAM option to raise the usage of mass transit to European Mode.

 

On 04/08/2020 at 5:24 PM, Mr_Robotico said:

The latter, demand. As I see most of the classes have a 9.0% tax rate I would say that you have not changed this so demand has not been affected. Despite of this, I see that residential demand is overwhelming. If you don't want to delete those pesky greyish downgraded buildings (fastest solution), as @CorinaMarie has said try focusing on residential growth.

This drives me crazy. I totally understand your point, and as I stated before, I've tried to create lots of high density residential areas in the current cities, and lately I tried to build a fully residential city. Everything seems to raise even more the residential demand LOL, It looks like I've done nothing to drop those green bars!! But anyway, I will keep this advice.

 

On 04/08/2020 at 5:24 PM, Mr_Robotico said:

Not having available jobs imply abandonment in residential buildings, as every mayor knows. However, if you are playing "vanilla with NAM" you might not have the patch for the HT-Industry and thus wealthy residents might be downgrading to middle class because Hi-Tech industry is not providing the correct amount of jobs to wealthy inhabitants.

I read about it some months ago and I downloaded a fix to that. I will check if maybe I did it wrong or is not working, but as I see, my high wealth residential does commute to I-HT zones.

Thank you all for your kind answers!! 

 

This is my plugins folder (including the less abandonment mod suggested by @CorinaMarie) Just in case it gives you more ideas about my game:

[TwnklPeen 3]

A quick solution to upgrade the wealth of a building when it downgrades in wealth is to add a plaza or park/green space next to it. For commercial buildings, add a plaza and a bus stop or other mass transit line. Wait a few seconds and you'll suddenly see the wealth of the building increase and it will look new again. For residential buildings, add parks, playgrounds, and green spaces. Wealthy neighborhoods really like the tennis courts, flower garden, and parks. Middle and lower income neighborhoods like playgrounds, basketball parks, and green spaces. It also doesn't hurt to add a bus stop near those residential buildings either. 

I have been playing this game since I was a kid and it first came out. I remember when they used to come out with these tips for gameplay when it was new. :-)