Is there value in zoning dirty industry even if demand is just as great for high-tech?

[snowbordr17 7]

Hi all, I'm working on a region that currently has a population of 1.8 mil. Each time I begin on a new tile, demand is off the charts for dirty, manufacturing, and high-tech industry. Demand for low and medium wealth residential is also quite high, as well as commercial services. High-wealth residential and commercial offices are the only two bars that don't basically max out.

My questions is: once you get to the point where demand for high-tech industry is this high, is there any value to beginning with dirty industry/creating low wealth jobs? In my experience, dirty industry has been a great way to begin a region, but only causes problems later on. Once my cities reach a certain point, I've just been taxing dirty to 11% and dezoning/rezoning to promote high-tech/manufacturing growth. Is this a bad tactic for city growth? Can I just begin new tiles with dirty pre-taxed without future consequence?

I would appreciate any advice y'all have, I'm super interested in learning what I can about the zoning mechanics in this game.

FWIW, I also play with the NAM installed

TLDR: Demand for high-tech is just as high as dirty when I begin a new tile. Can I just tax dirty to keep it from developing and have a cleaner city right out of the gate, or am I missing something?

[rsc204 21,869]

Provided you have sufficient demand and can cater for it, the zoning I-HT is perfectly fine, some I-M may also be useful. Essentially it’s the education quotient that is needed to sustain I-HT, sims from commuting cities have sufficient education. But all new sims start from a baseline of your cities EQ, which for a new city will be 0. It takes time to educate sims so if you get to a point where I-HT demand starts to drop, try I-M. If that drops too, then some I-D may be necessary, although uneducated R$ sims will also work in CS$, so I-D is not strictly necessary. The thing to avoid is using up all the R$$$ sims from neighbours and then flatlining demand for I-HT. But keeping an eye on demand and zoning slowly and reactivity you should be ok.