New theory: Abandonment of high-wealth residents

[Bones1 96]

Much of the current wisdom on Simtropolis seems to state that R$$$ abandonment is the result of too-few jobs for rich sims. While this is true in some cases, I've done some testing that indicates that this is not true in the majority of cases.

 

If you click on an abandoned building, and it tells you it abandoned for commute reasons, then it's the job issue.

 

However, if it tells you something else, it's likely due to desirability. That is true for all zones (residential, commercial, and high-tech). Although, it occurs most frequently with high-wealth residential buildings and high-tech industry.

 

The problem lies with the game's default settings for growth and abandonment/dilapidation. The default game setting is to allow buildings to grow in areas with as little as 20% desirability (or greater). Unfortunately, dilapidation of buildings also begins to occur in areas with 20% desirability (or less). So what the game does is build a nice-looking R$$$ building (or CO$$$ or whatever) in a bad area, and then it quickly abandons or dilapidates the building, creating an ugly blackened building.

 

The R$$$ build houses in borderline areas, and then low desirability kills them off. Fewer R$$$ pushes up demand, and that causes more R$$$ homes to be built in borderline areas, and the cycle repeats. The problem is that rich sims are building in bad neighbourhoods, and then quickly choose to leave and abandon their homes.

 

So, how do you stop this insanity?

 

I've made a mod:

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=14931

 

The intent of that mod is to reduce the amount of abandonment and dilapidation of high-wealth buildings. It does that by stopping those buildings from growing in the first place, in areas that rich sims don't like.

The mod changes the building desirability requirement to 40%-50%, instead of 20%. Thus, a high-wealth building will not grow in a borderline area.

The result is that less high-wealth buildings will grow in your city, but those that do grow will have a much greater chance of sticking around without abandoning or dilapidating. You'll also notice that your cities will retain more CS$ and CS$$ buildings, rather than them all being replaced by CO$$ and CO$$$.

 

So far, the mod seems to back up my theory on abandonment. Give it a try in your cities, and let me know if it works.

[The_Family_Guy 2]

Sounds like a great mod, but all of my R$$$ abandonment is usually caused by less high-tech and C$$$ service and office jobs. I've never really had low desirability. It seems like it would mostly be caused by high pollution or NIMBY effects that you could fix by replacing things. Traffic noise seems to be the number one NIMBY effect for me, and it causes the building to blacken, but it doesn't lower its wealth at all. I could fix this by spreading out the population, but, frankly, I'm too lazy!

[Bones1 96]

Yes, traffic seems to be a big reason why R$$$ buildings dilapidate or blacken. They blacken when the occupancy gets too low, which is directly related to desirability. So, if you install the mod and then bulldoze that building, it should regrow as R$$ or R$ (depending on how desirable the location is).

Keep the R$$$ away from busy roads and other undesirable areas. That's what the mod is supposed to do.

 

I'd rather have a healthy R$$ building next to a busy road, than a blackened R$$$.

[Beloved 2]

Hey Bones, nice mod

 

there is the $$$ file in the mod including the other ones. My question is, if i only had the $$$ installed and left the others out, will there be any bad effects of some sort?

 

And so the other files serve the same purpose as the $$$ one?

[Bones1 96]

Yeah, you can install any/some/or all of the mods. Each one acts independently, to control a specific building type (R$$$, R$$, CO$$$, CO$$, CS$$$, etc.)

If you only install the R$$$ mod, then it will only affect where high-wealth residential buildings develop. It will have no affect on where high-tech develops, or high-wealth commercial office, etc.

 

I suggest using them all, as all the building types I included a mod for experience abandonment or blackening to some degree. I didn't make mods for R$, CS$, I-M, or I-D, as those buildings don't ever seem to suffer from poor desirability, so you can let them build anywhere.

 

But if you only have an issue with R$$$ abandoning for desirabily reasons, then just use the R$$$ mod if you wish.

 

Note that if an abandoned building says it abandoned for commute time, then this mod won't help. That means that the house is too far away from a job.

[Beloved 2]

ok thx Bones. I asked because I never had a problem with the commercial or industrial buildings. Only the high wealth residents ones.

I just wanted to make sure nothing bad would happen if i only used that one file and not include the others.

 

I noticed that my demand on Commercial and high tech are high but i barely see growth. so i thought maybe it was the mod that was holding them back a tad.

 

So gonna try to remove the other files and see if things turn out ok.

 

thx again

[djkronik57 0]

I installed the mod, however, when I did, where I used to get R$$ development that did fine, I now only got big ugly R$ buildings. I agree that abandonment is highly related to traffic and traffic noise for residential. Perhaps I should try only the R$$$ mod, but I'd rather solve my traffic issues first.

[Bones1 96]

Yeah, if you want R$$ to zone in high-traffic areas, then remove the mod for R$$. Medium wealth doesn't blacken or abandon quite so easily as high-wealth, so you probably don't need the R$$ mod if you're not having any problems with medium wealth residents abandoning their homes.

 

As mentioned ealier, it's R$$$ that has the biggest problem. If you just want to limit them to nicer areas, then just install the one mod.

[Baro 44]

I always thought my abandonment of R$$$ was due to some wierd commute problem. I've got the nam with x2 capacity, x10 speeds and perfect pathfinding.

I'll have 5 linked cities, each retaining all it's dirty, manufacturing and such as it went up in eduction (so essentially they about double the needed jobs).

Yet even with all my job demands in the negative and all job taxes at about 2%, R$$$ has huge abandonment after a certain point. The jobs are there, the roads, rail, busses are green and well set up, but still, abandonment due to no jobs.

Now, one change I've made is adjusting the speeds to be more realistic, which involved increasing pedestrian speed.

I also made it so the traffic strategy of all wealth levels is the same as middle wealth. So they just mainly use the fasest. Could this potentially be causing my problem?

The only time I DIDN'T have this huge abandonment problem was when I was playing a multi-player region that had most of the default settings and just the standard NAM settings.

Perhaps I shoudl experiment...

[Bones1 96]

Date: 2/10/2006 2:24:52 PM Author: Baro I always thought my abandonment of R$$$ was due to some wierd commute problem.  I've got the nam with x2 capacity, x10 speeds and perfect pathfinding. I'll have 5 linked cities, each retaining all it's dirty, manufacturing and such as it went up in eduction (so essentially they about double the needed jobs). Yet even with all my job demands in the negative and all job taxes at about 2%, R$$$ has huge abandonment after a certain point

quote>

 

Yup, that's what this thread is all about. I don't believe that jobs are the main reason for abandonment. I think it's mostly to do with desirability, and the mod I made seems to confirm that.

 

Jobs and commute times are still a possible reason for abandonment, but in most of my cities, it's a very small factor.

 

Since using the mod, my cities experience very little abandonment or blackening of buildings. Mostly it happens when an area changes its desirability a lot, such as greatly increased traffic or crime. When that happens, I bulldoze the abandoned buildings and they don't reappear.

[NightlinerSGS 1]

I have downloaded the Mod some days ago and tested it, and I think you are right with your Theory!

I had 2 Cities when I installed it, one was growing and the other one hasn't started at this point.

After some months in the growing city, HUGE areas just got black.... mostly R$$$ and I$$$. (haven't had much Commercial stuff in this city, so I can't tell you about that)

The other City runs really good... after ~20 Years of Ingame Time I've had only ONE Building that got abandoned!!!! (current pop ~35000, much commercial and Industry)
Normally there are a lot more...

Well, I just continue playing and tell you if something changes =P

[Peorth 18]

Bones1, I was just wondering... what tax rate do you use for R$$$?

[Bones1 96]

I usually just leave all my tax rates at 9%, unless I'm trying to keep out a particular development, like I-D (which I then set at 20%).

I used to try to control R$$$ with higher taxes (like 10.5%), but I found that wasn't very successful at preventing the abandoned buildings. It just meant that there were less overall R$$$, and only because of that there were less abandoned buildings. But they still occurred.

 

That's why I think the common theory about R$$$ abandonment is wrong, and so I made the mod to test it.

[MayorTim 16]

Seems like a good modd, but whenever I get abandonment my whole map is usually at max disirablility, so this really isn't a problem for me.

[Peorth 18]

Date: 2/15/2006 11:22:35 AM
Author: Bones1

I usually just leave all my tax rates at 9%, unless I'm trying to keep out a particular development, like I-D (which I then set at 20%).

I used to try to control R$$$ with higher taxes (like 10.5%), but I found that wasn't very successful at preventing the abandoned buildings. It just meant that there were less overall R$$$, and only because of that there were less abandoned buildings. But they still occurred.

That's why I think the common theory about R$$$ abandonment is wrong, and so I made the mod to test it.

quote>

Actually the base rate of R$$$ 9.0% is far too low. In fact this is what happens when you use that rate:

This is a 320k medium-map city with 9.0% R$$$ rate untouched from beginning up to the point the screenshot was taken. Eyeballing alone will show the great excess in Hogans, Bell Towers, and other high-wealth buildings, many of which have been devolved by 1 step, commensurate with the population of R$$'s in the city.

In truth, I still subscribe to the notion that tax rates are the main culprit behind the dilapidation. Right now, I'm working on a 110k city and not a single R building is dilapidated. The desirability aspect though is very intriguing and I might try experimenting with your mod sometime soon. Sometimes, I actually wish it was possible to determine desirability as a number using the Query Tool so I can assess desirability objectively. Personally, I find the desirability map pretty useless because several years into the game, it's usually all green across the city (even for R$$$'s), except for NIMBY rewards and such.

[EricN 0]

Peorth,

You can see the desirability directly...just query the building. If a building or a workplace that could hold 100 people only has 78 residents/workers, the desirability is 78%.

Dataviews: Increased Detail Mod v1.0

This mod somewhat helps with the minimap issue. The game stores desirability as a number from 0-127, but by default anything from 100-127 is bright green on the map.

The mod shifts the color scale so you can tell the difference between 90% and 100% desirability, at the cost of no longer seeing a difference at the low end of the scale.

[Bones1 96]

Peorth, if you use my mod, you'll notice a lot less of those dilapidated buildings in your city. Rather than the game growing a R$$$ that dilapidates to R$$, it'll just grow the R$$ in the first place.

 

Tax rates won't stop dilapidation. It just means you'll have less overall R$$$ sims. But those that grow in the wrong place will still dilapidate.

 

However, if you have a shortage of jobs in your region (not enough industry and commerce), then my mod won't stop the abandonment because of commute time. You'll have to solve the job/commute situation first.

 

EDIT:

 

I guess I should point out that if you have a really nice area (i.e., high desirability for R$$$ sims), then of course you won't see dilapidation. This mod isn't meant to help out the good areas; it's meant to help the bad areas. That is, it stops rich sims from moving into the wrong neighbourhoods, because if they do then it causes them to abandon their homes (and/or dilapidate).

 

I like to create realistic cities, so not every neighbourhood has parks and plazas to pump up desirability. Nor is every area free of traffic noise. It's in those undesirable areas that I see lots of abandonment if I don't use this mod. When I use the mod, the rich sims stick to their own nice neighbourhoods, and stay out of the ghettos and middle-class.

[EricN 0]

After testing this mod, I found that it can have a nasty destabilizing effect on large cities. By restricting R$$$ options for zones, they end up in fewer and larger buildings.

When much your tax base is represented by an artificially small number of buildings, your budget can take some violent swings as your city grows, your computer bogs down, and the commute engine starts missing some calculation deadlines. If your computer hiccups when calculating the handful of R$$$ skyscrapers, your income can be halved.

I don't recommend this mod if you are trying to grow large cities.

[Peorth 18]

Date: 2/16/2006 7:21:29 AM
Author: EricN
Peorth,


You can see the desirability directly...just query the building. If a building or a workplace that could hold 100 people only has 78 residents/workers, the desirability is 78%.


Dataviews: Increased Detail Mod v1.0


This mod somewhat helps with the minimap issue. The game stores desirability as a number from 0-127, but by default anything from 100-127 is bright green on the map.


The mod shifts the color scale so you can tell the difference between 90% and 100% desirability, at the cost of no longer seeing a difference at the low end of the scale.

quote>

Thanks EricN! I was looking exactly for this kind of thing . This should help me in placing my parks and other desirability boosters more objectively.

Regarding the mod, I installed only the ones for the R$$$ and Co$$$. I couldn't discern any significant effect because as I said earlier, my cities have always had little distress. The distress I have is usually confined to high-wealth Co, but the mod wouldn't fix that because I apparently zoned C overzealously and screwed up my zoning balance. All of them are medium maps and under 200k, so the problems noted by EricN haven't been popping up.

[Bones1 96]

Date: 2/17/2006 6:34:44 AM Author: EricN After testing this mod, I found that it can have a nasty destabilizing effect on large cities.  By restricting R$$$ options for zones, they end up in fewer and larger buildings.  When much your tax base is represented by an artificially small number of buildings, your budget can take some violent swings as your city grows, your computer bogs down, and the commute engine starts missing some calculation deadlines.  If your computer hiccups when calculating the handful of R$$$ skyscrapers, your income can be halved.

 

That's strange. I've never noticed the game missing calculations like you state. If anything, I would think this mod should stabilize the game, because large R$$$ and R$$ buildings don't abandon nearly so frequently with this mod. I know when a large building abandons, it can have a significant effect on the demand and taxes for that zone type; is that what you mean?

 

However, what you say about the tax base is true. This mod will prevent R$$$ from growing all over your city, and that will tend to decrease your tax base (because rich sims pay more taxes). So if you're going for max taxes, then you probably shouldn't use this mod. Normally, though, I usually have plenty of excess income, so I don't worry about it.

[EricN 0]

Date: 2/17/2006 9:03:30 AM

However, what you say about the tax base is true. This mod will prevent R$$$ from growing all over your city, and that will tend to decrease your tax base (because rich sims pay more taxes).

quote>


I think you are missing something here...you don't end up with less R$$$ sims with this mod, you just cram them all into a few buildings that will be larger than what you had before.

Just because you see less R$$$ surface area doesn't mean they went away.

Having all your major taxpayers artificially crammed into a few big buildings is why this mod is unstable for large cities. Losing one building becomes a huge deal.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Here's the pattern I've noticed:

I reach a certain point in development, and certain medium-zones want to become high density zones.

If the area has high enough desirablity and is close enough to other high wealth areas, it will develop into a high-wealth skyscraper.

If it is the first one, it always goes 'no job'. Every time!

Party, it is because I never sap out the commercial demand, I think.

The second part of the cycle is, it abandons, i bulldoze it, and then commercial re-organizes itself nearby. If I really could support the building, it re-appears a year or so later, but this time It does not abandon.

This same cycle can happen with the R$$

One of the problems is, I think, that in large, complex cities, the new skyscraper always creates a giant burst of workers who need some place to work. Naturally, as a big city, all of the nearby, 'ideal' places are usually already taken, Or if it is the first 'scaper, do not contain enough jobs.

This whole bulldoze/rebuild cycle handles the problem, maybe because when the building appears it hikes up my I-HT and CO$$$/CS$$$ demand a little bit, which takes a few months to respond because there are no new, nearby zones to develop. By the time that they do develop it is too late for the first 'scraper (but not for the second.)

Sometimes it will have a chain-effect, and the C$$$ skyscraper will go C$$. But, I've seen one go back to C$$$ before. (Oddly.)

However, note that a C$$ 'scraper still provides a bunch of R$$$ jobs.

I think the real problem here is that R$$$ citizens aren't a bonus, they are, like R$'s, a responsibility. They want to drive to work, want parks, good health, education, good jobs, etc... so you have to make sure that they are there. One thing I do to help avoid this is to create sections that are specifically lower-class, while i also try to create middle class and upper class districts.

One way to do this is to control early desirability by the selective addition/omission of services. Eventually you will have to add them, but when you do, most of the population will remain R$ or R$$ depending on how you planned it out.

I can't stress enough, though, that it can really backfire. If you have a buttload of I-M, I-HT, C$$ and C$$$ don't expect to be able to support a giant, sprawling R$ district without a nearby farming/dirty city with a lot of demand. I tried this, but the result was when I added Hospital/Educ, the whole place went R$$/R$$$-- which in turn was rather de-stabilizing, causing the C and I to go into flux around-abouts.

So avoiding abandonment is actually a serious task, not some silly bug in the game (IMHO). Abandoment may signal to you that you are organizing your city wrong (even though it is ideal in your own mind.) Remember that there is always a difference in wealth in people, no matter what, so your region must reflect this. While some of my regions have had a mass of R$$'s and not a giant swelling plethora of R$'s, there are always all three: R$, R$$, R$$$.

I've at times observed a cycle-- involving creation of demand. When R$ demand is high, fulfilling it often drives up R$$ demand, when fulfilled may drive up R$$$ demand, which in turn when fulfilled leaves you with R$ demand again.

The whole cycle isn't so simple, though-- since the demands are effected by way more than just the presence of other residents. But if you are also allowing for the development of all other things in each step, the economic growth can feed the cycle.

I think I said this before, but there are two conditions that result in stable cities. 1. Perfect arrangment (good luck!) 2. Steady growth.

Erm. anyways, I've gotta work.

Peace in the Middle East!

RC

[EricN 0]

Date: 2/17/2006 1:00:05 PM
Author: RiverCocytus
I've at times observed a cycle-- involving creation of demand. When R$ demand is high, fulfilling it often drives up R$$ demand, when fulfilled may drive up R$$$ demand, which in turn when fulfilled leaves you with R$ demand again.

The whole cycle isn't so simple, though-- since the demands are effected by way more than just the presence of other residents. But if you are also allowing for the development of all other things in each step, the economic growth can feed the cycle.

quote>

The R$, R$$, and R$$$ have no direct effect on each other. What you are seeing is indirect effects of R$ pop increasing your C+I demand, which sprouts C+I buildings that increase R$$ and R$$$ demand.

I definitely recommend building a region with no Commercial or Industrial jobs at all...just civic buildings for jobs. Playing around without the interference of fluctuating demand from C+I job variance will give you a clearer picture on what is going on.

For example, build a city that provides exactly 50,000 R$$$ jobs and evict R$ and R$$ with 20% taxes. You'll discover that all the hoopla about R$$$ needing fire/police/education/heath/cars/etc is a complete myth. It may be true in real life, but not in SC4. R$$$ have exactly 3 needs: R$$$ demand, R$$$ suitable jobs, and mediocre residential desirability.

Contrary to real life, this is what SC4 services actually do:

Fire:
-Stops the occasional house from burning down and increases desirability. No non-aethetic benefit in Residential zones, because bulldozing rubble is cheap and parks provide more desirability per dollar

Police:

-Increases desirability. No non-aethetic benefit in Residential zones, because parks are a cheaper boost.

Health:

-Increases the ratio of Nonworking Residents to Working Residents and increases desirability. Good financial benefits; non-working residents are cheaper to support, and you can zone more space for residents instead of needing that land for jobs.

Education:

-Acts as a multiplier on HT and Co demand, which if fulfilled, will increase R$$$ demand. Also increases desirability. Barely pays for itself in the long run, but is necessary if you want to quickly transition your industry.

In order of importance: Plazas, Hospitals, Parks, Schools. Fire coverage is worthwhile for powerplants, landmarks, and expensive rewards. Police are just expensive eye candy.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Very keen and precise-- I like it.

Still, police can become necessary if crime rates are driving down desirability, am I correct?

But that's very helpful. And you are right about education-- really a waste of time, especially for R$ sims. I generally add it at some time simply to allow R$$ and R$$$ to move in. But only after I'm sure it will be profitable.

But It is still true about R$$$ not using mass transit (thus increasing their commute times in general) So R$$$ requires somewhat nearby work.

You are also right about the R$-$$-$$$ cycle I mentioned (i noted that it really wasn't a direct cycle) But it can be a helpful idea-- to get more demand for R$$$ you may need more R$... which will in turn start a cascade creating more demand for everything else.

[Facelessman 5]

From what I've seen, police are very important, in larger cities - crime can have very negative effects on desirabilty.  Smaller tpwns can go without them, but anything bigger than 50K, I'm going to have decent police coverage, at least for certain places in the city.  I'll have problems if I don't.

Bones1: Looks like an interesting mod.  I'm not sure if I want to use it, though, but I'll keep reading this topic to see what other people have to say about it.  

[Tolomar 5]

though all essential servieces (schools, hospitals,police, fire dept) parks have effects on R$$$ abandoment (or lack as the case maybe)

3 major factors that most people over look are comute times...and traffic pollution (exhaust and noise) and land value

R$$$ sims like quick drives, they think they own the streets (traffic congestion makes comute times longer , so they move to places closer to their job, where they can still drive)

and if there too much traffic noize or congestion (the R$$$ sims move to quieter neighbourhoods)

if land value actually becomes too high...R$$$ sims will move away to save on taxes (the rich didn't become rich giving their money away on taxes, they look for deals)


I rarely have troubles with abandonment of R$$$, unless I do it purposely to distress R$$$ skyscrapers (ong holds 20,000+ R$ sims baby)

also over all balance in the region should be kept aprox 4:2:1 (R$:R$$:R$$$) both in RES,COM and Ind.. if this balance is not kept to fairly closely R$$$ will leave ( all chiefs and no braves makes for a bad tribe)

most ppl forget that residential drives the industry which drives the comercial sector and comercial drives the residetial which drives the industry.(kinda like the circle of life)
Also because industry requires a lot more room and doesn't look all that nice...most ppl skip it building it or try to get rid of it from their regions...which breaks the circle and messes everything up

mods may alter this ratio, but once you start using mods and plops that alter this, you never know of their hidden effects...

personelly I never use plops...and I don't use demand altering mods anymore unless I'm just hacking around in a sandbox region...they mess the game up
they you start sounding like microsoft..a mod to fix the mod that fixes the mod that fixes the mod that lets you not have abandoment

[Bones1 96]

Hi. I just wanted to mention again that this mod does not mess with any demand settings or anything like that. It simply alters the desirability threshold where sims will build. So, it forces R$$$ (or whatever group you install the mod for) to build only in areas they really like. This means they don't rezone all the poor and middle class areas, and stop abandoning their homes so easily.

 

It's my belief that Maxis messed up the settings for desirability thresholds. They set the threshold for building to exactly the same value as the threshold for abandonment. I believe that these values should be significantly different, so that sims don't move in and immediately leave. (Which is what this mod does.)

 

So, using this mod shouldn't cause any negative side effects to other areas of the game (although I can't be 100% sure of that, of course). It is possible that if you don't have enough nice areas in your city that this mod could prevent enough rich sims from moving in. That could cause other effects. A well-balanced city shouldn't have that issue, though.

[Tolomar 5]

that you know of

when you mod the game Bones1, no matter how...it has effects on other things in the game...even though they might not be apparent at the moment... looked over the mod, I'm telling ya...your going to have to make a mod to fix this mod...mark my words...you will..i know it

[Bones1 96]

Well, you could be right. Any modification, or BAT, or anything changed in the game could have unknown side-effects. The only way to be 100% sure there's no side effects is to delete everything in your plugin files and play Simcity vanilla.

However, I've been using this mod for quite awhile, and haven't noticed any negative consequences that aren't intended. (However, I haven't tested it much in really big cities, like 1M pop.) It's possible that some of the values I used could be improved with a little tweaking, although I did a fair bit of that before releasing it.

 

Anyway, this mod has relatively little ability to harm the game, compared to even the commonly downloaded BATs. If values for garbage, polution, value, etc. are not set right in BATs, then that can seriously wreck your game. If you're okay with installing BATs, then you shouldn't worry about most of the mods I've released. They're quite harmless in comparison.

 

You don't have to install all the mod files included in the release, if you're concerned. You can just install the ones for the problem buildings, like R$$$.

 

And, if people find that tweaking some of the values makes for a better mod, then please let me know and I'll consider it for a future release.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Just as an odd side note--

I have seen some big fancy houses out where there are no public services of any kind... just lots of nice, pretty land... the thing that is most surprising is that you have to provide public POWER. But I guess SimCity starts in the era of electricity.

So probably, it is realistic that R$$$ sims do not require any of those things--education, health, police, fire-- just because they are not provided by the gov't doesn't mean they are not available to your sims.

How many of your CO$$ and CO$$$ are actually doctors? Maybe some P.I's? How about a Sylvan Learning Centre ?

Anyway, so perhaps this whole 'abandonment' thing is driven out of proportion. Someone commented that they will often drive buildings to abandonment so they can squeeze lots of R$ or R$$ into them.

About the taxes thing, its true-- but it is only one factor. If you lower taxes to these rates, starting with a fairly large region, if you zone C high density you can get a skyscraper within the first YEAR. In two years it abandons, and becomes CO$$, but you make so much MONEY it is just not right. What is interesting, is that I will experience a lot of R$$$ that isn't abandoning, but is at like 40% desirability and stuck there. So I just placed parks nearby to insure that abandonment doesn't occur too quickly.

So you're right, guys-- if you raise taxes on the rich and middle, you will see far, far less abandonment, because you've lowered overall demand. But my thought is that provided you still have room to expand, you will make greater profit with lower than 9% taxes. The side-effect? You will experience near-abandonment (low desirability but high enough to maintain populations of R$$ and R$$$) and abandonment. A booming economy leaves behind those who make bad choices.

If you want a pristine city, with no delinquency, you're going to have to do some Euro-style taxation.

Some of you aren't going to believe me about the lower taxes = higher profit, so let me note that the higher profit is a side effect, not a direct effect of the lower taxes. To a certain extent it creates a positive feedback loop that raises desirability (to a certain point...)

The wrench in the works is and will always be your commute times. Darn rich people commuting out of town!

About traffic noise... I noticed that when I fully installed my subway system in my 70k (At the time) city, it got a bit richer. I'm supposing that traffic noise in some places had been a limiter for desirability.

Also, I'm going to keep in mind to not place parks in places with high traffic noise... create an artificial spike in desirability and it could result in unwanted R$$$, I'm thinking. But commute times are still hard to figure out. Especially when R$$$ is next to CO$$$ and still is commuting out of town/across town.