New theory: Abandonment of high-wealth residents

[Peorth 18]

Date: 2/17/2006 5:59:33 PM
Author: Tolomar

...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)

quote>

Actually the ratio will depend heavily on what kind of C and I's you have. For example, a region full of I-D will skew the ratio to more R$'s, while all IHT will skew it to more R$$ and R$$$'s. Remember that your R wealth ratios basically equilibrates with your job (C/I's) wealth ratios, simply because a sim's job will determine his R wealth. That's why I do not believe in very high tax figures for ANY wealth level, as it will screw up the natural equilibration. Of course, extreme taxing is still feasible as long as you can supply the city with sims of the appropriate wealth level (but it unecessarily complicates things).

[EricN 0]

Date: 2/17/2006 3:38:41 PM
Author: Facelessman

From what I've seen, police are very important, in larger cities - crime can have very negative effects on desirabilty.

quote>

Yes, lack of police coverage can have harsh effects on desirability. However, if you take all that money you are spending on police coverage and spend that on well-placed parks instead, you can completely offset the effects of crime and still have money left over.

That's why police are just eye-candy. Parks are far more efficient at raising desirability on a per-dollar basis.

[RiverCocytus 0]

I have been tooling around with using parks to raise desirability, but the problem seems to be that the the desirability increase from parks can go away very easily if, for instance, commutes are long, pollution is high, etc...

So while parks are a cheap, effective way of generating desirability and potentially soaking up/deflecting pollution, they really don't do anything more than that. And, unlike police, fire, school, etc, mostly they have a rather local effect so you will need space to build them. Something that big, gigantic metropolii do not often have.

However, if you want to keep your mayor rating in the green while providing no amenities (so you only have power.) parks do a superb job! (Especially peg's random forests. Go PEG!)

[Bones1 96]

I've found in big cities, that traffic is the #1 killer of desirability for medium and high wealth sims. Parks just don't seem to be able to help overcome it, unless you absolutely paste the area in parks (which ends up decreasing the nasty traffic anyway).

 

I usually don't see much of an effect from crime, except around specific buildings (like the university).

[EricN 0]

For raising a mayor rating, landmarks provide the best effect per dollar. Big Ben provides a 7 point citywide rating boost for $150/month, and the 1x1 footprint lets you plop them anywhere. A few of these will keep your rating fixed at 100% regardless of any lacking services.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Ah, clever. I never use landmarks, but perhaps i will start to...

About the abandonment thing... I'm working on a weird experiment; I call it 'Civicus' -- civicus is a small town, alone its region, that contains no R$, I-Ag or I-D (originally i wanted no CS$, but it does not seem to make a lick of difference whether or not they are there... no demand is really being created for them)

So I tax I-D and R$ at 13.9%.

I build- 6 schools, 6 health clinics, 2 high schools, a city college, a library and a museum. (all of these can be super-low-funded without nasty consequences.)

Nonetheless, I have created an instant job market for R$$ and R$$$. R$$$ only seem to work at the City College and the Museum, by the way.

So for awhile, everything is totally cool, no NJZ's or anything.

But I hit 2k pop, and the R$$$ start popping with NJZ's. So I try my big-city method of allowing them to abandon and bulldozing them.

Here's the problem with that... when I do that, R$$ of course takes over in that spot (which is what I really want/need) but the presence of the R$$ will generate demand for I and C which in turn will create more R$$$ demand... etc.

In any given situation, it seems as though I lack about 12 R$$$ jobs that I need, just looking at how many R$$$ work per mansion. (I have a lot of mansions at this point.)

There's plenty of C$$$ and C$$, as well as I-HT and I-M. But, I think to myself, there might not be enough, right? I got lots of rich folks, and they can only hold the top position at a biz-- kind of like that movie, Fun with Dick and Jane. Vp's and whatnot.

So I lower taxes on C (all across the board) by about .5%. This increases demand over time for C, but seems to create more demand for R as a backlash, which doesn't help me-- rich folks will buy out the middle class lots and build there and again I'm ending up with more mansions than it seems like I can support!

So I scratch my head again and do more scheming.

I check the route tool for my richies, and I look to see where they are going. At first I think I see a pattern, where if the desirability of a biz (I or C) is low, the jobs getting cut off are the R$$$, but a survey of most of my businesses reveals this to be false.

One of my strategies earlier, btw, was to use plazas to raise the desirability of C, which created more jobs. (Since more were available out of the total.) This rescued my burb from stagnation somewhere around 1k pop.

So that's not working. I look at a R$$$ place that does have a job. They're commmuting a few blocks- a medium commute at longest? Well, their commute-meter says 'long'.

I kind of knew this kind of thing-- you get warned about it, you know, they don't want to commute as long. But looking at the size of my city, it doesn't seem like anyone HAS to go any further than about 2 blocks to get to work.

Then I remembered something. When I was looking at the I-HT's (to see if desirability was dropping the R$$$ jobs) I saw several Kane Tiberiums and Havoc Bioenhancements that did not have a wealthy person working at them. It wasn't because of slightly lower desirability, so why was it?

I double check them. Yes, definitely, no richies working there, just the middies.

So I get curious and look at the CO$$$'s that are most of my Commerical areas. (note that I've built a plethora of small plazas- there is one near each cluster of zones at least, so desirability/land values are sky high.)

Wacked out. I have a bunch of them that have no workers. Well, this makes sense, since I lowered taxes on C to allow more in my city, and plus the city college has a ton of workers which is kind of taking a bunch of favorable, closeby jobs.

But still, there is a situation- a NJZ like, close to, or right next to a C$$$- which has no workers.



I think this might relate to the way Sims path to determine their place of work... this place with the NJZ is next to the museum, while the mirror-image side of the city (eastside) has the city college which provides more jobs. Still, I can't figure it out. I can wait months-- these jobs can exist BEFORE the wealthy move in, but the wealthy WON'T take them. They could drive to work in 10 minutes, but they refuse to.

Could this be the core of the issue? Can anyone explain why these guys do not take the nearby jobs? By nearby I mean technically within walking distance. (Though the wealthy don't like to walk.)

Raising taxes here seems like it would only be a temporary solution, as when the demand for them finally rose enough this issue would appear.

They're abandoning due to commute times, but there are enough CO$$$'s around so that if 1-2 of each of them worked at these offices they would be sufficiently employed.

Maybe its a proportionality issue? There seems to be 0 trouble with just having the middle class... I did get a unique red message when I was taxing the C$ (when I first started) at 13.9%.

Has anyone tried making a place where just the wealthy live? I think that possibly if I taxed R$$$ at 13.9, I could have gotten rid of the richies, but still kept a stable R$$ population. Naturally, I would have needed to start making neighbor cities to support steady growth.

Arrrrrgh

Addendum/Edit: Just so you know, this city has income/expenses of...

$1,998
$1,121
--------
$877

[Keiran Halcyon 0]

Well, even CO$$$ is supposed to employ a certain percentage of R$ sims. Does anyone know, is that percentage per building, or aggregate? If it's aggregate, that could explain why the rich are refusing to take those jobs - they're reserved for R$ sims.

[EricN 0]

Date: 2/24/2006 12:48:03 PM
Author: Keiran Halcyon
Well, even CO$$$ is supposed to employ a certain percentage of R$ sims. Does anyone know, is that percentage per building, or aggregate? If it's aggregate, that could explain why the rich are refusing to take those jobs - they're 'reserved' for R$ sims.

quote>

Damn...never thought of that, but that could explain alot.

I'm out of town this weekend, but here is an experiment to try:

Build one nice long road in a new city in a new region. On one end of the road, plop 50 City Colleges. On the other end of the road, zone a bunch of residential. Set R$ and R$$ taxes to 20%. Power everything with windmills (provides no jobs), and give the residents water. Use parks to keep desirability up. Take out loans when the budget runs dry. Set minimal education funding ($10/month/college)

Now we have a city with only R$$$ and we know exactly how many jobs are provided (and that number is static). Let it run for a while.

City Colleges provide 220 jobs (80 $, 120 $$, 20 $$$). If your theory is correct, then the colleges closest to the residential zone will have close to 220 workers, while the colleges at the end of the road will have none. If each college has only 20 workers then the theory is incorrect.

It's a quick and dirty test, and it doesn't account for the possibility of regular C+I jobs being treated differently from civic jobs, but validating this hypothesis could rewrite the book on dealing with the SC4 commute engine.

I'll run this experiment and post the results if nobody does it before I get back.

[Keiran Halcyon 0]

You mean before Simtropolis gets back?

For colleges, only 20 R$$$ sims were finding employment at each building. I suspect that the same holds true for CI, but such a test would be a bit more complicated to execute since you have to get the CI buildings to grow. Err, um, that is, I don't use RCI ploppables, someone who does might have an easier time of it.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Won't work.... You need like 1000 pop to attract R$$$ no matter what....

So bootstrap your pop up to 1000 with R$ and then gentrify by raising taxes and liberal use of eminent domain (read: the bulldozer!)

But yeah-- I think you're right, maybe... a percentage of all CO$$$'s could be the wealthy jobs, thus without R$ I'm having a lot of empty space which is just getting piled into certain CO's.

So... I'm right now doing an awesome experiment with R$$ only... It is really cool! So far I'm at like 26k total population... all R$$.

Cool things: I'm using the cool 6x6 grid + avenue layout idea

Fairly profitable!

No NJZ's

Buttloads of IHT and all types of Commerical!

Tons of amenities!

Garbage-- not a problem!

I wonder if at 20% taxes I'll eventually no longer be able to hold back the demand for R$$$ and R$?

Whoooo knooooows...!

I have had a few CO$$$'s abandon and turn CO$$. That's because I set the tax rate low on C (7%). I could have put CO$$$ at 9% and this might not've happened. Also, it only tends to happen once-- when they rebuild it does not recur.

The low C rate is necessary because I do not have R$ or R$$$... otherwise I would hit an unending stagnation, I'm thinkin'.

No Richies = No NJZ so far.

Onward!

[Peorth 18]

Going back to the mod, I experimented with the Co

[RiverCocytus 0]

Gentrification wave! So I got to around 50k pop and I couldn't get any growth anymore... So... I took my small area cities and one at a time allowed the R$$$ to move in at 9%. Result: No NJZ... Huge jump in all demands! Weirdly, I-Ag demand is returning now and again... I-M is rare, but when I get it I put it in my Industrial towns The rich just shove the middle class out of the place. Its insane. I've never seen so many mansions be built so quickly! I felt like Emeril. Bam! The effect seems to be an outward wave of demand. Thus, Gentrification Wave.

[Peorth 18]

What the heck does gentrify mean?

What you're mentioning is nothing unusual. Naturally, if you drop taxes the sims of the corresponding wealth level will move in. The effect is best seen if your original tax rate is suppressive and you reverse it to a promotive rate. To illustrate:

Tax Rate
0% -------------------------9%-------------------------20%
  <--------promotive---------------suppressive-----> 
              tax rate (PTR)  |         tax rate (STR) 
                             neutral tax rate 

The PTR range is simply the range of taxes wherein growth is allowed, while the STR is the opposite. The neutral tax rate (I believe a term originally used by Toroca) is zero point wherein the tax is neither suppressive nor promotive.

It's common practice to suppress, say I-D growth with rates like 20%, this is a good example of suppressive taxing. However, residential taxes are trickier than most people think. The wealth classes have different PTR/STR ranges;  furthermore these values change as the city develops.

In one of my young cities, I set my R

[Bones1 96]

Originally posted by: Peorth

Going back to the mod, I experimented with the Co

[RiverCocytus 0]

Peorth: To my experience in SC4, the only thing that taxes really do is lower demand. What you are seeing is the peculiarities of how this works out in the actual game.

I think that 20% automatically supresses all demand, although I cannot prove it.

I think that each permill (tenth of a percent) going each way has an effect that is determined as a proportion to the total demand of that type.

In other words, the larger your population of a particular taxable group whether it be R C or I, it is possible that each permill has a greater effect.

I don't have figures but this is kind of what I mean....

1000 R$$$ total population demand, each permill might kill 500 demand points.

at 100000 R$$$ total population demand, each permill might kill 2000 demand points. Possibly there is a factor involving actual fulfilled demand (that is, residents) of both the current city, neighbors, and the region as a whole. Commercial seems most susceptible to being effected by regional demands.

The problem with the RCI graph is that it really doesn't seem to mean jack.

So you would have to figure out how demand is generated and do the calculations yourself. When it says '6000' demand for R$, you could get 3k extra people and it would disappear. Or, it could say 4000, and 8000 people later it hasn't left.

Part of it is that there is a positive feedback going on.

So these are the factors I think you should consider whilst raising or lowering taxes...

Total local demand, which is population + demand at 9% tax.

Actual local demand, which is demand at 9% tax.

Fulfilled local demand, which is just the population of that type.

Then I would guess you would consider the total population of that taxable group as well.

I think that early on, things like connecting cities, and early gifts tend to relieve demand caps.

But as a region grows you run out of 'em, so you might need to start lowering taxes to expand demand.

So my guess is that the bigger all of those numbers are the bigger effect on absolute, that is, the numeric value of your demand will be.

---

About 'gentrification'

comes from the word 'gentry'-- gentrification is just the process by which an area becomes wealthier, or in particular, goes from being middle class to being gentry, or wealthy.

The areas that I do this to tend to never have problems with abandonment of high wealth residents. it also may be because they have all been small areas, so nothing within city limits is too far for a wealthy person to travel, if traffic is willing and the roads are able.

I've also been using the grid tutorial's grid system. It seems to prevent false NJZ's among other things.

It is likely related to the game's method of pathing the sims for finding a job... more complex layouts than the grid will cause the game to get headaches trying to path working sims.

I've also discovered the secret (or maybe not secret) purpose of SC4's normal 'boring' background.

Some of you already know this, I'm assuming, but each of its 'big' grid units is 4 land grid units. So 2 of its big units are a grid unit in the grid tutorial system. The background's grids are 2 major grid lines for a grid system unit, but that just helps you handle the edge of the map, which needs to have a 4 square buffer (or ought to.)

rrrrrrrr
r------r
r------r
r------r
r------r
r------r
r------r
rrrrrrrr

That's what a grid unit looks like, lined up with the grid from the background image.

the r is road, but it could be blank, street, avenue, etc. The key is of course that if you drop down enough of them to fill a map, you will always have 2 squares for road between each block. So you could do 1 street and 1 blank, an avenue, a LTR, and so forth. The combinations are almost limitless. Also, you could do a road/rail combination that would rock some serious bootay...

Okay, i've got to go. But try doing grids, you might find that a strictly even grid helps reduce false NJZ's from the wealthy.

[p1 1]

Sounds like a good theory to me.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Lately, I've come to the conclusion also that the wealth give up REALLY fast in job hunting; the best way I've found to stop false NJZ's is to be constantly increasing your road capacity. Citywide avenues allow pretty much the fastest car travel; thus the R$$$'s can travel the greatest amount of space in their 'impatient time'. Oh, and you CAN get them to use the bus in HUGE numbers. It's just a matter of where the bus stops are. The bus stops that can be built ON an intersection or road multiply their effectiveness and are far more realistic. Also, again; planning for avenues or gridding very, very evenly seems to please the wealthies. They really ARE a responsibility =)

[Bones1 96]

Sure, high-wealth sims will take the bus. They just prefer to drive. If they take the bus or any other mass-transit, they are penalized 50 minutes in commute time. (Actually, 20% of them can take the bus with no penalty, so it's really only 80% that are penalized the 50 minutes.)

If you have a very efficient mass-transit system, or a very inefficient road system, you'll find lots of R$$$ taking mass transit. It just takes them longer to get to work by mass-transit than most of R$$ or R$. That's why people say R$$$ want to live close to work: their mass-transit commute penalty means they won't bus as far as other sims.

[mightygoose 92]

after just browsing through the thread bones1 you have just made my week. i've been having major r$$$ commute time abandonment issues in some of my larger cities. one in particular started about 100k of mid and low wealth with 70% of the population using mass transit. i partook in health and education reforms and soon i rocketed to about 20% r$$$ this then as this gentrification wave(cheers RC) spread, close behind was an unending wave of dilapidation and abandonment. my population then rose to about 240k all low and med wealth and the Hlth+Educn were once again overburdened. after discoverin this 50 minute penalty (how on earth did you figure that out anyway) should i proceed to reduce my mass transit links and improve direct road connections to allow the richies to limo o work???

[Bones1 96]

I got the commute penalty out of the Simcity1.dat file. It's in the traffic exemplar, if I recall.

Anyway, the transit system may not be your problem with R$$$ abandonment, so you need to explore further.

First, query the abandoned buildings to see what the reason is. If it tells you it's abandoned because of "commute time", then it's something to do with transit or jobs. This could be:

1. There aren't enough jobs in your city or region for the wealth class you're trying to serve. R$$$ can be picky about what jobs they take. Someone in another thread posted the following jobs table:

____\_Jobs Provided

Jobs_\R$___R$$__R$$$

CS$___100%_0%___0%

CS$$__68%__27%__5%

CS$$$_62%__30%__8%

CO$$__40%__50%__10%

CO$$$_20%__65%__15%

IA____100%_0%___0%

ID____100%_0%___0%

IM____50%__45%__5%

IH____10%__80%__10%

So, for example, a CO$$$ building provides 15% of its jobs for high-wealth residents. So you need a lot of CO$$$ buildings or IHT buildings to provide enough jobs for your high-wealth sims. If there aren't enough jobs available, the mansions will abandoned due to "commute time". It's really a lack of jobs, though.

2. The jobs are too far away from the residents. This is where the mass-transit commute penalty for R$$$ sims comes into play. The jobs may be close enough for R$ and R$$ to get to by mass-transit, but when they are replaced by R$$$ zones then the jobs might be too far away. Make sure that you have a good, uncongested road system for your R$$$ sims to drive on.

Quite awhile ago, in this thread:

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=65161

I went into some details about how far sims will commute to work. You might find it an interesting read.

3. The jobs are close enough, but are taken up by other sims. This could be sims commuting from neighbor cities, and sucking up the jobs that are meant for sims in this city. You could break the connections to neighbors, or put up toll booths to discourage and limit the number of sims that can do intercity commuting.

Okay, the other reason for abandonment is "poor desirability" or "poor demand". This is why I started this thread. I believe that in most cases, this is simply the local desirability dropping below the 20% threshold, which causes dilapidation or abandonment. You can use my mod to make sure sims only build in areas that are highly desirable in the first place, and bulldoze the abandoned buildings and let them rebuild at a lower wealth class.

Or, you can boost the desirability by reducing pollution, adding parks, schools, hospitals, and make sure to fund them well. Unfortunately, in a busy city, road pollution often reduces desirability along the roads. Try to zone commercial along major roadways, and zone residential away from busy roads and avenues.

[mightygoose 92]

thanks for the input ill let you know how it goes and see if i can resolve the issue

[beskhu3epnm 8]

Good Plugin. The only thing I noticed during testing is that I've installed the plugin on an already successful city and was able to jack taxes to 20% across the board and have no abandonment whatsoever. Seriously. Nothing new pops up, but the revenue does not falter. I guess once established, dilipidation (with the plugin) is impossible.

But seriously, other than that I enjoy working with this plugin - can be a real timesaver

[Bones1 96]

The plugin doesn't affect abandonment due to high taxes, that's just the way the game works. Try removing the plugin and you'll get the same result. High taxes don't cause residents (or commerce or industry) to leave. All it does it cause demand to plummit so you won't get any new growth.

It's kind of a cheat: if you're low on cash, you can jack all the taxes up to 20% and wait a few years. Then, lower them, and in 3 months your demand will be back to normal and you'll have a pile of cash in the bank.

I'll sometimes do something similar to target a particular industrial type for a particular area. If I want dirty industry in one section of my city, I'll set I-M and I-HT to 20% tax, and then zone the industry. I-D is the only thing that grows. Once the growth has filled in my zone, I set taxes back to normal. I-D stays in that one area I planned for. Then, I might do something similar to target Manufacturing or High Tech in another area. Doing that, allows me to develop "nice" areas and "poor" areas in the same city.

[mightygoose 92]

really. when i zone dirt industry with taxes then manufacturing, alot of the dirty will get replaced in a changeover.

[Bones1 96]

Some of it gets replaced, but only if a "bigger" I-M building can replace some smaller I-D buildings. (This might be more likely if you have I-M BATs in your plugins.) If you have high demand for I-D when it's building all those ugly factories, and you have high local desirability, then almost all of that dirty industry should stick around when I-M becomes more in demand.

The same thing happens with I-M to I-HT conversion. Some might get replaced by high-tech, but only if a bigger I-HT building can replace some smaller I-M buildings. The exception is that the game doesn't have any 1x1 I-M lots, so those empty zones make it more likely for upgrading to take place.

[DOXXP29 5]

Awesomw plug-in, Bones! I've been running it for a week and the abandonment has dropped to next to nothing. When it does happen, it's many years later and not shortly after construction which is much more realistic. One thing I have noticed is that I'm bumping into my demand caps a lot faster and more frequently. I don't know if the two are related, just something I've seen happen since I installed it that wasn't happening before. This isn't a problem, though, as it's preferable to the abandonment and again, more realistic than having people flee after a few years.

The 50 minute penalty was enlightening. I was wondering why $$$ would abandon due to commute time on what should have been a short subway trip. Thanx!

[infoscott 0]

The problems I have had more often with R$$$ abandonment have been when R$$$ has been competing with other wealth classes for housing _in_the_same_neighborhoods! It usually happens when R buildings are going through a rapid stage of promotion, and a pop gives the opportunity for a medium rise to advance and change over to R$$$. This relates to your theory about lower wealth classes moving in to a dilapidated building, but I feel this is a consequence of factors and not the cause.

My solution is to try to "zone" residential areas by either providing or denying desirability factors, while also setting up enclaves for R$$$ to set up housekeeping that will help keep the riff-raff out. The biggest single factors for R$$$ exclusivity is 1) slow to no growth in their neighborhood, and 2) short cut road access to their favorite jobs.

For 2), this is why I don't normally play grid layouts, or at least don't let the grid have equal advantages. I go more for a "fractal layout", where transporation closest to home is the slowest, smallest capacity, and not directly connected to major arteries. It's the cul-de-sac effect that keeps through traffic away from exclusive neighborhoods so that congestion and noise don't creep in.

If you control 1) in the rich neighborhoods, then there is less chance of building upgrades causing a wave of immigrants (of any wealth) from coming in and knocking down the desirability of the rich neighborhood. Even upgrading an R$$$ neighborhood when R$$$ demand is particularly high I believe bears the risk of compromising the desirability of that neighborhood in the first place. If traffic starts congesting too close to an R$$$'s path to work, then it requires more MT upgrades to get the R$ and R$$s out of their cars and off the roads.

I find if I want to expand the R$$$ population, it's better to find another ripe location for an enclave, and begin either upgrading the surroundings if the road grid is great, or start a brand new subdivision if all the other conditions are right. I've found that if you are expanding a rural region, you can take old farmland and convert it to a stable R$$$ neighborhood pretty readily.

To keep the R$$$ from trying to move in to competitive neighborhoods, I try to be really stingy with YIMBY resources and keep the desirability factors to the bare minimum overall I'll use MT as a "honey pot" for neighborhoods targeted for R$/$$, and reserve spots with close freeway on-ramp, avenue, and monorail access for R$$$, while at the same time trying to route high congestion traffic far away from these exclusive tiles.

Hope this helps.

[RiverCocytus 0]

scott, when I started heavily implementing highways in a big city, I found an interesting trend. Basically, sims travel to work starting on a small road, going to a bigger one until they find a smaller one close to work, then smaller until they reach there, pretty much. What this seems to do is, Sims won't switch highways.

Edit: In fact, fire trucks do exactly this, and I think that you may be able to use them to test your transit networks. I had a farm burn down because the fire truck had to take the largest network to the closest point to the farm. He practically went halfway around the map just to follow the road before gettin on the street! Had he just jumped on the street first he would have been there in no time at all.

More playing has given me this conclusion... well, there are a few things.

For me, CO$$$ abandons usually only because of low demand. So in a way, having low growth coupled with copious commercial zoning could do this... in other words, all of your commercial demand can easily be fulfilled. Sometimes the game 'takes back' demand for something, and CO$$$ seems to be most sensitive to this. I've also witnessed CO$$$ turning to CO$$ in lower wealth areas, giving me a 'wealth: low' thing, but once I have large enough scrapers and a fair enough R$$ and R$$$ population it does not happen (must be the effect of traffic.)

Granted; getting good CO$$$ demand and then letting it grow wherever is probably a recipe for trouble. good way to prevent CO$$$ and CS$$$ from taking over is to limit your use of public water.

R$$$ abandonment is just a more extreme case of anyone abandoning. At least, this is what I've seen. The experiment i did in 'civicus' can be re-enacted with any wealth population. The effects are just a little harder to produce. Because of the way jobs -> residents -> jobs one would think that it is impossible to have too few jobs (provided you aren't getting rid of them) for your residents. My thought is that due to the inaccuracies in the simulator for one, and secondly because of the jobs -> residents cycle this can happen. Let me just point out a few cases that I've noticed.

R$ Abandonment: Just build a regular city, but tax R$$ and R$$$ to the max. Keep building I-D, CS and R$ until a fair population, where you have a fairly massive chunk of R$ demand. Then, zone a buttload of R. You'll see NJZ's popping up! A few things are happening, I think.

1. There's something like, 8% or so too many R$ for what the game has determined internally (not what you see) how many jobs there are for R$

2. Muscling for jobs can push some stable neighborhoods into unemployment; a new neighborhood with a better position to go to those jobs could easily do that trick.

3. Favorable workplace, can't actually 'get' there; obviously if you disconnect road it happens, but other things create the same effect. One I have noticed is if you don't arrange transit networks to be [resident -> small to large -> large to small -> workplace] the game end up ignoring workplaces that are actually closer, creating this problem. Also, if you have overfilled transit networks (300,000 R$ tends to do that...) or a connection to a map that is like, a road, and the map is creating huge R$ demand.

Solution: You're gonna have to keep I-D, CS ahead of the curve; I-Ag will help fill in the gaps in many cases. Make sure your transit networks are good, and mass transit can solve the problem provided you HAVE enough jobs, according to the simulator.

R$$ abandonment: This one is easy. Make a city, you don't even need to put anything in it. You could let it grow a bit, but not too large. Then, connect it to a neighbor and go build that neighbor. R$$ demand will have materialized (I think its a 'suburb' effect that I mentioned earlier...) R$$ can move in but there are more than likely no jobs for them because of this bonus demand.

General solution: Well, educated R$ demand Manufacturing and all types of commercial. Again, though, you'll have to keep your zoning of C and I ahead of your R in order to keep enough jobs. Granted, when all three are in the equation they should feed each other pretty well... then again, you never know. For the beginning of the game (or rather a region) your industry should be way ahead of Comm in number of jobs. If it isn't, that can be a huge cause of NJZ's (rather, it creates the condition.)

R$$$ abandonment: Since R$$$ have by far the fewest jobs and are most picky, you really have to be way ahead of the 'curve' in C and I; I found that having a great deal of manufacturing from R$ of high education helped; but also the placement and structure of your city have a big effect on this too. "Getting" R$$$ abandonment is as simple as making a 1 city tile and allowing R$$$ to grow as they please. If you keep up with the R$$$ demand and not C and I, and keep R$$$ taxes at 9 (laffer max) you will see the NJZ's... just a matter of time.

In fact, keeping R$$$ happy seems to be the easy part.... keeping them employed is tough! Of course, the problems that I saw causing NJZs for R$ and R$$ can cause them for R$$$ too.

What's cool about Bones' mod is that it allows you to more effectively control where $$$ zones develop. By default the game is kind of lasseiz faire about this; it probably expects you to be more harsh with taxes or more effective with transit. Naturally, just controlling where they develop is not a final solution. If you zone them in the wrong place they will still abandon. Keep that in mind!

[donpineiro 0]

Cities need slums.

[fern244 1]

nice mod man!