Stage Of City/Some buildings grow more than others

[GreenTreeWater 2]

Question 1 How can I tell what growth stage my city is at? Stage 1,2,3 etc... Question 2 Why do some buildings grow more than others. I have every Vanderaap building he's made, yet only a handful ever grow. Also, my industrial lots only seem to grow a few of my downloaded ones but the rest are still the games default. My Plugins folder is very well orgianized by author. Textures are in a one folder, props in another, bats and lots in single folder. Thanks for your help.

[Tolomar 5]

growth stage is hard to tell as most of the staged buildings appear as % chance for city population (include about every factor from Demand CAPS ,Education, zoning, Tax rates, pollution, comute times etc etc to take into effect) when Dirk gets the omnibus section up there are tutorials and charts to help you out...or the SC4Tool program has a data base of the original buildings for reference.. .:S
basicly  aprox: RES & COM

stages 1-3 pop 2,500
stages 4-6 pop2,5001-15,000 (water needed)
stage 5-7 pop 15,001-50,000 (water needed)
stage 8 50,000+  (water needed)
100K you should have several or a few stage 8's (ps most are 4x4 zoned buildings)
AGRI & IND:
stages 1-3 appear at almost any population... stages are reached for all 4 quite easily (Agri, HT-ind,Manf-ind, D-ind)...just need proper zoning, the demand and frieght conection...stage 2-3 for  Manf and D IND need water, all of HT-ind needs water, none for Agri

higher population = % chance of higher growth stages+ higher building=higher population etc etc, mods you play with can change this...drasticly

so % chance...you can get higher buildings if conditions are right and lower population....or you can have a city with 100K dominater by stage 1-3 building also...if condition are right and the game picks a particular building it happens to like that round....get ready for the clone wars with the bulldozer...:s

there are three mods I know of that together can block the original Maxis buildings:
Agriculture Blocker - GrampaAL
Tilesetmod - Tropod
Industry- Blocker - (Maker eludes me ATM>:S)


not even going to tattempt a link...:S