How to grow a city properly?

[Cassey 0]

I just recently got SC4, and being away from sim city for great stretches of time (Last one i really played was sc2k, like 7 years ago now, or so) i've sort of become rusty.  Plus with the added complexity of commute times and road congestion and such, i'm struggling to get my first city to succeed.  I'm thinking of just wiping the entire thing and trying again, since i'd like to do a CJ on my experiences.

With that being said, I'm having major trouble remembering how to grow a city organically.  In my region the city I'm trying to build is going to be a major commercial hub for the region.  I started by defining a down town area, building industry fairly far away and residential a safe distance away.  I guess it was sort of like trying to kick start a major metropolis, however, it sort of fizzled out.  I was forced to rebuild much of the industry closer in, as well as commercial.  Roads became saturated quickly, with everyone in the city hitting the same road at the same time, or atleast appeared to be saturated.

So I built another residential area, and made a few commections and the downtown commercial area slowly began to grow.  I would add on and build more, with the downtown area  expanding and basically overtaking both residential areas (yes, its huge) and the more demand grew, the bigger buildings i would build.  I realised I made a huge mistake when I built a community  of high-density apartments fairly far and the roads and avenues got saturated.  I had built highways by this time, but the access roads from the new communities of high rises were so saturated that it didn't matter.

I rebuilt the roads, not wanting to tear down the population.  I started rebuilding down town into a grid like most, 6x6 squares with various sizes of buildings just waiting for high rises, but it wasn't much good.  A couple higher rises went in, but they were flagged by long commute times.  I built high-density apartments around the core, while fixing the road network to be a grid, but even those buildings would be flagged as no work, when there's businesses within a couple squares.

So any tips on either salvaging this situation, or tips on how to start over and get a good growth city going, where I can work and experiment with terraforming (which is a lof of fun, especially what some people manage to do in the CJ's) and road mods to make it working better, without suffering from the bad commute times.

So should I try to salvage this city (only 135k people) or wipe it and start fresh?

Thanks!

[+Guest Mayor#1]

If you are wanting your city to be a robust commercial metropolis, you have quite a job on your hands. i just finished a city that's a huge commercial hub. A population of about 800,000 to be exact.

Firstly, you might wanna check out NAM at the STEX. It is my opinion that Maxis did not properly account for commute time. NAM has a few plugins you will love. Like enhancing your networks, and increasing speeds and capacity. YOU will want that. for a city of 800,000 people. It is really difficult to have a sufficient network without going almost completely broke. Get Nam

Now for the actual city building part...

It sounds to me like this is just one big city. Well, at 145,000 people I am pressed hard to believe that not all your citizens have 45,000 commercial jobs correct? (Which is when your C$$ and C$$$ really start popping up)

What you want to do, is first, focus on how many jobs your sims actualy have in the industrial sector, and slowly work your way up to a full blown commercial metropolis. How I did this was quite a mindfull task. Keeping my R$$$ taxes around 9.5-9.8, I allowed my R$ and R$$ to rule the city for the first half century of my city. I would then add the needed Industrial zones. Yes commercial was in demand, but the amount needed to get the really big buildings. Towards the end of the century, my I-HTECH started really progressing, and the level of my average education in the whole region was over 100. I noticed, that CO$$ and C$$ really started becoming popular, because most of the population in my city was R$$. Which what you want in all cities.

Peorth best said, that you want your R$$ to greatly outnumber your R$$$ and R$. It's the biggest class in the game, and you want to take advantage of it. The more R$$ you have in your region, the more options you will have with R$$$ and C$$$ development. So keep your R$$ level's at an all time high. Maybe reserve some spaces for R$$ so that the other wealth's don't grow. (That's where that handy historical button comes in)

One other thing I might want to point out, is that you should really take advantage of the region system Simcity 4 has to offer. The entire reason why I am able to have a succesfull city with lots of C$$$, is because I devoted some city's to that dirty, filthy industry and R$ sims. I promise you, if you devote a city to those dirty industries you will have no problem growing your city. This includes keeping I-M away too. Let's say you just zoned for R maximum density. And you are overwhelmed with R$ buildings. You should already have I-D and maybe some I-M available because Sim's do not stay in one wealth if you educated them. They will move up, leaving the dirty jobs behind for new ones, thus letting even more R$ have jobs until they are able to move up. Mind, that too much is not all that bad. Just make sure you match your zoning for I, for the population growth you are getting. In fact if you are done gaining R$ sims, and you have to much Industry you may demolish that industry.

The most important thing about Simcity 4, is balance. If you learn how to balance the scales of your city, you should have no problems. I hope this helps. If it's misleading in anyway, please tell me.

[Cassey 0]

Actually, your tips helped greatly. I have NAM and a bunch of other mods, like Transit Supermod, and while Perfect mapping kills my system, Better seems to be alright. Along with that and some more efficient bus stops and other things, the sims can get around better.

I also built a few more schools, making sure the coverage is well there, and built some museums and librarys. When my city was smaller I had all of them, but i guess i forgot about them as I grew. I built them and let the game run on fast mode for awhile, and built more industry. I'll try to sift out the different types later, but for now just making sure all the sims have better jobs. My population has also boomed with some more high density building near the core, its over 160k now.

Thanks for the tips

[aminom 0]

I'm rather new to simcity 4 as well and had many of the same problems. I feel as if I am beginning to get a hold of the game. The main key is to not grow to quickly; zone low and medium density ONLY to start for commercial and residential, then at you try to reach 100,000 sims and beyond, zone a few high-density R, but not any commercial. This is to allow the education of the medium-density R zones to get very high which will transfer when you zone the density of the zone up. so you won't get delapidation or outright abandonment as much. Similarly for C, if you have a bunch of high-denisty and little mid, as demand waxes and wanes you may end up with ugly delapidation. A city with a few occupied C and R towers and much more lower denisty is a whole lot more efficient and visually appealing than a skyscraper forest with half of the "trees" completely black and with rolling cycles of delapidation.

In the end,You should have a good amount of commercial and indistrual sprawl but a semi-compact residential region(s) that allows to maximize all those fussy services residential needs, as well as giving you more direct control over commute routes.

Regional play is almost essential. I've played with specialty cities but find that completely specializing a city can make for many headaches. It's better to have cities that are heavy in C, R, or I, but still have some of the other types as well. For example, in one region I've just started, the first one I filled is a complete mix of all types of R, C, and I, with no high-density R or C. Due to an inbalance during its development where were roming waves of unemployed R$$$ that caused one part of the city to have delapidation to R$$. I Still need to fix the delapidation even though it is now stable. The second is heavy in commercial services and high-tech, with many of the high-tech jobs claimed by the first city.

The most recent city features a single residental area a fourth of the map in size. Completed, all of the residental buildings are zoned for high-density, and many are towers, wit some midrises, and no delapidation. There's lots of commercial office, with some high-density, and mild office delapidation. There's also extensive high-tech with no other industry as early the jobs from the second city supported the learning populace while the R zoning was still medium density. All cities are connected with heavy rail and dedicated high-speed bus lines using the ANT network which cars do not travel upon.

[zane900 1]

You basicly are asking us how to play the game. We can't explain all of that in thousends of posts.

[Peorth 18]

Peorth best said, that you want your R$$ to greatly outnumber your R$$$ and R$. It's the biggest class in the game, and you want to take advantage of it. The more R$$ you have in your region, the more options you will have with R$$$ and C$$$ development. So keep your R$$ level's at an all time highquote>

Wow, someone remembers something I said!

Anyway, to illustrate, here's what you should be aiming for:

Note the large amount of R§§'s compared with R§'s or R§§§. This is consistent with the real-world scenario of a well-developed city wherein most are office workers (R§§'s), a fair amount of clerks, janitors, etc. (R§'s), and only a few CEOs and executives (R§§§'s).

aminom, zoning in high-density has little to do with dilapidation. In fact, I've built large cites with purely high-density R and C zones which have very minimal to zero dilapidation. This observation is an artifact of growth suppression caused by low or mid-density zoning. Raise your R§§§ taxes and keep your transport network free of congestion to prevent dilapidation.

[Cassey 0]

Originally posted by: zane900 You basicly are asking us how to play the game. We can't explain all of that in thousends of posts.quote>

Actually, if i was asking you how to play the game, I would have.  I just asked for tips on how to fix a bad situation, which I managed to do.

Thanks for the tips all of you.  They have helped a ton to get my city running better.  Its still not perfect, but better than it was.

[+Guest Mayor#1]

Another thing, (This is something I am soon to do) Is get some CJ's up. I would like see your work. Pictures speak so much louder than words, and will give anyone who wishes to help, a good idea.

Wow, someone remembers something I said!quote>

You have really helped me in this regard. You need to be credited

I mean it's such a fundemental part of Simcity 4, that a lot of people might not know about. Especialy if they are switching from Simcity 2k or 3k.

[jackel.22 3]

for faster growth, use multiple cities.

eg. use the main one your focussing on, then build up the cities surrounding that one. play them alternatly and you will find that they build up a hell of a lot quicker.

and you may want to dedicate one city entirely to industry and take all the existing industry out of your orignal city and dump it in the dedicated one. this way in your commercial and residential cities you dont have to deal with pollution so much since the factories are all in another city.

try to get a marina, they are brilliant for unlocking stuff from u drive it quicker then achieving the stuff.