Canarsie Pol: Cute R$ District on a Tourist Island and Bedroom Community

My tourist island and bedroom community, Carnarsie Pol, East New York, has just reached 18,000 population, as at simdate July'12, and we were offered our Radio Station, yay!  

While I'm not averse to using Ctrl+X  you don't deserve it , especially for getting the Large High School and Large Elementary School during my initial city planning, for this island city and bedroom community, I wanted to get all my rewards with economic gameplay.  I wanted my Radio Station for two reasons:

1. It lifts R$$ residential caps by 9000.  Being a tourist island and bedroom community, I don't actually need the 9000 manufacturing caps relief it also provides.
2. It offers a plaza landmark effect for boosting commercial YIMBY, with ZERO park residential YIMBY value.

Why would I want ZERO residential YIMBY, you ask?  Because this is the low wealth R$ side of my tourist island, and any residential YIMBY is likely to cause unwanted gentrification of the neighbourhood.  There's over 11,000 low wealth R$ residents on Canarsie Pol, and most of them live on the left half of this screenshot.

I've never done such a pretty low-wealth neighbourhood before, but notice that while there's lots of trees, there's not a single park within reach of the low wealth R$ dwellings.  Even the roundabout is filled with trees, not a park.  The commercial zonings clustered around the Fly-swat ferry loop have three Small Park Greens, and three Small Plazas, but those 1x1 YIMBY plops are carefully positioned to avoid YIMBY value for the local residents.

Low wealth R$ sims don't want parks, not even a 1x1 plop of Open Grass Area, which cause land values to rise too high for them to afford.  Actually, the biggest thing that low wealth sims appreciate is bus stops, and jobs!  That one moderately big 3x2 high-rise tenement has 734 R$ commuters who all use the bus stop just across the street.  Another thing that R$ sims deeply appreciate (in fact all sims appreciate), is fast roads.  On this screenshot, I've delivered that with a large OWR-2 loop road, RHW-2 highway overpass, and a very simple compact suburban RHW-2 diamond interchange.

There's just one vacant R$ building, and a large part of the reason there are few vacancies, is because many of my R$ residents join the other 2206 sims on the island who commute intercity using one of the three ferries.  While there are 100 sims employed at the local Sea Port, almost 600 local manufacturing (I-M) jobs, and 370 C$ low wealth commercial jobs, there are many, many more manufacturing (I-M) jobs waiting a short bus ride from the ferry terminal in my nearby Breezy Point city tile, and the Canarsie Pol R$ sims know it.

With 11,000 of the 18,000 population here being low wealth R$, I found that having low wealth sims on the island forms a key part of my early economic strategy.  More low-wealth sims will pack into a smaller space early in the game, and these R$ sims provide over 60% of the road traffic that fuels C$$ commercial growth of the businesses that line most of the busiest avenues and highways.  That's one of the big economic factors driving my R$ sims to the ferries, and an economic issue I'll be watching carefully.  The early boom of C$ commercial has been overtaken by C$$ and C$$$ businesses, depriving R$ sims of local jobs on the island.

Building my Low Wealth R$ Neighbourhood on Canarsie Pol

In January'00, during my city planning stage, I planted all those trees, so that the transient aura effect would have faded by the time my R$ residents were ready to move in.  Thank you, @cogeo, for teaching me the name of that technique!

For the first three years, I kept the R$ tax rate at 20%.  I wanted time for my R$$ and R$$$ sims to move in to the more desirable neighbourhoods first, so that most of the R$ sims would build homes on this screenshot.  Due to the transient aura effect from the trees, some R$$ and R$$$ sims did come and build their houses in the R$ neighbourhood, but I bulldozed them all.  I also bulldozed every high tech industrial (I-HT) that grew on the island.  I want my few industrial zones on the island to grow manufacturing (I-M) lots, because they provide many R$ low wealth jobs.

My tax strategy for Canarsie Pol is weighted heavily in favour of manufacturing (I-M), over high tech (I-HT) and dirty industry (I-D).

At January'03, I put the R$ tax rate down to 9.5%, letting large numbers of R$ sims into my city, a rising tide, but not the flood that would occur at 9.0% tax rate.  Some of them went and built little tenements in more desirable areas, but most of them came and lived here in this screenshot.

For another three years, while watching the R$ sims build their houses, I allowed the few dirty industry (I-D) growables clustered around the Sea Port to remain.  They provided large numbers of low wealth jobs, and the growing pollution kept the higher wealth R$$ and R$$$ sims away.  The 20% tax money on dirty industry (I-D) was kinda nice, too.  

Then at January'06, I bulldozed all the dirty industry (I-D).  I had to bulldoze some of them a second time ... persistent things, those dirty industry lots, even at I-D tax rate of 20%.  Manufacturing (I-M) lots took their place, replacing dirty industry (I-D) low wealth jobs with manufacturing (I-M).  I watched with vigilant eye, making sure that dirty industry (I-D) and high tech (I-HT) didn't come back, waiting with my finger on the bulldoze button!  

I did all those cute little row houses and tiny tenements using striped, checkerboard, and higgledy-piggledy zoning techniques, and that was another way of keeping R$$ and R$$$ sims away, as they prefer larger lots.  When the neighbourhood was full, I then rezoned a few groups of 3x2 row houses for high density, allowing them to be merged, and that medium sized tenement high-rise grew.

Residential Caps Relief

While I didn't use any cheats or mods to produce this economic prosperity, I did use my knowledge of residential caps relief to boost the population over the 18,000 mark.

While the Radio Station is very useful, providing 9000 R$$ caps relief, there's something even more powerful, a very cheap 1x1 plop ... the Small Flower Garden.  While moderately expensive in plop cost, it's monthly cost is extremely cheap, the same monthly cost as a 1x1 Open Grass Area, and each 1x1 Small Flower Garden provides a whopping 4000 residential caps relief!

They have high residential YIMBY value, too, over a very wide radius, and there are many of them plopped in my R$$$ neighbourhoods.  Their one failing is that they have zero landmark commercial YIMBY value.

As you can see, they make very kitschy fillers for my cute little 3x3 OWR-2 roundabouts, perfect for the image of a little tourist island.

To push it over the line, however, I kinda went overboard in a TOTALLY WEIRD spot.  This bit is a tad unrealistic ... but it got the job done for getting little Canarsie Pol to 18,000 population.

12 Small Flower Gardens all in a neat square near my windfarm and water pump.  Only §60 a month to maintain in total, but delivering 48,000 in residential caps relief!

That 4x4 spot will eventually house my Resort Hotel, when it comes, but until then it plays host to a host of Small Flower Gardens.  

Here's the really funny thing, those 12 Small Flower Gardens will do MUCH MORE than the Resort Hotel, for lifting residential caps.  I've actually got a sum total of 18 Small Flower Gardens on this little tourist island.  Much overlooked.  Incredibly useful.

My  City Beautification  budget is already §790 a month, but worth every penny.  It's actually one more vital piece of my economic strategy for this little tourist island and bedroom community.  I've burned through §491,000 of my startup loan, but my little island city is now running a positive cashflow, §6,406 in expenses, §6,468 in income.

It's all set to grow with incoming intercity commuters, and very soon, my regional ferry loops will start seeing tourist traffic off the Eternal Commuter Bug, further boosting commercial growth and prosperity for this little island community.