Dealing with the Great Depression (SC3)

Contributor/author(s): Andy Stuart and Ari Ofsevit

If you've played SC3K a lot, you've probably noticed that every 200-300 years your city suddenly starts losing people, money, and buildings start abandoning all over the map. This is called the Great Depression. It is caused by a reduced pool of workers in your city's population (<50% in the labor force). There are several techniques mayors can use to prevent and minimize the effects of the depression.

The method to prevent the depression is to lower the LE of your Sims. Why? Sims older than 65 are not part of the workforce. By eliminating them from the population, the size of the workforce increases. A city with an LE of 65-70 will have very few if any depressions.

Of course there are problems with lowering your LE. It lowers aura, population and population density. It can also be difficult to do. The simplest thing to do is to reduce or eliminate hospitals. This doesn't always do the trick, especially in a city with very low pollution. At this point you can either introduce pollution--probably a bad idea--or deal with the depression when it hits.

When the depression hits, you probably cannot do anything about the abandoned buildings or lowered population. But you can get your city to keep making money.

To keep earning money requires much mayoral savvy, but it is possible. If you have neighbor deals that cost you money, build facilities (power plants, incinerators, etc.) that allow you to spend less on neighbor deals, which are often far more expensive than taking care of power, water and trash within your borders. Another thing that can make a huge difference is ordinances. Get rid of as many costly ones as possible and enact money-makers such as Legalized Gambling. If you get rid of the right ones, you can make about 10,000 more Simoleons each year. If you can build a prison, mall, casino or chemical plant, do it.

Another thing to do is to try to boost your land values. Build parks, hills and water and your Sims will give you more money in property taxes. (This is a good strategy, regardless.)

If you're still losing money after following these suggestions, raise taxes and cut back on department funding. These should be last ditch options. Of course, don't cut back on your roads because they will become impassable.

Once the workforce is back over 50%, reenact your ordinances and neighbor deals, and destroy the jail, mall, casino and chemical plant. You should be in fine financial shape as you watch the population rebound and the buildings unabandon.

See also
The Great Depression
Avoiding the Great Depression all together
The Great Depression - result of aging population?
Preventing depressions