mrdahjr

Working on getting a pic ready. Has a name not appropriate for posting, so I'm editing it out.

Nope rail isn't used. I just created a bare-bones city with its own industrial zones and residents. Simple and easy layout, very small. Connected the industrial area to the residential with an avenue and the same problem happened. I bulldozed the avenue (no access popped up at this point in the residential zones) and replaced it with a road. Everything came to life. I don't get it.

I've crossed the avenue with roads - it's as if they won't touch it - not even to cross to get to commercial zones that are just across the avenue.

Forgive me if this posting is in the wrong spot... When sifting through the downloads, mods, etc... is there a way to filter out anything that requires Rush Hour? All I have is the basic SC4.

Originally this was a question as to why something has happened in the game - but when I started to post I think I figured it out and now I'm only confirming it: I had started building a city - had two seperate chunks of development. To the north along a coast I had industries. To the south I had residential and commercial. Each had their own road networks but no road connected the residential area to the industrial area. Instead, I had a train connecting the two areas. It worked GREAT at the start. Better than I expected. The only thing I didn't establish is a busing system near the industries. I forgot about that but it still worked somehow. It's my understanding that at the destination side of rails Sims won't walk more than a block or so - but they did. Go figure. So as I said - everything was working better than I expected and I was bringing in MONEY. Profit margin for a 5-6 thousand population was about 1k per month (I think per month). So after this was all established I started placing things like a hospital, a grade school, a library, high school and city college - and I think this is where I went wrong. After placing these things for some time things were OK then all of a sudden I was seeing "no job" pop up all over my residential zones and they appeared to have stopped using the train. Am I correct in thinking that what happened is they (Sims) simply got to smart, wanted better jobs and more importantly stopped using the train because "they didn't want to?" I remember reading somewhere that educated Sims prefer to "drive their fancy cars" or something along those lines. If this be the case: Should I have simply left this city without schools, to keep them an uneducated work force - develop this city as such and have neighboring cities offer schools? I know each city in RL has its poor neighborhoods - and for the most part serves the purpose of cheaper housing. If neighboring cities have schools (a better life) will that equate to the Sims in the poor city abandoning it in favor of the city with schools or will this "poor city" serve its purpose with cheaper housing and dirty industries?

Nope already checked those things. From the creation of the city, they way I planned it - commute times were long. That was one of my concerns so I kept a check on those but they never caused a problem. And the size of the residential area hadn't grown. I got everything to a certain point where I was brining in about 1k a month and let it sit for a while to watch for any problems. Everything worked better than I expected like I said. After a while of watching I started getting messages about the need to clinics, schools... at was at this point that I placed the hospital and schools. Still for some time things went great then all of a sudden up pops the no jobs. I checked the trains - they appeared to have stopped using the train. I did notice after a while it seemed they moved out.. and replaced by new homes/residents. Pop dropped to around 5-6 thousand, down from I think 7 or 8 thousand now that I think of it. Once some new homes popped back in it seems to start turning around. That's why I was wondering if a neighboring city with better services to work together with this city.

NAM? I remember downloading something for transportation a long time ago. I forget what it was though. It may have been that. As far as commute time causing no jobs to pop up - the city seemed quite happy until some time after I placed a grade school, high school and college. I can only assume the period of time after those were placed when they were happy was taking into account the time it takes for Sims to get educated enough to want more. Commute time was long from the start but didn't appear to phase them at all. The no jobs only appeared after some time having the schools placed.

Ok, so does placing ANY school of any kind cause this to happen? I'm thinking what causes this to happen is placing colleges - but is it safe to place grade schools and high schools? I'd like to develop this city as one with poor housing and industries... and provide avenues for a "way out of the neighborhood" to neighboring cities that offer better schooling.. connected by highways, roads or rail? I guess what I'm asking is can neighboring cities work together in this fashion? Can you have poor industrial cities work together with higher educated commercial or hi-tech cities? If this can be done, should I place any schools in the poor city? At what point in Sim education do they start becoming "too smart" for what is developed?

Ok, I've been planting trees.. and yea, it makes a city look nice... BUT, after a while it looks like some of the trees start over as new and parts of the city look bare. They do grow back but it's stupid. Is there a way to stop this and simply have the trees grow and stay grown????

Ok, been searching for ploppable non-growing trees... all I find is those meant for Rush Hour........ Any for SC4 by itself?

I'll hafta see if I can find'm.. seems most everything I've seen is for RH.. which I don't have yet.. planning to get it though at some point in the hopefully not to distant future.

Riiiiiight. Trees do grow old and die, BUT when's the last time you saw a tree die 5 years after it's planted? Barring droughts or disease.. trees should live a LOT longer. Even SIM trees. Suprised nobody's made a mod to fix that.