Estanton22

Interesting...

I have seen this design before, I think it was from a SC3000 plan someone had posted years ago. It is a somewhat standard/boring pattern, but if you like the design have fun with it. Like PDMX said, maybe once you include your mass transit network it will be more interesting. Have fun developing!

I'm new to the website, and this is the first CJ I read, but I think this is great story line and will definitly come back to find out what happens with your Loughlians.

I was looking for a thread about this; I had been wondering what that meant. Thanks.

A great actress!

Wow, there are many many things it could be. I would need to see your city to know more, but I'll give you some ideas. Enact many of the ordinaces. Many of them will increase the mayor rating, as well as help with education, health... etc. Also try placing the rewards you have received. Many of those also help to increase the mayor rating, as well as the other things. Also, you might need or want to build more parks and such. These also increase mayor rating as well as help clean up some polution and increase land value. Hope this helps!

Basically you need all types of I, C and R in your city (or region). If you don't want Dirty I in your main city, put it in a neighbor. As the city and region develope, Dirty industry will become less in demand, and HT and Manu will increase, its all part of developement. I rarely lower taxes for any sector. It will cause a short term increase in demand, but once the demand is satisfied you are left in the same situation. As per education. I build a good network of elementary schools and libraries. I also provide plenty of museums and the university. Also, be sure to have the Pro-Reading and Junior Sports ordinances enacted. When you get the main library, major art museum, opera.... be sure to include those as well. I rarely build high schools as I find they are expensive and don't increase education levels much. I usually have education levels around 200. When you mae new zones, just give them some time to increase in education, it happens rather quickly.

What I usually do is build a seperate city for R$. I zone it dense, create lots of people, then play my main cities of R$$ and R$$$, you should see a good increase in demand. Aslo in my poor city, I create a lot of CS$ and CS$$ jobs as well ad Dirty and Manufacturing industry. This should also help to create demand for the CO and HT industry in your other city.

Is there any unemployment in your residencial city? Maybe your Sims just don't need the jobs yet since the pop is so small. You could also try running the simulation for a while, sometimes it just takes awhile for things to register.

Your Sims are going to travel only if they need a job, and that job is not too long to travel too (i.e. commute time). So, your Sims won't travel from the 2nd tier cites to the main cities, nor vise-versa, if you have provided what they need in the other cities or if the transportation network isn't designed to fit the needs of the Sims. You could create a wonderful transportation network, but if it doesn't address the needs of the Sims, they won't use it. My advise is not to try to force your Sims to do much, the Sims are very stupid in this game and will not do what you want. Check your traffic map and other city information and work with the Sims in areas that need attention. And like spectrumtech said, spend time. Take it slow, learn from mistakes, try new things, don't be afraid to scrap something and redo it, real-life cities do it all the time. Good luck.

Dary_SLO, you should have created a new discussion thread for your question as it is unrelated to the current discussion. However, plazas are needed by commercial zones just as parks are needed by residencial. Plazas help to increase desirability and demand for commerce. As per tycoonsimraider123, I sometimes have the same problem, but if I let the simulation run for a few months the problem clears itself up; the no-road zots disappear and development occurs normally. I have no idea why this happens, but mabye you just need to let the simulation run for awhile.

If you are running the legalize gambling ordinace, stop. The ordinace doesn't provide much money and does increase crime. The crime levels aren't huge, but it will help. What type of police stations are you using? Are they all the same? Try placing one of the big stations with the helicopter, this also helps to reduce some crime, though costs more and takes up a bit more space. What is the population of your city? And what is the exact rate of crime?

1. Laying zoned lots drives me crazy in the version of the game because the game pre-programs and size and shape of the lots too much. Many times I'll zone something and not notice that the game changed the zone slightly, and nothing will develope because its an undesireable size. 2. I hate how stupid the Sims are. What idiot takes sides streets to commute three cities away when a prefectly good highway is a few streets over? 3. Delapitation/ Abandonment 4. Education and Hospital Bus and Ambulance Ranges 5. What happened to the preforming arts center? Cities usually have this before an opera. 6. Seeing the same building a thousand times in my region (same goes for parks, schools... etc) 7. Traffic requirement for CO buildings. Seriously, how many actual customers are visiting a company's HQ? And the list goes on and on, yet, SC4 is a vast improvement upon SC3000.

Toronto is smaller than NY, but it is certainly not a small city. Toronto is a big city, and many people who dislike NY for its size will also dislike Toronto for the same reason.

"The two firms own or guarantee almost half of all US home loans - more than $5 trillion (£2.5 trillion) of debt." "Investors welcomed the news, sending Freddie Mac's shares up 17.6% and Fannie Mae's up 24.9% at the start of Wall Street trade." The major reason US home loans are faltering is that these, and many other companies, gave people loans that they should not have had. They gave them loans for too much money with too high of a risk, that, based on household income, people did not have the proper resources to receive. But, since the economy was doing well, and businesses are left relatively unchecked by the government, the loans were approved and the businesses grew. The problem comes when the economic cycle starts to come full circle and suddenly people can't pay, loans go bad, and businesses start loosing money. Now, that the businesses are in trouble, Unlce Sam wants to finally do something. Use our tax money to support businesses that created their own poor situation. The fact that the shares in these companies rose by double digits is sickening. Those investors should have seen this problem coming and stopped supporting these businesses years ago, or at least put preassure on them to change their ways. If these companies truely own or guarantee their home loans like they claim, they should need no assistance from the taxpayer. Where was the governement to help the average American when Enron, WorldCom, etc imploded and billions of dollars of middle class investments and life savings were suddenly gone? Why is the governement so ready to help deep pocketed investors and CEOs but not the average American? The average American did not create this economic and home loan industry problem, the investors and CEOs did; but by all means, give them more money.

Certainly people who are hunters use their guns in a way generally considered to be constructive. Rarely are these guns used to harm other people, and unfortunately these instances are usually accidents; i.e. a teenager getting a hold of his dad's loaded gun, or a hunter making a mistake. Hunters, as was mentioned, do need to have multiple guns as well as bow n' arrows for hunting different type of game, and therefore should be allowed their guns after getting proper approval and licenses. However, when we begin talking about the Second Amendment and the "right to bear arms," things become cloudy. Normally people use the Second Amendment as a way to support the right to own various types of hand guns, saying they are necessary for protection. But if we think about the wording, right to bear arms, what exactly does that mean? At the time the document was written, the technology had only evolved to include early guns. Today, we have everything from rifles, to grenades, to hydrogen bombs; all of which are considered "arms." Thus, why is there no great national debate about the right of the average American to bear a hydrogen bomb; because people universally agree that they are dangerous in the hands of the wrong person. The same standard should be applied to guns. They are dangerous in the hands of the wrong person. I don't believe that guns should be completely banned; the majority cause no problems and give people entertainment in collections or at the shooting range. However, we need to closely examine who is getting guns what kinds are available to them. Strong, organized and enforced laws are restrictions are need to control the use and availability of guns; but they should be available.

Make sure you have enough jobs for the population. Its fine to provide all types of jobs to all the Sim levels, but if you have a large R$ population that is uneducated and only a few dirty industrial jobs, this is going to cause unemployment. Also, try to attract the correct jobs to the correct Sims. If rich educated Sims live on one side of the city, but the jobs they want are of the other, this could also cause the problem. For a city of 25,000 I don't use much mass transit. Make sure you have a good road system that includes a few avenues. Make sure your zones are not too big. In my main cities, I zone within a range of 4x4 to 5x8. Usually on the smaller side. Sims love to drive, and will use their cars when ever possible, so instead of trying to fight that, I try to work with it. The thing I find easiest, and most enjoyable to play, is to have seperate cities for seperate Sims. For example, R$ and manufacturing and dirty industry in one city, R$$ and CO$$ next door... etc, and then rotate between playing your regional cities and feed off of demand created from the neighboring city.

Buffalo, NY maybe isn't the worst, but it should definitly get a nod of the head. Both Frederick Law Olmsted and Joseph Ellicott worked to plan the park and road systems in the city, but much has be done to ruin thier visions. The convention center, which it small for the size of the city, majorly disrupted the traffic pattern and left a major blockage in Ellicott's design. Now that there is a major drive to renew our cities, Buffalo wants to restore the traffic plan and build a decently sized convention center. Buffalo also thought that allowing a giant Indian casino to be built in a largely impoverished city would spark a major city revivial... surprising this has yet to be realized. There is some progress, but based mainly on State aid and tax abatements. There is a highway running the entire lenght of the lake shore, cutting off access to the lake from most parts of the city. And the New York Intersate sort of makes a terminous in Buffalo with a giant highway mess that continually backs-up at the toll booths. Not to mention the submerged ground highway that makes splits in a Y with one fork turning at roughly 90 degree angle while the other a gentel 60. And there's more... basically the highway systems blows and the original famous city designs have been left with gaping holes.

This is a very broad topic to respond to, so I'll give you a few hints. It is good to use multiple types of transportation within regional cities, as your population grows the traffic will increase, sometimes dramatically, and this will help to reduce constraints. A good transportation system also works in increase demand shared amungst regional cities. Though its nice to have cities with only R$$ and R$$$, its not realistic. This version of Sim City was designed to much more accurately simulate an American city, which, as we all know, has plenty of R$. So I would suggest that you set aside a few cities in your region to have R$, this will only help to increase demand for other R in the cities next to it. 6x6 is a good idea, but I one trick I have found to get the really big/tall 4x4 office and residencial buildings is to zone 4x4 dense commercial and surround this by roads. Try to make sure the zoning arrows face the road with the most traffic, and enjoy seeing your skyline bloom. Hope this helps!

There is no zone specifically for R$$. Poor, middle class and rich people will live on any of the three residencial zone densities. One thing that could be causing you to have unsteady demand is that you have reached a cap. If thats the case, some buildings might become abandoned, lowering the population and possibly increasing the demand. But, once the demand is satisfied again and the population has increased again, demand might fall and buildings might become abandoned.... thus the cycle you seem to be facing. To try to increase your cap: make sure you have plenty of parks and recreational, educational and health facilities throughout the residencial areas. If you have any reward buildings you haven't placed, there are a number of those that help slightly to increase residencial demand. Some ordinances also help increase it slightly, and low crime and garbage levels don't hurt. A good transportation system, especailly with regional cities, can also be very helpful. You mentioned that there is plenty of commerce, but what about industry? Hope this helps!

Yes, customers are based on the amount of traffic that passes the building. Most importantly however, it depends on the amount of traffic on the road that the zone's arrows point to. So, if you have a 4 x 4 zone surrounded by roads with a lot of traffic on one side, but the arrows are pointing to a different side, this will not produce a lot of customers. The zone's arrows always point to the biggest road, so they will point to an avenue as opposed to a street. You can try pausing the game, dezoning the space, demolish the roads with low traffic, rezone in hopes the arrows will now face a road with high traffic, and rebuild the demolished roads. Hope this helps!