City Name

-Intercity commuting is buggy (eternal commuter bug, etc) -Lack of shared regional assets like airports, universities, etc. -The fact that el-rails and monorails cannot be built atop roads. I know the NAM has a limited amount of el-rail over road puzzle pieces, but this functionality should've been built into Rush Hour. I mean, the entire point of elevated transit networks is so you can build them over existing rights of way, like streets. Having to dedicate an additional right of way to build elevated rail rather defeats the purpose. -Bus stops and subway stops take up their own tile. This is unrealistic. The RTMT addon solves this somewhat, but it has its limitations.

I do not own the Prima guide for SC4, but in my experience Prima Guides are usually rife with inaccuracies, and many times patches or mods change the game parameters and make even an accurate guide obsolete. I'd say stick with the Internet, but I don't have this particular guide, so take that FWIW.

if you zone higher densities immediately for resdential, my experience shows that you will deal with traffic problems, job shortages, overcrowded schools and hospitals, and other bad things. It's good in general to build out before you build up. Unless I'm on a large tile, I try to fill the entire city tile before I zone medium or high-density R. Medium and high-density C doesn't pose these problems (except traffic), since they won't develop unless there's demand, anyway. So, I suggest making higher-density R once you run out of room for lower-density R, and higher density C once demand warrants it. But, if you think you can handle the increased traffic and demands on services, and can provide enough jobs (especially for high-wealth sims; since they will only work at certain places, medium and high-density R$$$ ususally abandons due to lack of jobs unless I have a large city), then you can zone higher density whenever you want. It's up to you.

I am having a problem with one of my cities not developing CO$$$ buildings. The demand bar for such buildings is near the maximum, and I have plenty of vacant commerical tiles in high-desirability areas. Yet, in my city of ~42,000, there is but one CO$$$ building employing about 50 Sims. This lack of CO$$$ jobs is greatly constrainimg my ability to attract medium and high-wealth sims. Any suggestions on how to fix this problem? PS I am using the June 2009 version of the NAM with the Z Simulator-Low plugin.

So roundabouts increase commute time at uncongested intersections, but what about congested intersections? I think they could possibly have an advantage there.