splur

How's your education Lampala? It should be around 100-120 in the graphs.

If you have other export routes available they'll go to that first. The freight train solution really is only good if you have industrial in the center of the city or if you don't have many other exit routes (same deal with the seaport). Overall I don't even suggest using the freight train, it's rather useless.

None. No schools. Well think about it, who are employed in realistic I-D jobs in a city? The less educated. And remember, if you look at a region in Sim City, technically your map isn't really a single city but part of a larger city. So that section of the city might just not have any schools in the area. Look at Cold War era cities like East Berlin or old Moscow, schools weren't in abundance, neither were living standards, but they were very industrialized cities. I have a city like this and it's simply called 'The Slums' because that's what it looks like.

They'll LOVE the I-D jobs if you don't build schools.

I completely ignored them. It's more of a preference, I know how to deal with commercial-residential cities.

Sorry, don't use NAMs. But to the OP, I just tested the theory. I built a city similar to the open I posted above except no river inbetween. And as I built the commercial zones closer and closer to the residential, I came into more and more problems with people leaving their buildings due to commute time. It might be a glitch in the simcity logic system, though I guess you can argue that if everyone has to travel far... you got little to complain about.

aren't modds and some NAMs just cheats?

Ya, a built up city beside (which is probably the hardest part cause you're starting from scratch, but really you only need one) really really helps. I mean seriously, if you completely build up a city to a high happy educated population and completely neglect the one beside it, you can just go back to the neglected region and go fastest speed. You can watch it grow by itself without complaints. I really don't suggest doing the residential split commercial/industrial region until you have one region beside completely built up (population of over 150k). Otherwise it's impossible. This is the city, residential on one side and commercial on the other, no industrial, though that was my choice. Only ways across are by ferry, subway, bus or tolled car. The other city I made like this had train which they love using (all stations to capacity). Just the zoning. To the right of the commercial area, so I guess west of this city, is the only region it's connected to which has a pop. of 200k. Beside the residential area there isn't a city, they HAVE to travel to the commercial area in town. As you can see, commute time is long for everyone but no complaints. It could be the mass transit system I have thoroughly placed (every other block which you really have to in a densely zoned city), but I'm not sure why they don't care anymore. Other cities I'd have mass transit similar and they'd all throw a fit. Some people don't like this (building up at least) because it's unrealistic. But look at any big city in the US, it's unusual to have a residential within a huge commercial or industrial district.

Well, I have this problem in any big block cities with mixed zones. First things first, don't demolish those abandoned buildings. It'll simply cost you more money and they'll be replaced by another building that'll be abandoned anyways. When it comes back in demand, the building will be populated again and/or be replaced automatically. loveangel actually had the best suggestion to build up your neighboring cities. I'll try to post a picture when I get home, but there's two cities I've made where it's all residential on one side of the river and commercial on the other. Whereas normally the sims would be whining like hell about commute time, none of them are. And ALL of them have to cross the river either by subway, bus, ferry, train, or car to get to work, all of them they have to pay for. (I thank the rush hour tutorial for that technique) It's like they're all happy and my mayor rating is up to 90. Sometimes Simcity doesn't make a load of sense.