X-Static

I think a lot of people don't realize that the lack of grid placement in this game affects the amount of room that you have in your city. Unless you have perfectly straight roads, you have to watch how far apart or close together you place your roads and buildings. If you place your roads to close together, buildings don't have room to expand. If you place them too far apart, the buildings expand to maximum capacity and now you have no room in between for anything else. You have to be pretty precise because all of the unused space in between adds up quickly.

I've had a couple of thoughts come about since I made my first post... A control for tuition costs in the dialogue box for the university itselft? Maybe something like that of the trade depots? Also, what about zoning for universities and let educational institutions develop the zoned land? Then have a separate tax for universities and even community colleges. Maybe an idea for the next SC. Since frats pop up in high-wealth residential areas(even though it's rare), you could profit from the taxes. I guess that's the only current way to profit from a university... but even that won't cover the hourly cost of running the Uni.

So, my city population has grown to about 200k. A while back, I built my university, which is now at level 6 with about 5,000 students. It has 3 dorms and schools of Engineering, Science, and Law. I'm spending about $7,000/hr on it and my overall revenu is around -$700/hr, which is fine since I make up for it with trading. It seems like there should be a way to profit from universities. Is there anything I'm missing? I personally think they should add a feature to control tuition costs. Any ideas?

So, I've had my recycling center running for a while now. Just recently, it has stopped working. It says "No recyclables, production stopped." My pop. is 195k with 0/75k recycling bins collected per day. Anyone know what could be causing this?

I have my main city(we'll call it city A) that has about 130k sims. This city has barely any natural resources. I claimed another city in the region(we'll call it city B) that has lots of coal, ore, etc. In city A, I have run out of room for my water pumps since they keep drying up and I hate to have to demolish residential areas. I decided to build a couple of large water pumps in city B so that city A could buy the water and demolish their existing pumps. City B has an excess of about 400KG's of water. I go to city A and go to region view, then water and buy water from city B, but it says city B has only about 20KG's available. This also happens with power. Any ideas as to what's causing this?

I realize this has probably been posted about dozens of times, but I just can't seem to improve my traffic problems. My population is currently approximately 125,000 sims. I have several high density avenues, all with streetcars, throughout my city. I have plenty of streetcar stops around the city and my streetcar depot is upgraded with garages to their fullest capacity. I also have a bus depot, which is also upgraded to the fullest capacity. There are also plenty of bus stops around the city. Every single one of my streets have been upgraded to high density. I have huge traffic jams all over the city. Are there any other ways to improve traffic? TIA.

So several years ago, I purchased a retail copy of Sim City 4 Deluxe. Back then, I had been using it on Windows XP, which had worked fine. For some reason I felt an urge to play this game again but I now have Windows 7 Home Premium. When I run the first install disc, I enter the activation code and the installation starts normally. Then, it gets to around 25% complete and I get an error that goes something like "Could not copy *some map file* from the media" or something like that. It only happens when it gets to the San Francisco region files. Is there some way I could fix this? Is it possible to install this game manually?(i.e. copying files from the cd's)

Ok thanks. Another question... I'm trying to build a successful region. My main city has all different RCI zones. If my industrial zone is on the northwest side of the map which is all high tech, will a dirty industrial zone in the neighboring city lower land values for the main city?

If I build two different cities in the same region that are right next to eachother, will sims have the option to commute from city to city?