MindALot

The dangers of avenues as connections: If you find you have a lot of residential demand and no job/long commute times - check your roads. I found that the silly sims get confused by the avenues going off the map and can't find a route back home. I simple solution I used - which may be bad for commute time (it adds a stop) is to put a road on all the avenue end points, allowing the sims to make a u-turn. After I did this, all of my abandoned houses and no job icons vanished. below is an example, the -> is the 2 lane avenue going off the region, and the | is the 1 space road that "connects" the 2 lanes. Puts in a stop light and allows a u-turn. ----> | ---->

About the 1x1 houses. There is a population min that must be reached (I've read 1100 sims) before the 1x1 lots will be used. Basically, to jump start the process, you need a few 1x2 lots to start off with. If you build a lot of comunities, you will end up with enough 1x2 lots, and then it just jumps - OR, you can build a line or two of 1x2 lots. I don't know if this causes problems later on with wealthy residential though - you may have to dezone the 1x2 lots.