Humpty

I'm working on the big city in my region, with a current population of 303,000. It is directly connected to an industrial park to the north (entirely dirty industry) and a suburb to the south (entirely residential, pop. 145,000). The big city has about 150,000 commercial jobs and another 10,000 industrial (all high-tech). It has suddenly started losing lots of population and unemployment has swept through town. The low-wealth sims are unemployed, instead of traveling the short distance north to the industrial park. None of my sims are commuting there, and it is hurting the city. Although the entire map is highly desirable to all development types, I can't seem to attract high wealth. What could be my problem?

Thanks for all the replies guys. I like the idea of a river emptying to the ocean, but am horrible at terraforming =\

Thanks, I guess i'm just impatient. And yes I'm aware that I can zone higher density, but I like growing out before I grow up. I tend to like taking up the whole map with low density first and then going back over and re-zoning. Is this an inefficient method? When should I start zoning medium/high density?

Sorry if there's already a topic on this, I did a search and nothing came up. I'm having trouble with health and education. I started a city with the intention of making my populous as healthy and educated as possible. I placed both an elementary school and high school from the start, and as my city expanded, I kept placing new schools in new neighborhoods. Now with a population of 17,900, I have 4 elementary schools, 3 high schools, 2 libraries, and a museum I also have 1 city college and 1 university. 19 years have passed and my Sims are still dumb as doorknobs. The schools are all fully funded and every sim is within a school's zone. How long does it take to educate the sims? I'm also having trouble with health. Every sim in my city is within the ambulance range of a hospital, all the hospitals are fully funded, yet the whole town is in poor health. I'm not sure what more I can possibly do?

No I mean put the CBD on one side and mix in a little hi-density res and then put the bulk of the res on the other side with some low/med-density commercial (neighborhood stores and whatnot)

What is a CJ?

I've been debating with myself -- build a city across a river, Res on one side, Comm on the other, or build a city on a coastline, starting in the middle and sprawling out towards the water? What do you guys think is the better approach?

What is 'CBD?'

Thanks for the advice guys. So basically start in the middle of the map and sprawl outwards, and as the city grows, throw more transportation at it than it can handle. I actually dreamed about the game last night (weird huh?) and a nice pattern for a highway system hit me - a few rings in the middle of town and then stretches of highway coming from all 4 neighbors, intersecting in the middle of town. So I'll try that. What about buses? Where should I place bus stops?

I am absolutely horrible at long-term layout planning for my cities. I have no problems with demand or budget (I always turn a substantial profit within a few years and my RCI is always through the roof) but by the time my cities reach ~80-90k in population, I have sims fleeing due to commute times and gridlocked traffic all over town. What's the best approach? Should I just force myself to keep all commercial in the center of town, downtown, and have the residential spread out from there? I always start in the corner of the map and spread out as demand calls for it, just placing zones as I need them. If you look at the "zoning" data view for my cities, they look like patchwork quilts of varying shades of green and purple. I'm so lost.