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Thanks Jacky, hope you like this update too. Thanks TekindusT, I think the story is worth reading too. Here's a new update: The letter “Are you becoming a bit lazy?” All is One asked. Mohammed looked puzzled. “I mean, we haven’t had so many unfilled jobs before,” it continued, “and I noticed you didn’t put as much effort in getting all the people to live in the right neighbourhood this time around. The Northern Plains are all right, but when it comes to the rest of the city, you have just let the rich people live where they chose to live, you only bothered about the poor people.” Mohammed opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again and thought about it a second time. Then he spoke: “You’re a bit right; it was a bit out of laziness, but a carefully considered laziness. Before there always was a reason for reworking the entire city when we added a new part to it, cause we needed to know whether we had built the right number of houses, so we could make corrections when developing the next area. Now we have developed the northern part of the Northern Plains and that is at some distance from the rest of the city, so there was no real need to do all of it. We know we have about the right amount of houses in the city, so I decided to leave it be for a while. I’ll rearrange everything again some time in the future, but for now I can spare myself a lot of trouble and still have a city that is well organized.” “But it is annoying, though,” Mohammed continued, “We know there is room enough for everyone in the city. It’s just that some rich people decide to live in poor people’s houses and the poor people that used to live there can’t afford to live in the rich people’s houses. So we end up with lots of apartments that are empty and lots of Have Nots that have to live on the streets, being homeless and unemployed. A city really needs a firm hand to get things well organized, left to its own devices it turns into chaos.” “But still I think you seem to be less focused than you used to be,” All is One continued relentlessly. Mohammed looked annoyed at it and asked: “Oh, why is that?” All is One chirped: “I’ve seen some Fringe and some Blue Collar houses being built right next to each other and no community center anywhere near it. I think you just forgot to build one.” Mohammed smiled a bit. “Oh, you mean that,” he said, “Yes, you’re right, I forgot about it, but only because it was such a difficult area to develop. I had to build a lot of things on such a small area, and it was so hard to get it divided into just large enough neighbourhoods for the different cultures. Even if I had thought about it, there probably would not have been enough room for a community center anyway. And it doesn’t matter much. Everyone agrees that we have a peaceful city. I’ve had no reports of cultural tensions coming from that area.” “Not yet,” All is One chirped scornfully, “but that’s just because you’ve done so well providing all the necessary services, so everyone is so satisfied with their living environments that they forget about harassing their neighbours. But they will, someday, when the city grows larger.” “That might happen,” Mohammed admitted, “but we’re not sure it actually will happen.” All is One protested: “But when it happens there’s nothing you can do about it. You always completely fill up the area and you will have no way of relocating those people to a place where they will not cause trouble, nor will you have room to build a community center there.” Mohammed thought for a while. Then he said hesitatingly: “I guess we could try to move some of those Fringes to the Plains of the Bedouins, and then build a couple of hotels there.” He paused a little while, then started again: “But there’s also no guarantee that that will work.” All is One nodded: “Yes, we’re not certain about that either, but it would be the safest way to go. You can try it and if it doesn’t work you can again rebuild those houses.” Mohammed looked at All is One and said: “That’s a really good advice, I think we should follow it.” “You haven’t kept a promise you made nine years ago,” All is One continued to attack Mohammed, who somehow managed to not get angry. Instead he said in a friendly voice: “You are in a lousy mood today, but I can find it in my heart to forgive you. What promise are you talking about?” All is One didn’t pay attention to Mohammed’s tone and just accused him: “You promised to show better results in terms of population growth, and yet again we only have 1.3 million residents more.” Mohammed sighed, then said something about how hard it is to work with a drone, cause they never forget anything. All is One agreed, but didn’t change its attitude. It kept looking severely at Mohammed, who continued: “That’s probably right, but yet again I make the same promise. Next thing we do is to develop the Plains of the Bedouins, and I’m very sure we’ll have a huge population growth then.” All is One chirped condescendingly that that would be a hard thing to screw up. “Is there anything I did right?” Mohammed asked, “You only seem to be criticizing me.” All is One chirped affirmingly: “You got rid of the Suit tower in the Elite neighbourhood.” Mohammed laughed: “That’s real funny you say that, cause I had nothing to do with that. Some Elites decided to live there and kick the Suits out completely on their own accord. Anything else I might have done right?” All is One said: “No, but you can really do something right this time.” Mohammed didn’t really wonder what was to be discussed next and said: “I guess this is the moment we are going to talk about the subject we have been postponing all the time.” “Yes,” All is One said, “we really have to talk about the letter you received.” “Although I’m not really sure what’s there to talk about,” Mohammed said, “ We received a letter from the newly formed government, co-signed by the mayor of New Mecca and the mayor of New Baghdad, demanding that we, meaning the entire city, leave our heretic ways and return to the enlightened path of the one true faith. Obviously we cannot do that. How do we get almost fifteen million people to follow a religion most of them no longer believe in? We have no police force strong and committed enough to enforce the new laws we would need. And personally I don’t want to give in to their demands; I have found my own enlightened path. So all we learn from the letter is that we stand alone. Mirabella is a haven of freedom in a dark world. And obviously this is a turn of events that was to be expected, especially since I didn’t show up on official occasions to improve relations.” All is One looked at Mohammed with big eyes. It seemed very interested in what he had to say. “And if you know so well which events are to be expected, then what do you see in our future?” it asked. Mohammed looked surprised and said: “I don’t really thought about that, I mean, it was not like I have been foretelling the future, it’s just that I thought that the letter was a logical next step, but only after it had happened. I suppose we keep on building Mirabella into a glorious city, like we agreed a long time ago.” All is One jumped at the opportunity to contradict Mohammed, like it had been waiting for it for a long time. “I can tell you what happens,” it said, “Mira Prime will be filled up with cities, and they’ll all join in the coalition against freedom, against you, and in the end they’ll become so strong that they’ll overwhelm us and mankind lives on in oppression. So the days of just building Mirabella to create a powerbase are over. You have to come into action. At the moment you have the most power, but if you do nothing the tides will change and Mirabella will fall into their hands.” “So what do you suppose we do?” Mohammed asked, “We write them a letter in return and ask them to join our cause for freedom? That would help.” All is One replied in a friendly voice: “No, you’re right, that wouldn’t help, but we have a couple of secret weapons, and now is the time to use them.” Mohammed sighed softly and said: “Now you lost me, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “It’s so obvious,” All is One almost shouted, “leak the report about what really happened to the Fringes and Radical Chics back on Earth to the general public, let them know how they disappeared into thin air by means of a secret governmental program of genetic engineering. And make sure it also leaks to the people of New Mecca.” “And that would help how?” Mohammed asked, “As you said, the people will ask for independence and we’ll have to start a war with Earth. So what are you trying to do? The situation already is hopeless and you want to add another insurmountable problem to make sure we go down?” All is One jumped up and started pacing through the office. It spoke loud and waved with its arms: “No, you don’t understand. The situation has changed. The enemy is no longer far away back on Earth, the enemy now is here on Mira Prime. The people of Mirabella have noticed how New Mecca is run, the evidence of that is overwhelming, with all the refugees and their stories coming in all the time. All you have to do is to spark it up. Show them the real face of the powers that control mankind’s destiny, and you’ll ignite the fire of rage in their hearts. Especially the Fringes and the Radical Chics will not take it lightly when they learn how their brothers back on Earth have been treated. You’ll also have the Have Nots and the Elites on your hand, since they’re friends of the suppressed ones. All you then have to do is to channel that anger towards the mayor of New Mecca and the planetary leader. You’ll have to give a lot of speeches, appear on TV a lot, but you’ll be able to raise a fair army to fight the people of New Mecca.” Now it was time for Mohammed to jump up out of his chair and wave his arms around. “An army? With what? You want to conquer another city? We have no military tradition, no trained soldiers,” he shouted. “Neither does New Mecca, or New Baghdad, for that matter,” All is One said calmly while he stopped pacing around; “You have the advantage. Remember the crates with weapons the God is Great sent us some time ago? That’s our second secret weapon. We have weapons they don’t have in New Mecca.” Mohammed fell back in his chair. “Now I understand why you have been so moody. You want me to raise an army and start a war, and you know I’m a peaceful man. You’ve been expecting that I will not do this.” All is One walked towards Mohammed, looked straight into his eyes and said firmly: “You have to do this, it is the only way, it is either a war or give up everything you have strived for, and in the end give up your life. Do you understand that?” Mohammed looked back at the drone and said: “I understand, just give me some time to get to grips with this turn of events I had absolutely not expected.”

There was a big celebration when the one millionth inhabitant came to Widening. People here have a lot to be happy about. Since the previous update overall satisfaction has risen by 2%, to 82%. This has happened for several reasons. Satisfaction with the environment has risen by 9% and is now at 40% because all buildings that cause pollution, but do not necessarily have to be in the city, have been moved to the other side of the map. Furthermore several service buildings have been moved to new locations and some new and improved services have been provided. One such new service is a large fire station, which is shown in the first picture of this update. It replaces the smaller fire control center. Another improved service building is the hospital, shown in the next picture. It replaces the medical institute, does a much better job, but is strangely enough cheaper in maintenance. Further investigation into the area services cover has revealed that the large variants of medical, police and fire protection services, as well as extra large leisure services, cover a very large area, larger than the current city. Schools and large leisure facilities cover a medium sized area, and small and medium sized leisure facilities cover a small area. The latter are the only kinds of services that have duplicates in the current city. As a result of this moving around of service buildings the city gained 20,000 in income, even though expensive new services have been added. Overall satisfaction didn’t suffer from it, except a 1% drop in satisfaction with leisure facilities. I think it’s worth the price. An impressive extra large leisure facility that has been added is the tall panoramic restaurant. It is shown in the next picture as it raises high above the city. Satisfaction with services is continuously dropping as the city grows. Things are all the time kept stable by adding new services when they are being unlocked. But soon no new buildings will become available, so I hope that the rate satisfaction drops with goes down, otherwise the growing city will at some point make people leave it, especially in the polluted areas. At the moment however happiness abounds in Widening, ranging from a 78% score for the elites to an 88% score for the unqualified workers. Besides new services some special buildings have been constructed as they were unlocked, tremendously improving Widening’s financial position. To the right in the next picture you can see Lloyds, which improves high tech productivity by 35%. To the left you can see the Communications Institute, which is another building that improves the productivity of offices, this time by 45%. As a result Widening is now selling 190 tokens of office services for the astounding sum of 663,700. Also 40 tokens of high tech industry are being sold for 139,200. These two buildings alone made the city’s income rise from 100,000 per turn to 300,000 per turn. Another building constructed is the huge and magnificent Fuji Television Headquarters. The next picture merely shows its entrance. This building improves leisure satisfaction by 10%, which results in an overall satisfaction increase of about 1%. With a cost of 114,000 per turn leisure is the most expensive category of services the city has to provide. This means that finding the right balance in providing what is needed at a reasonable cost is of tremendous importance in the long run. At the moment satisfaction with leisure facilities is at 68%, which is a result of the city expanding beyond the reach of existing services. A lack of leisure services is almost always the first problem arising when the city is growing. With so much money coming in each turn you might think that Widening can buy whatever it needs, but that is not true. First of all, the current big surplus is a one time event. It will soon be spent on new services, from which point on buying everything the city doesn’t want to produce will again result in a break even situation, leaving no money left to expand any further. Secondly, the trade capacity of the city is limited. You can only import and export so much over the intercity roads. Foreseeing these future bottlenecks city hall has decided that Widening again needs to have some manufacturing industry, so its needs for imports will diminish. Since not all needed tokens have to be produced here, it was thought that some manufacturing plants could be spread over the city, producing some tokens while worsening the environment only slightly. This appeared to be all wrong. Satisfaction with the environment dropped dramatically from just a few factories. Nevertheless here is a picture of a medium density manufacturing plant in the middle of the city. So again the solution to place manufacturing industry on the other side of the map was tried. This time however the city has enough money to build a decent road through the mountains. This means that everybody who works there can keep on living in the city, near the services. They have to travel a long way to work, but that doesn’t pose big problems. An expensive luxurious avenue with six bridges and one tunnel now connects the city with the industrial park far away. The next picture shows the most impressive bridge that has been constructed. The road, however, is already quite busy, so more roads might be needed soon. Also, the city will either expand in the direction of the industrial park to reduce travel times, or a highway will have to be constructed. The next picture shows an entrance to the long tunnel. On the right you can see an intercity connection. Widening now has fifteen intercity connections, for a trade capacity of 300 freight and 300 passengers, at a cost of 1500. Already most of this capacity is being used. Widening now buys 22 tokens of waste treatment and still has a shortage of 11. It buys 10 tokens of water and has nevertheless a shortage of 5. The city still buys 9 tokens of food, but thanks to its own production has no shortage. Of manufacturing industry Widening needs a lot: 33 tokens are being bought and still there is a shortage of 17. Of heavy industry the city needs less: it buys 21 tokens and has a shortage of 9. Also, shortages of heavy industry don’t impact happiness as much as shortages of manufacturing industry do. Finally, Widening buys 10 tokens of electricity and 7 tokens of holidays, leaving shortages of respectively 5 and 3 tokens. And of course we have a view of the inside of the tunnel, shown in the next picture. Tunnels and bridges are expensive in maintenance, but it’s unclear how much exactly. Roads cost the city 64,950, transportation costs the city 66,550, and infrastructures cost the city 260,000. I really have no clue as to what these numbers mean. All roads and bridges and so forth would be the same as infrastructures in my opinion, but apparently it is not. The best I can think of transportation is that it would be the total sum of public transports, but Widening has nothing of the kind. So if anyone has an idea what exactly is meant with these costs please tell me. The next picture shows the new industrial park. It is still small, and the most polluting factory is the one in the front: the oil processing factory. This one improves the productivity of nearby refineries, so all refineries have been moved here. These are the white buildings. With nine fuel extraction fields the city can have three such refineries, so fuel production in Widening has reached its maximum. At the moment 120 tokens of it are being sold to OmniCorp. Total profits are amounting to 247,000 per turn. This small industrial park produces a horrific amount of pollution which covers a large part of the map. Removing as many polluting industries from the city as possible has a clear impact on the environment, as the next overview of the city shows. The pollution you still see comes from nine oil extraction fields and traffic alone. It is still a lot, so I guess the idea of the creators of Cities XL is that if you have an oil field, and you’re going to use it, you don’t build a city on top of it. My guess is that it would be better to not dig for oil at all, build your city and buy the oil you need. However, the oil business brings in lots of money, which is in part why income per turn is now at an astonishing 499,526. The city’s treasury is coming up on one billion. I wonder if the bookkeepers of the city can cope with that much. Another new building that improves production is the Merchant Guild, shown in the next picture. It improves food production with 35%. In the case of Widening this meant three extra tokens of food, which makes the building profitable if you consider that buying these three tokens would cost the city 27,300. Since the previous update some new farms have been constructed and fields have been laid out, so here’s another nice picture of some farmland. No food deals have been canceled yet, but city hall hopes that some day Widening will export food instead of importing it. Already some time ago city hall has decided that only luxury business hotels would be constructed, since these generate more money than the low budget ones and are equally good in satisfying demand. The next picture shows two large ones. Not many of these will probably be constructed, since if you calculate the profit made per square foot the medium density hotels make much more profit. The final picture of this update is a nice view from a rooftop in the qualified workers area. In the distance you can see the panoramic restaurant. The composition of the population has remained constant, and will probably not have changed much when the next update arrives, which will be when Widening has one and a half million inhabitants.

Beautiful pictures. Love to see this town grow.

Now that Widening has 754,129 inhabitants it is about time that city hall gets upgraded. The first picture of this update shows the building as it has reached its largest size. The city is doing quite well. Since the previous update many new high tech factories have been established. At the moment twenty tokens of it are being sold to OmniCorp for the sum of 69,600 per turn. Widening is still expanding its office sector, but only to accommodate the new factories. Widening has also greatly expanded on the services being supplied to the citizens. The next picture shows the new private school on the left. This is with its maintenance cost of 40,000 a very expensive service. Many thoughts have been spent on how to keep the city expanding without losing service coverage. At the moment expansion works well. As the city grows enough money becomes available to buy more tokens of what is needed, but soon new service buildings will have to be constructed and as things are going there will not be enough money to do so. To the right in this picture you can see city hall in the distance. In Cities XL there is no area of coverage for service buildings. Happiness of each citizen is in part determined by the distance of his or her home to the various service buildings. But that kind of creates an area of influence as well; since you can determine the distance it takes for a person to start complaining about lack of a particular kind of service. Doing this I found that leisure services have the smallest area of effect, so the buildings need to be quite close to each other. Police and health care buildings can be spaced over a much larger distance, while fire protection and educational buildings can be apart over a medium sized distance. This is a good thing, since now Widening will have to spend far less on services. The next picture shows the new skate park in front and the new science museum to the right of it. The museum is the tall, metallic tower. But even with a wider spacing of services Widening will have to make more money with each factory that is being established, otherwise at some point expansion will stop. Breaking even is not an option. So for this reason city hall has decided that from now on Widening will produce some of its own food. Each token of food that is being produced does not have to be bought. And since each token costs 9,100 this can create quite some money. It may not be enough, in which case there will need to be some manufacturing industry in the city, again. The next picture is a nice shot of a farm road in the new farming area. To the right are the farms and the fields, to the left are some low density homes. Another way for Widening to create some extra money is by expanding its fuel production. This is a good time to do so. Widening’s overcapacity has fallen dry, so soon shortages would arise. Furthermore, there is now access to relatively unpolluted areas close to the city, where new pollution can be created without damaging the environment so much that satisfaction drops dramatically. So a second refinery has been built, shown in the next picture, in the front. The large building behind it is the new Chemical Research Labs building. With its maintenance cost of 60,000 it is the most expensive building in the city, but it increases fuel production so much that it produces a nice profit. And it does that without creating pollution, so it is a really good service. Yet another building can be constructed to increase fuel production dramatically, but that one creates so much pollution that construction has been postponed till a really clean spot not too far away from the city can be found. Widening now sells 75 tokens of fuel for revenue of 261,300, whereas it costs the city 125,000 to produce it, so the oil business has become really profitable by now, and still there are five tokens in surplus to accommodate future growth of the city. The trade balance has further soared to -132,800. I guess having more high tech industry requires more manufacturing tokens to be bought. But income for the city has risen to 96,251 nevertheless, which is enough for a next set of fire protection and educational services. The city’s treasury now holds almost 400 million. The next picture shows the ultimate police protection service: the police headquarters. The main reason for developing the high tech sector is that the city wants to attract more elites. Otherwise it might have kept focusing on the office sector. And with a 7% share of the total population the elites are doing well. Another effect is that the number of executives keeps growing steadily, whereas the numbers of unqualified and qualified workers now are dropping. These are all considered desirable developments. The next picture shows one of those people the city wants to come here: an elderly elite woman in the neighborhood where she lives. The next picture shows the elite area from above. This reminds me so much of the old Caesar games. It looks just like a patrician neighborhood. Looking at this I would absolutely not be surprised if a dialog would pop up stating that Caesar demands wine. Those were fun games. Overall satisfaction has risen to 80%. This has only been made possible by lowering the income tax rate back to 10%, otherwise satisfaction would have dropped. Satisfaction with police and fire protection services has dropped dramatically. Fire protection has become inadequate since services have been spread over the city in a new way. It has top priority to get this service completely covering the city again. I have to take a look at the police services; I’m not quite sure what’s causing this to go down. Satisfaction with all the other services is somewhat stable. Satisfaction with the environment has dropped by 3%, to 31%, which is probably caused by the new refinery. Satisfaction with traffic flow has always been a bit above 90%. The next picture shows traffic flow in the city. The farm lands can be seen in the top right corner. Part of Widening’s financial difficulties is caused by the decision made a long time ago to always use large luxurious avenues. The avenues need to be large, as the above picture clearly shows, but them being luxurious only serves the eye, as the final picture of this update shows. I like the way this looks, so I’ll try to stick to the luxurious avenues. In order to get more money I tried raising the corporate tax rate. Since all businesses are 100% happy all of the time, that seemed a good thing to do. Let them be a bit unhappier, I thought. But raising the tax rate gives a lot of extra money for just a short while. I guess immediately their profits drop, and so does the city’s tax income. So there’s not much to be gained that way. There seems to be no point in changing the corporate tax rate, since there is no reason to lower it as well. Businesses are very easy to keep happy. The next update will be when Widening reaches the amazing number of one million inhabitants. I hope my computer will keep things going. Widening surely puts it to the test.

Soon after the last update it was discovered that the location chosen for the elites was not optimal. They began to complain about lack of leisure services, even though all services available were provided to them. So I guessed they were too far away from the buildings. Since Widening was going to expand anyway it seemed logical to build a second area with all service buildings. But this turned out to be very expensive. To come up with the necessary 120,000 per turn income tax rates had to be increased from 10% to 12%. This reduced satisfaction with tax rates by 10%. So making the few elites in the city happier did again cost the poor money and happiness. The first picture of this update shows such a poor soul in the unqualified workers area. Later on it was needed twice to raise the income tax rate again, both times by 1%. Construction of the new service buildings had left the city poor and it just couldn’t come up with enough money to buy all the necessary resources. But in both cases overall happiness improved, despite the dissatisfaction with the tax increases. The financial future of Widening didn’t seem bright at all. City hall was thinking about building power plants, so it didn’t have to buy the expensive electricity from OmniCorp anymore. But that would not solve all problems, since maintenance costs for power plants are also high. Then someone got the bright idea to build an MBA. This facility not only improves satisfaction with education facilities by 5%, it also increases office production by 40%. And offices are what the city has a lot of. By far most people in Widening work in offices. The new MBA is shown in the next picture. It is located on the edge of the area with the new services. The new MBA was a big hit. It produced 35 tokens of office services right away. Four more intercity connections had to be built to be able to trade away all these new tokens. Now Widening is selling hundred tokens of office services to OmniCorp, for the magnificent sum of 350,000 per turn. Of this, 119,000 can be accredited to the MBA, which costs 40,000 per turn to maintain, but it’s worth it, because still it runs with a profit of 79,000.With an income of about 145,000 per turn the future seemed bright again. Cause for a celebration, so a new landmark was built, the Church of St. Nicholas, shown in the next picture, in the middle of the unqualified workers area, where it fits nicely, in my opinion. I think this church is a really beautiful building, so it is shown again in the next picture, now seen from above. And it has been decided that St. Nicholas should be Widening’s patron, now that it has this beautiful church dedicated to him. Overall satisfaction has taken a big hit due to the tax increases: happiness of the unqualified and the qualified workers dropped by almost 5%. Thanks to another landmark, the Kodak Theatre, shown in the next picture, happiness of the executives and the elites is somewhat stable at about 77%. Satisfaction with services is stable and good at about 90%. Leisure facilities however are not adequate, with a satisfaction of just 73%. Costly new investments will have to be made, so I’m not sure Widening can continue indefinitely on the chosen path. Maybe polluting industries are needed to compensate for the deficits that might be coming our way. Widening is expanding beyond the reach of the pollution of the oil extraction fields, so satisfaction with the environment is on the rise. It increased by 2% and is now at 34%. The next picture shows the entire city as it has 502,174 inhabitants. Widening now has its first high density buildings. The next picture shows a high density shop. There was at some point a serious problem with retail facilities. Even though demand was completely satisfied, satisfaction was very low. As it turned out having just medium density shops in the city is not enough, you need to have different kinds. So some shops were downgraded to low density shops, but this left lots of unqualified and qualified workers unemployed. So high density shops were constructed to provide for jobs. Now demand is saturated, but satisfaction is at 100%. Widening is now expanding into the hills. This creates nice looking streets, as the final picture of this update shows. The composition of the population is still stable, but that will probably change, since the focus will shift from offices to high tech industries. The latter create more jobs for elites, and since now medium density homes can be built for them it is my intention to attract more of them. High tech factories and elite homes bring in more taxes, but need the support of offices, so in that sense these are more costly as well. Nevertheless it is my hope that the net gain will be that Widening can continue to buy all the stuff it doesn’t want to produce. The next update will be when the city reaches 750,000 inhabitants, and hopefully it will be clear by then what the future beholds.

People have been moved around in order to make the differences in happiness a bit smaller. The first picture of this update shows a satellite view of the city with the wealth overlay active. The brown areas in the middle show where the unqualified workers live. The dark blue area is the qualified workers area. The light blue homes are where the executives live, and the white area is the elite area. Finally the bright green buildings are businesses and services. You can clearly see how these are built alongside the avenues. The satisfaction of the elites was very bad compared to that of the unqualified workers, so the elite have been moved out of the center of the city, where there is much pollution, because the oil extraction fields are situated around it. Their new location has much better air. The satisfaction of the elite with the environment has risen from 19% to 44%, causing their overall satisfaction to rise from 74% to 77%. The unqualified workers were enjoying relatively clean air in the corner of the map, so they have been moved to the central area of the city, causing their appreciation of the environment to drop from 46% to 26%, and their overall satisfaction from 87% to 83%. Overall satisfaction of the qualified workers and the executives is stable. Average satisfaction of all citizens is stable as well, at about 81%. The advantage of all this moving around is that I anticipate fewer problems in the future, as happiness is now more equally divided among the population. The next picture shows an executive taking a stroll through the new unqualified workers area in Widening downtown. As all this moving around had caused that some elites had moved too far away from the services the city offers, these have also been moved a bit. They’re located close to the new football pitch, as shown in the next picture. The football pitch is a leisure facility, increasing satisfaction with leisure facilities by about 3%, but it also increases health satisfaction by 5%. Overall satisfaction with services has dropped a bit, but is still good. Satisfaction with traffic flow is stable at 92%. Let me introduce you to a lady who lives in the executives area. In the next picture you can see her going for a little walk. She’s one of the 254,006 people that now live in Widening. The composition of the population is stable, with 46% qualified workers, 41% executives, 8% unqualified workers and 3% elites. When it comes to businesses there still are only offices and high tech factories in the city, but these are all 100% satisfied with their stay. The city’s trade balance has dropped to +14,400, which is still very good, seeing as how many shortages the city has to compensate for by buying stuff. But city hall keeps the city in a permanent state of want. It purposefully maximizes shortages to a point where people just don’t get annoyed. Because of this, income for the city has risen to 81,395 per turn. The vault now holds 168,065,750. But city hall means well. Pollution is kept to a minimum with no industry but the oil industry. And it will soon have to spend this surplus, since the growing city will require two of each service. The next picture is taken in a Christmas market. The new elite neighborhood is built on a slope, providing the lucky few with an amazing sight of the city, as you can see in the final picture of this update. The next update will be when Widening has 500,000 inhabitants. It will hopefully show a new landmark.

The Fuel Cartel has noticed Widening. The tall building they constructed now dominates the skyline of the city. It is shown in the first picture of this update. The Cartel has methods to boost the fuel output of a city, and Widening now benefits from this. This building is an exceptional building. Exceptional buildings get unlocked when enough buildings of a particular kind have been built. This one increases fuel output by 35%. The first thing the Cartel did after branching out to Widening was to found the Institute of Petrochemicals. It is shown in the next picture. Currently this is Widening’s most expensive service with a maintenance cost of 40,000 per turn, but the city gets a lot in return for this. Not only does it boost education services by 5%, it also boosts fuel production by another 40%. At the moment there are nine fuel extraction fields in Widening. Each field comes with a gas station. One is shown in the next picture. All nine fields, the refinery, the Cartel and the Institute make possible that the city can sell forty tokens of fuel to OmniCorp, for revenue of 139,200. It costs however 110,000 to produce all this oil, so profits amount to just 29,200. This is a bit meager considering that it causes a lot of pollution and uses up a lot of the city’s freight capacity. Two new intercity roads had to be constructed to be able to get all the surplus oil out of the city and get enough imports in as well. Widening now has a total of five intercity roads, for a freight capacity of hundred tokens. The mayor of Widening has made a big discovery. When it comes to health, security and fire protection services, when a new building becomes available the old ones can be destroyed without causing a loss of satisfaction. So the health center and the clinic have been torn down, since the medical institute provides all the health services the city needs. At the moment overall satisfaction with health services is at 88%, which is a bit lower than at the time of the previous update, but that is because the city has grown. For the same reason the sheriff’s office has been destroyed. Security satisfaction levels are however stable at 92%. The fire station has also been torn down, but was replaced by a fire control center, which is the building on the left in the next picture. Satisfaction with fire protection has however been on the rise and is now at 95%. All this destroying of services created room in the budget for adding new ones. When it comes to education, various buildings are needed, since each one serves another age group, so the money that had become available was spent on a high school, which is shown in the next picture. Because of this and the Institute of Petrochemicals, satisfaction with education services has risen tremendously, to a staggering 99%. The next picture shows three new buildings. To the right at the bottom is the new heliport, which is a leisure facility. To the left of that is the paintball facility, which was there already in the previous update, but to the left of it you can see the new Ford car dealership. The round building to the right of it is the new multiplex, which is a leisure facility. The Ford car dealership is a shop which also reduces pollution in the city a bit. I guess we all should buy a Ford car to prevent world wide eco disaster. The building comes with a link to the Ford website, so this is clearly in game advertising. The next picture shows a close up of the multiplex early in the morning. Satisfaction with leisure facilities has also increased enormously. It is now at 88%, which is about 13% higher than in the previous update. . Finally the satisfaction of the executives and the elites has been improved a bit by the Kodak Express Shop, shown in the next picture. This building also comes with a link; to the Kodak website this time, of course. It is a shop, an exceptional building and a landmark, all at the same time. So it improves happiness, it adds to the retail sector, it improves the local environment and it is now the most profitable business in the city with a tax revenue for the city of 1,500 per turn. All in all Widening has been greatly improved. Overall satisfaction has risen by some 3%, despite the fact that the city is now 33% larger than it was in the previous update. And the fun thing about it is that in the meantime Widening has become richer than ever before with an income of 71,499 per turn. The city now has 134,056,135 available in the treasury. The offices in the city are by far the most profitable. Not only do they pay 161,990 in taxes, the selling of 35 tokens of office services pays another 121,600. Because of all this selling of fuel and office tokens the city’s trade balance has also improved tremendously, coming from a bad -60,800 in the previous update, to a nice +25,100 now. When it comes to income tax the executives take the lead. They pay 43,920 per turn, whereas the qualified workers pay just 24,740. The share of the executives in the composition of the population has again risen, to 41%, at the cost of a 2% drop in the share of the unqualified workers. Widening is becoming a rich city for rich people. This update ends with a nice night shot of Widening, taken from the roof of the tallest building in the city: the building of the Fuel Cartel. The next update will be when more than 250,000 people live in Widening.

Some elites have settled in Widening, and they’re doing quite well. Given the fact that, due to several oil extraction fields near their neighborhood, pollution is quite heavy, their overall satisfaction is remarkably good with 70%. Of course their appreciation of the environment is very bad with 21%, but low taxes, lots of services and smooth traffic flow make them quite happy about their stay in the city. The first picture of this update shows a big elite mansion. Medium density high tech factories are the only businesses in Widening that employ elites, just one per factory, so at the moment there are not that many elites in the city. They constitute only 4% of the entire population. In a way that is a good thing, since it’s going to be a long time before the medium density elite housing will be unlocked, so using lots of these villas, if they came in large numbers, would take up a lot of space. So I suppose I’ll let this new group grow slowly as I also establish only high tech factories when needed, just to avoid shortages. The next picture shows a medium density high tech factory in the front, and a good looking medium density shop to the left of it. The next picture shows Widening’s first landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, located in the middle of the elite neighborhood. The Gate improved elite satisfaction by about 1%, as it works just like a very expensive park with its maintenance cost of 10,000 per turn. I don’t see any other benefit coming from this landmark. Widening’s trade balance is getting worse. Two updates ago it was at about -20,000, now it is at about -60,000. I had been postponing closing new trade contracts until it was really necessary, so now I have to make new deals very regularly, as I have already maxed out all shortages. This is impairing the number of new services I can offer, especially since these get more and more expensive. Adding to this the fact that I foresee that Widening’s trade capacity will soon fall short of what needs to be traded to get the current strategy going, I foresee that at some point the city will again have to produce some things that are now being bought, like electricity, or maybe even some manufacturing industry. For these reasons only one new service has been added since the previous update, a paintball facility, shown in the front in the next picture. Overall satisfaction is quite stable. The new paintball facility and the landmark improved it a bit; a small expansion of the fuel industry provided a small setback. The main problem is of course the pollution of the environment, with the satisfaction of all people lower than 45%. Services are becoming a real challenge as well, especially leisure. With an average score of about 71% on leisure there certainly is room for improvement. The elite value overall services at an average of 69%, the executives at 79%, the qualified workers at 92% and the unqualified workers at 95%. It is peculiar how being rich makes people unhappy in the CitiesXL universe. It seems being poor pays off in terms of happiness. The next picture shows some happy people in Widening talking to each other. The high tech industries now have risen to become the most profitable businesses in the city. As a sector the offices can of course not be beaten, since Widening focuses on this. Still the city runs with no unemployment, except the occasionally temporarily unemployed, just until a new business has been established. Also most of the time there are no job vacancies. The composition of the populace is stable, except that the introduction of the elites has diminished the shares of the unqualified and the qualified workers a bit. The final picture of today’s update shows a marketplace in the executives neighborhood by night. The Christmas decorations will probably soon be gone, so enjoy. The next update will be when Widening reaches 200,000 inhabitants. There will probably be some exceptional buildings in it.

I'm curious what the Netherlands will look like fifty years from now. Calleigh Turran doesn't sound like a Braebantian name to me, but I live in the east of the Netherlands, so I might be wrong.

Thanks, radenskloof. I'll certainly try.

As Widening has grown to 100,929 inhabitants nothing much interesting has happened, even the composition of the populace has remained exactly the same as more offices, and a couple of high tech factories, shops and hotels have been added to the city. Widening now sells 20 tokens of office services for the magnificent sum of 69,600. Oil sales have been stable at 15 tokens for a long time already. Selling this oil creates revenue of 52,000, while it costs still 40,000 to get it, so we’re actually making a profit now, especially when you consider that some oil that is produced is used by the city itself, which would cost 9,100 per token if it had to be bought. So Widening seems to be doing quite well. All this wealth shows clearly in the new city hall that has been constructed. It is shown in the first picture of this update. The downside of this all is still the enormous pollution of the environment. The next picture shows the city with the environment overlay active. Satisfaction with the environment for unqualified workers has gone down by 4% and is now at 47%. I’m not sure why this is happening. Pollution levels have not really changed, except that there are more cars on the roads now than in the previous update. The qualified workers still appreciate the environment by 27%, for the executives the rating has gone up a bit, by 2%, and is now at 30%, probably because new homes have been built in relatively unpolluted areas. Overall satisfaction is stable for now. The unqualified workers appreciate their life in Widening by 86%, the qualified workers by 80%, and the executives by 78%. I think given the bad situation concerning the environment these are good results. The citizens are content with the services the city offers, with leisure being the least appreciated. All groups value these with roughly 72%. The next picture shows one of those happy people in Widening. I don’t now her name, but she’s nice. In the last update I mentioned that maybe Widening would have its first landmark by now, but as it turned out that would be a bit too expensive if it was constructed at the moment. This is actually my fault. When new services became available I immediately built the medical institute, not checking first if others had become available as well. This institute is shown in the next picture. It is a nice looking building, but also the most expensive one of all services with a cost of 20,000. With this building medical facilities have become the most expensive part of the municipal budget, as total costs have risen to 35,000. Since soon new trade contracts have to be closed and only 20,522 in revenue each turn is available I’m going to go easy on offering new services. After all, with current satisfaction levels I don’t have to be in a hurry. Nevertheless it would have been better had I built a new leisure facility instead. With the 100,000 population threshold crossed it’s maybe nice to tell you what the city is actually consuming, as far as I can know that. At the moment Widening buys one token of food, but is short two tokens. It buys one token of water, and that is enough for the entire city. The same goes for electricity; the city buys one token and has no shortage. Waste treatment is really expensive: the city exports five tokens for 45,200, and still one token keeps on polluting the streets. The city is short of one token of holidays, which in time will have to be bought as well. Concerning the industry Widening buys three tokens of heavy industry for 27,300, and five tokens of manufacturing industry for 45,200. Nevertheless it lacks one token of heavy industry and two tokens of manufacturing industry. I cannot know how much fuel the city consumes, or how many office services. I can only know there is a surplus at the moment of one token of fuel and two tokens of office services. The next picture is taken in the qualified workers area. The final picture of this update shows part of the business district by night. The next update will be when Widening has reached 150,000 inhabitants and I expect it will show many new services and a landmark, probably some elite housing as well, although I do not know at the moment whether conditions in the city are good enough for the filthy rich.

Thanks, Schulmanator. The holiday decor comes for free this time of year.

No stone has been left unturned in Widening. Except for an oil extraction field no construction has been left standing since the previous update. This is the story of a city that has been moved again and again in an effort to battle pollution. But it met only with partial success. Except for the oil industry and one general utilities building all polluting industries have left the city. Still the environment is in a critical situation. But also Widening now has no low density homes left; all people have been moved to medium density buildings. One can only imagine how bad the situation would have been if there was still some heavy and manufacturing industry in this crowded area. The first picture of today’s update shows an overview of current Widening. As foretold in the previous update the first attempt at improving the situation was to move all the industry out of the city. It was decided to move it to a corner of the map, since then you only have to deal with a quarter of the pollution. The polluted area would then be filled with offices, and the homes placed so far away that they wouldn’t be bothered much by the pollution. Agreed, the offices would not make the maximum profit possible, but the land would at least generate some money, whereas if it would be left empty it would produce nothing. The next picture shows some industry back in those days, after all factories had been moved. This worked fine at first, but two problems soon became apparent. Widening is being built on top of an oil field, and since oil is an important resource the city has to gather as much of it as possible, meaning that even though all industries can be moved into a corner, oil extraction fields have to be placed in the living areas. And these are so polluting, that even when heavy and manufacturing industries are located elsewhere the environment satisfaction will move into the red. The other problem that arose was that of clogged roads. With everybody having to travel to the industrial area in the corner, traffic flow on the avenues leading towards it showed up in yellow. Adding the offices to the area would soon make it turn red. Widening would have ended up in permanent traffic congestion. So another solution had to be found. Then it was decided to build a second village on the other side of the map. There would be just enough population there to keep the necessary industry going, while most people would live in the unpolluted area where the offices and the high tech industry would be, right on the spot of current Widening. An analysis of the financial situation revealed that two of each service building could be afforded, so a road was laid out, and factories and homes moved. The location that was chosen was high up in the mountains, far away from flat lands that can be filled up with skyscrapers so nicely. Building a city in the mountains takes a lot of time, but it creates a nice looking city, as the next picture shows. But another problem showed. It appears that the citizens don’t care how long it takes them to travel to work and back. They travel to a workplace on the other side of the map as easily as to one next to their homes. The only thing they care about is how many cars they meet while driving to work. This is in itself no problem. If my citizens don’t care about their travel times, then why should I care? Well, I had to care. There was one road between the two villages, of course, and the game would not bother to place people as close to their workplace as possible, so as the second village grew more and more people would take that one road. If I would have continued developing both villages, eventually so many people would want to take that road that permanent traffic congestion would again cause immense dissatisfaction. And this is when I decided to try to make do without heavy and manufacturing industry at all. The second village and all factories were gradually destroyed and replaced with offices. In the process the city was moved entirely to the corner of the map. Since the heavy industry had been the most profitable sector of Widening’s economy this strategy seemed hopeless, but as more and more factories were destroyed the city needed less office services for its own use, making more of it available for sale to OmniCorp, generating a lot of money. In fact, with an income of more than 65,000 per turn Widening had become richer than ever before, even while the number of people had gradually dropped back to 50,000. Eventually it was decided to also get rid of all utilities, since these pollute as well, and to buy whatever the city needs. Now Widening still has an income of 15,527 per turn, but it is buying more waste treatment than it actually needs. The reason for this is that even though there are no factories left in the city, the oil extraction fields and the traffic create so much pollution that environment satisfaction is still in the red, ranging from 27% to 51%. Having enough waste treatment makes these numbers higher, so it is important to have enough of it at all times. The next picture shows the new clinic next to an oil extraction field. With a share of 12% of Widening’s population of 76,250 the unqualified workers have become a clear minority in the city. This comes with the removal of all polluting industries. The number of executives has increased dramatically, from 9% to 38%. This is caused by all the medium density offices that have been established. The few unqualified workers that are left are very content with their stay. Their satisfaction is at 88%. That is because they live in a relatively unpolluted area in the corner of the map. Their environment satisfaction is at 51%. For the qualified workers and the executives environment satisfaction is at about 27%, making for a total satisfaction of about 80%. It appears overall satisfaction has not changed very much since the previous update. The next picture shows the new police station on the right, and the new sports museum to the left of it. These improve overall satisfaction a bit. Widening’s trade balance is at -22,800, which is very good. It sells lots and lots of oil and office services, and it buys heavy and manufacturing industry, electricity, waste treatment and food. Not accounted for in this number is the 40,000 it costs to get all the oil it sells. There are minor shortages in almost all things the city needs, but these have no ill effects. Despite all the pollution profit margins all appear in green. Traffic flow however appears in yellow on all avenues, and on all roads in the downtown area. Since the removal of all heavy industry the hotels have become the most profitable businesses in the city, but the offices are by far the most profitable sector of the economy. The next picture shows a nice looking street in the executives neighborhood. Widening’s treasury now holds 106,243,041. The executives pay by far the most income tax with 21,920 per turn, even though there are more qualified workers in the city. With a cost of 19,000 per turn leisure services have become the most expensive services since the sports museum has been opened. Demand in all sectors is in the green, so there’s just enough of everything. The next picture shows a street in the qualified workers area. The next update will be when the city reaches 100,000 inhabitants. Hopefully it will show Widening’s first landmark. We end this update with a picture taken from atop a roof on the edge of the city. It shows a large part of Widening.

That is a really beautiful city, Mars. I've been experimenting with that tonight, keeping the homes away from the industry, and that seems to work, since they do not quickly complain about long travel times. The environment seems much more important. But you do have to keep them really far away, especially if you're also going to have oil fields scattered around the area, and that seems like such a waste of space. I also experimented with offices in polluted areas, and even though the information panel says that pollution negatively influences profits, placing a medium sized office next to medium sized heavy industry results in a green profit result. I'll have to check whether it does actually give the maximum profit. Forgot to do that right away. High tech definitely needs to be in unpolluted areas. Thanks for your advice, and its nice that you like my city.

The products the heavy industry produces are used by the manufacturing industry. Their products in turn are being used by the high tech industry. The high tech industry needs offices to do its job. You want to have high tech industry and offices in your city, because they are non-polluting, employ executives, bring in good money and make people happier. So Widening kept on creating shortages of heavy industry, which meant I added more of it in the living areas, creating more pollution, especially when I started using medium density heavy industry. Some of those are shown in the first picture of this update. These emit a massive amount of air pollution. I really wanted to keep my businesses in the living areas, since I think it looks nice, keeps traffic flow smooth, reduces travel times and is a very efficient way of using the available space. But Widening’s pollution got so bad, that I got these messages all the time that because of it species of plants and animals were going extinct. I was advised to lay out more parks. Although parks in themselves will not suck up pollution, they do improve the appreciation of the environment, and also, adding them spreads out polluting factories over a larger area, thereby reducing the pollution in any particular place. So Widening has been restructured tremendously, spreading out everything over a larger area, and this worked quite well, since I got the environment appreciation back into the green everywhere, be it dark green in the areas where there was heavy industry. Also, these parks make the city look like a much friendlier place to be, as the next picture shows. The next picture shows an overview of almost all of Widening. You can clearly see all the parks. Four large plazas, connected by avenues, make out the borders of what is now Widening downtown. You can clearly see that it is more built up compared to the more rural areas around it. All the services are now located at the center of the downtown area, for maximum efficiency. All offices have been placed around the large plazas and along the avenues. This can clearly be seen. In the top left corner is the executives area. It has fewer parks and more homes. As Widening grew it was found that fewer parks were needed than initially had been laid out for a maximum impact on the environment, so some have been removed again, starting with the executives neighborhood. But the need for more heavy industry kept growing, and eventually medium heavy industry was placed, as well as a refinery. These all produce lots of pollution, as you can see in the next overview of Widening with the environment overlay active. Most of the nice green areas have turned bright red. So my conclusion is that in CitiesXL it won’t work having industry in your neighborhoods. Again Widening will have to be thoroughly restructured, moving all heavy and manufacturing industry out of the city. A new development in Widening since the last update is that some medium density buildings have been used. Medium density homes house two workers, instead of one. The next picture shows some of them for unqualified workers. At the moment the city has 51,296 inhabitants. The qualified workers continue to take the lead with their 59% share. The share of unqualified workers has again been reduced, to 31% now, which is 8% less than in the previous update. This is because the number of executives has risen to 10%, thanks to town hall policies to have as few heavy and manufacturing factories as possible, and to invest most in offices and high tech industry. Another revolution has taken place in town hall. The philosophy of balanced growth has been abandoned. Seeing how much pollution the industry creates and how much money can be made by selling office services, it has been decided to sell five tokens of office services to OmniCorp, for the magnificent sum of 17,200 per turn. This means that Widening now follows a path where the amount of heavy and manufacturing industry will be kept as low as possible, just enough to supply its own needs, while environment friendly businesses like offices and high tech industry will be favored. The next picture shows some medium density offices on the left, which also employ executives, and some medium density shops on the right, which also employ qualified workers. New services and the use of parks and medium density shops have greatly improved the overall satisfaction of the citizens. Even though the numbers of environment satisfaction are well in the red, ranging from 15% for unqualified workers to 36% for qualified workers, overall satisfaction is in the green. For all groups it is at about 82%. Executives now value retail for 97%, which is a rise of 25% since the previous update. The next picture shows the new school, which raises the satisfaction of executives with educational services by 38% and that of the qualified workers by 17%. The middle school is however the most expensive service the city offers, with a maintenance cost of 10,000 per turn. Satisfaction with leisure services has dropped a bit since the previous update, despite the construction of a swimming pool, which is the most expensive leisure facility with its maintenance cost of 5,000 per turn. Since Widening has a lot of money and at some point satisfaction levels were quite low, income taxes rates have been reduced from 15% to its lowest setting of 10%. Despite of this Widening makes 42,252 per turn, and that is after the introduction of the new services. Before that it was at more than 63,000. This huge amount of money each turn has made the vault fill up to 57,323,193. The reason for this is that income taxes are with their revenues of 20,670 per turn not as important as the corporate taxes, which generate 84,967 per turn. The next picture shows the new swimming pool amidst some medium density unqualified worker’s homes. Another big chunk of income for the city comes from the sales of oil, which generates 33,800 per turn. However, with currently seven oil fields in operation, it costs Widening 35,000 to produce all that oil. It seems we’re making a loss, but that is not entirely true, since some of the oil is used for the city’s own consumption. The next picture shows the new oil refinery. It increases oil production by at least 40%. It is impossible to know how many tokens of oil are exactly produced, since information on how much the city consumes is nowhere to be found. However, Widening was selling a surplus of ten tokens when the refinery added another four tokens to the production. A cost of this is a huge amount of pollution. It has also been decided that Widening will not treat its own waste. Given the fine financial situation the amount of pollution can be reduced by buying waste treatment from OmniCorp. At the moment the city spends 18,200 to sell two tokens of waste to OmniCorp, but already two more tokens are being produced, so soon new deals have to be made. It would have been nice to also buy all heavy industry tokens the city needs, but it is my guess that you can’t do that with a small town like this. You just don’t generate enough money for it. The next picture shows Widening downtown seen from above. Widening has again several shortages, but without any ill effects. The lack of two tokens of waste treatment, one token of water and two tokens of food do not reduce the happiness of the citizens. The lack of one token of heavy industry has no effect on the manufacturing industry. The next picture shows a marketplace and some medium density offices. Due to the tax cuts the citizens now value the taxes by the full 100%. Job offers are also valued by 100%, which means, I guess, everyone can find a job close to home. Traffic flow is well appreciated with a satisfaction level of 92%. However, the avenues around the downtown area and towards the intercity connection now show up in yellow in the traffic overlay. Town hall will probably decide that when it is going to restructure the city it will use large avenues instead of small ones. The next picture shows some new medium density low budget hotels alongside an avenue. Town hall succeeds usually to max out the number of business hotels, shops, offices and high tech industry. Since the hills have been reached I can now show you a nice skyline of this city as the final picture of this update. The next update will be when Widening reaches 75,000 inhabitants.