Crimson King

... up until this point most of my regional population has been R$$ and R$$$quote> That's a bit of a problem if you're looking to keep the demand for all of the developer types (R$$$, CO$$, etc.) positive. Sims of a given wealth and education level will demand certain types of commercial and industrial buildings, and the commerical and industrial buildings will in turn demand a mixed workforce of sims. These demands feed on each other in a cyclical nature, causing the city to grow. Problems arise when a part of the demand cycle is not satisfied properly. For example, many players don't realize that even CO$$$ needs R$ sims to be staffed to full capacity. They erroneously think that CO$$$ can be filled with R$$$, but that is not the case. In fact, CO$$$, which has the largest R$$$ demand by percentage of workforce, only requires 15% of its workforce to be R$$$. So, even if your city's businesses consisted solely of CO$$$, only 15% of the city's population ought to be R$$$. Unfortunately, there is another factor at play that serves to imbalance your city's wealth demographic: desirability. Increasing the desirability of a R$ area will almost always result in it upgrading to higher wealth levels. Since many players go for universal school and hospital coverage to maximize mayor rating, pretty soon they have no slums left, and all the rich folks in the world can't keep the office buildings full. But even those jobs that are unfilled count as satisfying the demand for CO$$$, so eventually the demand cycle will stagnate. Look through your city, and see if many of your office buildings are not fully staffed. If that's the case, examine your population graphs, and see if more than 10% of your population is R$$$. If it is, try raising taxes on R$$$ and demolishing a school and/or hospital to create a less desirable area. When the area fills with low-wealth housing projects, make them historical so they won't upgrade, then replace the schools. Quite a while ago, I posted an Excel spreadsheet on this site that allows you to calculate the ideal ratio of R$, R$$, and R$$$ sims, given a city-wide education level. I don't know if it's still on here, but most players are only interested in the ratio for a highly-educated city, which is 4:5:1. That's 40% R$, 50% R$$, and 10% R$$$. Makes for easy calculation when trying to figure out when to raise taxes. :-) Of course, there is also the issue of demand caps, but I assume that's not part of your problem, since many players build lots of reward buildings and connect to neighboring cities with highways.

I also have been frequently consternated by my industry's apparent unwillingness to use the best method of freight transport available, and after much fiddling about have realized that, as you mentioned, the physical distance (i.e., as the crow flies) appears to be only factor in determining where and how freight gets shipped. Specifically, it is the distance to the connection that is important, not the distance to the freight station. Looking at your screenshots, it looks like the factories that are using the seaport are closer (again, as the crow flies) to the port than to the rail connection leading out of the city. The fact that the rail station is much closer doesn't matter, because a rail station is not a connection. This makes a bit of sense, as it wouldn't make sense for factories to ship their goods to a rail station that isn't connected to a map edge vice using a road that is. But, as your city shows, it can lead to some rather silly prioritizations. The commuter pathing AI will terminate a commute path when it passes by an open job, but the freight pathing AI doesn't seem to have that optimization. C'est la vie. To get industry to use rail in unmodded SC4+RH, one has to make sure to zone industry closer (once more, as the crow flies) to rail connections than seaports, road connections, etc. -CK

There have been numerous studies on this topic sanctioned by the federal government lately, and they reveal a rather curious trend. A majority of Americans enjoy the idea of mixed-zoning planned communities, but aren't willing to pay the price for them when push comes to shove. Sure, W**-M*** is ugly and devoid of charm, but in the end the smart consumer is going to shop where the best bargains are, dooming the quaint corner stores to eradication. This was lampooned in a recent episode of South Park, in which the local W**-M*** becomes a sentient being. [] There is a way to get the best of both worlds, though. I live just north of Albany, NY, and one of my favorite towns here is Watervliet. The town is laid out in a classic grid pattern along the riverfront, and consists mainly of one- and two-family rowhouses. Every second corner or so has a small convenience store or tavern (no shortage of watering holes in this town []). The major commercial development (grocery stores, banks, strip malls, etc.) is located along the river and along 19th Street (aka Rt. 2, which connects the town to Troy across the river and Latham to the west). The nice part about this layout is that you get all the convenience (and low prices) of large box stores while retaining the pedestrian-friendly charm of corner shops and bars. The little shops survive by offering convenience items only: milk, eggs, newspapers, etc. The residents do most of their grocery shopping at the large stores along the main roads, but still hike down to the little corner shops to get the odd one or two items that escape the weekly market list. And to get drunk, too.

Superlative work. The similarity between your in-game aerial shot and the satellite photo is amazing. Just curious: do the in-game traffic patterns resemble the RL Manhattan ones?