Hey all,
I've started a new city and made a few errors in zoning at the beginning and now I don't know how to fix it. Looking for help please! I've been playing via Steam on a Mac for a few years, had various cities and never had this problem...
So, new city started, playing in sandbox mode I've mostly been laying down a large road network, future-proofing intersections and services, building a downtown area and parks etc. Always wanted to do this, so it's a different approach for me. I've let the game run a little bit, but it's mainly been paused while I build. I have been zoning small areas as needed when the game was running - mostly LD residential, bit of LD commercial, and then a small general industrial area just to get things running. The population was around 3500 for most of this time, so not a huge area was zoned. I didn't notice for a while that the industrial zone didn't spawn any buildings...
I think my problem started as I didn't zone industrial right at the beginning, so Cims are only working in the commercial areas, and all goods are being imported. I read a really useful guide on RCI demand to figure this out too late... I also had the 'not enough educated workers' issue at the beginning (because commercial needed them to be better educated) so I ramped up educational buildings - of course now my Cims probably don't want to work in uneducated industry jobs, but I don't understand why new Cims moving in can't create some of that demand. I turned off the 'Education boost' policy a while ago.
I've since tried to increase population by ensuring I respond to the residential demand (with both new LD and HD residential zones) - sadly this hasn't kickstarted the industrial demand. If I zone more commercial (when there is demand) this just pushes up imports.
Even if I let commercial demand go well over 50%, the industrial zones aren't populated. I have less than 10 industrial buildings spawned in the whole map - a few of those got abandoned because there were not enough workers and didn't respawn when I demolished them.
Whilst I was thinking about de-zoning some commercial, I dropped the taxes for industry and hiked them for commercial - that killed off a large part of the commercial areas which were then abandoned, but still no industrial demand. I think the remaining commercial areas are just making more money instead.
I decided to start building a new industrial area as the previous one was pretty small, even though it wasn't used (again, future-proofing) and I first of all put down a new oil industry area and packed it full of extractors and processors (I use the infinite resources mod) - about 10k jobs created, more Cims moved in, but no change to general industry demand. Most of the oil area is showing 'not enough customers' suggesting I need to zone more commercial. I also have three fishing harbours, processing plants and markets. I know that these specialist industries aren't really linked to the RCI demand, but I just wanted to get some sort of industrial activity going. I haven't added any general industrial zoning to that area yet (to the far right of the screen on the pic below)
The only solutions I can think of are:
1. Keep going and build some public transport links to the industrial areas to see if that helps them to spawn. They have good services otherwise.
2. Develop a residential area of uneducated workers to try and feed demand for uneducated industry jobs
3. Close a couple of schools until industry gets going
4. Kill my oil industry area and see if those Cims will look for other industry jobs (no idea if this would work)
5. De-zone the entire city, turn off the specialised industry buildings, wait for everyone to move out and start again
6. Run the game without general industry and just import the goods needed. Not sure if this would cause other issues though.
Any thoughts on if these might work? Any other suggestions?
Thanks in advance
-----------------------------
Population: 13,669
Employed: 6,062
Jobs available: 14,659
Unemployment: 5% (34% of population are adults, 21% seniors)
Uneducated: 41%
Educated: 33%
Well Educated: 10%
Highly Educated: 16%
I've started a new city and made a few errors in zoning at the beginning and now I don't know how to fix it. Looking for help please! I've been playing via Steam on a Mac for a few years, had various cities and never had this problem...
So, new city started, playing in sandbox mode I've mostly been laying down a large road network, future-proofing intersections and services, building a downtown area and parks etc. Always wanted to do this, so it's a different approach for me. I've let the game run a little bit, but it's mainly been paused while I build. I have been zoning small areas as needed when the game was running - mostly LD residential, bit of LD commercial, and then a small general industrial area just to get things running. The population was around 3500 for most of this time, so not a huge area was zoned. I didn't notice for a while that the industrial zone didn't spawn any buildings...
I think my problem started as I didn't zone industrial right at the beginning, so Cims are only working in the commercial areas, and all goods are being imported. I read a really useful guide on RCI demand to figure this out too late... I also had the 'not enough educated workers' issue at the beginning (because commercial needed them to be better educated) so I ramped up educational buildings - of course now my Cims probably don't want to work in uneducated industry jobs, but I don't understand why new Cims moving in can't create some of that demand. I turned off the 'Education boost' policy a while ago.
I've since tried to increase population by ensuring I respond to the residential demand (with both new LD and HD residential zones) - sadly this hasn't kickstarted the industrial demand. If I zone more commercial (when there is demand) this just pushes up imports.
Even if I let commercial demand go well over 50%, the industrial zones aren't populated. I have less than 10 industrial buildings spawned in the whole map - a few of those got abandoned because there were not enough workers and didn't respawn when I demolished them.
Whilst I was thinking about de-zoning some commercial, I dropped the taxes for industry and hiked them for commercial - that killed off a large part of the commercial areas which were then abandoned, but still no industrial demand. I think the remaining commercial areas are just making more money instead.
I decided to start building a new industrial area as the previous one was pretty small, even though it wasn't used (again, future-proofing) and I first of all put down a new oil industry area and packed it full of extractors and processors (I use the infinite resources mod) - about 10k jobs created, more Cims moved in, but no change to general industry demand. Most of the oil area is showing 'not enough customers' suggesting I need to zone more commercial. I also have three fishing harbours, processing plants and markets. I know that these specialist industries aren't really linked to the RCI demand, but I just wanted to get some sort of industrial activity going. I haven't added any general industrial zoning to that area yet (to the far right of the screen on the pic below)
The only solutions I can think of are:
1. Keep going and build some public transport links to the industrial areas to see if that helps them to spawn. They have good services otherwise.
2. Develop a residential area of uneducated workers to try and feed demand for uneducated industry jobs
3. Close a couple of schools until industry gets going
4. Kill my oil industry area and see if those Cims will look for other industry jobs (no idea if this would work)
5. De-zone the entire city, turn off the specialised industry buildings, wait for everyone to move out and start again
6. Run the game without general industry and just import the goods needed. Not sure if this would cause other issues though.
Any thoughts on if these might work? Any other suggestions?
Thanks in advance
-----------------------------
Population: 13,669
Employed: 6,062
Jobs available: 14,659
Unemployment: 5% (34% of population are adults, 21% seniors)
Uneducated: 41%
Educated: 33%
Well Educated: 10%
Highly Educated: 16%
