Take me back to the Tips & Tricks Index
Why Am I Not Getting Development?
There could be several reasons why your development has stalled. If your demand bars are low, perhaps your taxes are too high or you have passed ordinances that are limiting demand. If your demand is high but you are still not seeing development, it could be because desirability is low in the areas that you have zoned, traffic congestion is too high, or you haven’t provided water.
Which Zone Density Should I Use?
Early in the game, you are better off zoning low density commercial and residential. First, it is probably too expensive to zone higher densities. Second, you will be forced to deal with many problems if you zone too high, too fast. For example, traffic congestion, decent schooling, and adequate hospital coverage can be quite difficult in higher density cities. For industry, either zone for agriculture or medium density depending on whether you want farms or dirty industry. When your city treasury is rich enough, you can start to build your city taller instead of wider by rezoning some of the areas that are already developed. For example, if you zone high density residential over an area that has already been zoned low density residential, the buildings will stick around until redevelopment occurs.
Using Demand Bars
In the main UI, you will see three bars colored green, blue, and yellow. The green bar indicates your residential demand. When it is high, then lots of people want to move into your city. In this situation, make sure to zone residential in highly desirable locations. Blue shows commercial demand, yellow shows industry demand, and these both work similarly to residential. If you click on the three demand bars, a detailed breakdown of your RCI demands is displayed. This graph shows you the demands for different wealth levels and business types in your city. Use this in conjunction with your desirability maps to develop the most efficient city.
Using Desirability Maps
If your desirability is low, then the occupancy level of your buildings will be low. Even worse, if desirability drops too low, buildings will be abandoned or never develop in the first place. In the Data views, you can see the desirability maps for every residential and business type. Use these maps to decide where to zone or to target areas that require you to increase desirability.
Increasing Desirability
Residential
Your residential population can be the hardest to satisfy. They require good schools, decent hospitals, low traffic noise, little garbage, minimal pollution, and a short trip to work. In addition to that, Residents also like to have parks nearby. If you have an area of low desirability for residential, place a park, school, and/or a hospital nearby to improve it. However, if either pollution or commute time is too high, then your only option may be to zone in a different area. The quickest way to determine the reason for your current desirability level is to query the buildings in the area. Using the Query tool, either hover over a building to get a quick glimpse of the most important information, or click on the building to bring up a dialog with detailed information.
Commercial
Your residential population can be the hardest to satisfy. They require good schools, decent hospitals, low traffic noise, little garbage, minimal pollution, and a short trip to work. In addition to that, Residents also like to have parks nearby. If you have an area of low desirability for residential, place a park, school, and/or a hospital nearby to improve it. However, if either pollution or commute time is too high, then your only option may be to zone in a different area. The quickest way to determine the reason for your current desirability level is to query the buildings in the area. Using the Query tool, either hover over a building to get a quick glimpse of the most important information, or click on the building to bring up a dialog with detailed information.
Industrial
Dirty and manufacturing industry could not care less about pollution, so don´t worry about that. They do, however, need to transport the goods they make to stay in business. Make sure your industries have good road access to either an airport, a seaport, or a neighbor connection. Farms and high-tech industry have this same requirement but also dislike pollution. All industries hate trash, so make sure you have a landfill around to collect the garbage. The quickest way to determine the reason for your current desirability level is to query the buildings in the area. Using the Query tool, either hover over a building to get a quick glimpse of the most important information, or click on the building to bring up a dialog with detailed information.
Getting High Wealth Residents and Businesses
Water Coverage
If you want to attract high-wealth residents and businesses, you need to supply water to your city. Without water, no high-wealth residents, offices, commercial services or high-tech industries will move into your city. To water your city, place water towers and pumps, then lay a network of pipes.
Education and Jobs
Why build schools, libraries and other educational buildings? Because that´s the best way to attract high-tech industries. High-tech businesses won´t move into your town unless your workforce is well-educated.
Health and Workforce
Why build clinics and hospitals? Because the healthier your population, the longer their lifespan. And the longer your Sims live, the more people who can work at jobs, which means your workforce is larger.
Getting Skyscrapers
You need to build your city wider before you can build it taller. The size of the buildings that you see are directly related to the population of your city. So even if you have high desirability, if your city is too small, you won´t see skyscrapers. For example, to get the tallest residential buildings, your city must have a population greater than 30 thousand. Likewise, to get commercial office high-rises, your city must have more than 45 thousand commercial jobs. In addition, your city must have zoned areas with very high desirability.
pour avoir de grands immeubles: ville large avec 30 000 de pops et pour de grnds immeubles commerciaux, 45 000 jobs commerciaux : / et des zones très demandées.
