Hello :)
I have the "bad" habit to built plenty of parks, educational buildings, landmarks e.t.c. ;D . Because of this, i have so many medium and high wealth Sims that my regions scream for more low wealth Sims. So i need to build ghettos, but not bad ghettos with unhappy Sims. Is there a way to build a happy but still low wealth ghetto? Do i need to build schools, police stations, hospitals e.t.c., without turning the ghetto into an another one medium-and-high-wealth city?
Immense use of the "Make Historical" button.
I generally try to meet the demands of the high and mid-wealth class, and this way they wont grow any more. I then grow low wealth and make theme historical. Or I make specific low-wealth not historical so that they grow denser, always making historical when they do.
Every building in my cities is historical, which is kind of a pain, but it leads to great control over city development.
Of course, the Historical Button! Great idea, thanks :thumbsup:
Yeah, using "Make historical" is pretty much mandatory. Apart from a high R-$ demand you don't need that much: an elementary school, a hospital, and maybe fire and police station. Don't use landmarks, rewards and parks, except ArkenbergeJoe's SFBT Low Wealth Park Set. This set has the usual looks of a run-down area, and doesn't provide any park effect (which usually attracts more wealthy sims), but still cleans the air and such. Also, add lots of bus stations and other mass transit, since R-$ sims rely on public transit (also, those huge blocks will generate a lot of traffic, and even low wealth residentials might abandon due to commute time). Build some low-wealth commercial services in the vicinity for the jobs, i. e. some malls and outlet centers, fast food restaurants an the like.
Found just using the historical button is not effective all the time, for some reason many custom content building do not seem to stay histoical all the time, not sure why, but it happens. Easiest way is to use regional play and the the tax system to keep R$$ and R$$$s out of the city and have a neighbouring city that is the opposite and any time you have more demand for R$$ and R$$$ sims is to switch to another city build the higher wealth sims there til demand drops, the switch back to your ghetto city.
Keeping the ghetto look you need to keep education and parks at a min, use less schools, might even go with just libraries or Main library reward, you need a little IQ so the sims will seek COM and IND jobs, not just farm ones, which in general most COM and IND buildings contain more jobs even if your using higher stage CAM farms.
That or go with a mod ed educational buildings where the schools effect to raise IQ of the sims to a min. If you raise the IQ of the sims to high they start becoming R$$ and R$$$ type sims and the buildings move up in scale, the building will regrow up as larger R$$ and R$$$ buildings, but they will not regrow in a downward fashion from R$$$ or R$$ to R$s even if there a high demand for R$.
If high end buildings do grow there are two approaches to keeping your ghetto look:
A) let the simulator run and let the building delaptate before demolishing them. This will lower the area land value and encourage lowwer wealth building to grow around them and discourage high wealth ones which are ussually higher value buildings to grow. If you do wait bulldoze them, cause you do not like the look of delaplated buildings for your ghetto look, the demand for R$ buildings will go up not demand for R$$ or R$$$ buildings if your demolish them right away.
Or if you demolish them when they are still high wealth building let the simulater run til demand goes up for R$$$ or R$$s and then save and switch to your higher wealth city before any growth, soak up the deamd for R$$$ and R$$ in the other city, then save and return to your ghetto type city, the added growth of R$$$ and R$$ in the other city will actually increase demand for lower wealth sim in the city through reginal deand.
When doing this you need to replace schools with HQ and police buildings as low sims require more health care per capital and more likely to riot and have crime then R$$ or R$$$ which will make the sims unhappy. The over all will cost you more money in civic budget costs but can be countered by a more complex and more used MT system, with more often than not you will want to have the sims bussing or subway to a neighbour hood city where jobs can be provided for the lower wealth sims. Remember R$$ and R$$$ buildings do have quite a few R$ jobs that need to be filled by lower wealth sims, just most tend not to be able to afford to live closeby.
GL
Small houses can be kept R$ if you just "forget" to lay pipes there. ;)
Other things that help is keep it outside the radii of your education facilities. You should however cover it with police, fire protection and hospitals.
Oh, and a little bit of pollution should help you keeping richer Sims out, too. ;D
Thanks a lot everybody for your help :)
R$$ will build without water also.
QuoteFound just using the historical button is not effective all the time, for some reason many custom content building do not seem to stay histoical all the time, not sure why, but it happens.
Which ones? I have broken the way historical works by messing with queries.
heh, i wish maxis woulda made it less clicks to "make historical" :p
"Make historical" should work properly (as long as you don't use a broken query window that omits the checkbox for some reason). Please keep in mind that the checkmark will be not valid anymore of your building gets abandoned, though. It might get replaced with another building, which gains the historical status from the old lot, so it might look as if "Make historical" didn't work.