Nobody lives on the farms ?

[Saint52]

I am building a city out of the whole region (New York) with the center segments (Cities) as the large city and working out to the rural areas. I have build complete areas out of farms and they show that I have lots of agricultural jobs but nobody lives there. Is there a mod or has anyone considered having people live on the farms.

This is my first post to any kind of forum so if I am in the wrong spot please let me know. I tried searching for an answer but I am not good at that either.

I had given up on SC4 until I found this website and now with all the downloads I am back at it and enjoying myself again. Thank you all for your hard work.

Saint52

[xxdita]

Unfortunately, there really isn't any way to mod farming zones to have any residents. It has been attempted at least a couple times, with different mods, and none have been successful to date. And really I don't see any way to make it work.

There are ways to get around this... with a little imagination, and by looking through the MD's here, especially Tales At TeaTime and Waterfalls, and of course The Three Rivers Region project board. You can get your cities to look pretty much however you'd want, though the technical aspects may not match their real world counterparts. 

Hope this helps.

[MattyFo]

You could also simply zone small residentials on your farms, Like put a 1x2 or 1x3 etc of residential per each farm lot.

[Saint52]

Thanks for the info. I might try the idea with the residential to see what it looks like. Otherwise i might put a small town in the middle of the farming community.  Thanks again

Saint52

[KoV Liberty]

I think some of the best homes for towns would be the ones by Mattb325. Those seem perfect for small towms.

[mrbisonm]

There is no possibility to make two different zonings on one lot,(like I$ and R$) they either can be only industrial, residential or commercial, while farming is industrial. Unfortunetly Maxis did not add some housemodels to the growable farmlots they made, I don't know why, maybe they never saw farms before? 
Anyways, like xxdita said so well, with some imagination you can build your own farms that look fairly good by zoning  R$ or R$$ as a 1x1, 1x2 or even 1x3 beside the farmbuildings. Make sure that you zone beside the actual building in the field-tiles, not to destroy the mainbuildings.
You can also download some nice looking growable farmlots from the LEX or Stex, that have housebuildings on them already. Many wonderful custom farms available.
I included two pics below, the first one showing a farming community with downloaded farms that have homes on their lots and on the second picture you can see some added zones besides the actual farmlots to look like they belong to the farm.
I do this all the time and think that my farmlands look pretty realistic for northamerican agricultural regions.

Good luck

Fred

[j-dub]

Uh, guys, why not just relot the farm lots to have a house model appear with the farm structure model on the growable lot? Sure, there would not be any change to your population this way, because it will still be farm zoned only, but your streets will not change, if the house is already part of the farm to begin with. Otherwise, you have to make a separate residential lot. There are times, a residential area will have to be built off the farm, not in it, because farm hands will also need a place at night, also consider relatives.

[mrbisonm]

Uh, guys, why not just relot the farm lots to have a house model appear with the farm structure model on the growable lot? Sure, there would not be any change to your population this way, because it will still be farm zoned only, but your streets will not change, if the house is already part of the farm to begin with. Otherwise, you have to make a separate residential lot. There are times, a residential area will have to be built off the farm, not in it, because farm hands will also need a place at night, also consider relatives.

Like I said, there are many growable custom farms with houses available on the LEX and Stex, all you have to do is find them and download. If you want Maxis farms with houses, you will have to modify them yourself, because I don't think anyone else would be interested to do so. Much more fun to have something completely new than something old and modified, right? (talking about lots only, ok?)

Fred

[MattyFo]

You could also simply zone small residentials on your farms, Like put a 1x2 or 1x3 etc of residential per each farm lot.

Basically what I meant was what mrbisonm had said, I should not have used the word "lot".  I meant per farm "zone".  This is what I do and I have download some custom houses mainly from Sim Goober that look alot like a farm house, large lot with a garden and such and wrap-around porches.  It takes some patience to wait for it to grow but the fruit is worth the labor