I haven't played this game for long, but recently, my first city reached a population of 100k, which is a huge progress since I first download of Cities: Skylines in May.
On May 11, I got my first achievement, "Unpopular Mayor", with a 15% happiness rating on the first day I played. It might sound rediculous, as empty houses were automatically considered "unhappy", even though no one was living in those areas. But those empty houses reflected a problem: not many people were moving into the them, and not many residents were moving into the city.
The highways were initially disconnected. Cars drove by the city, but there was no way to let them in.
I connected 4 highways and created some roads next to them. Vehicles entered the city, but they drove away and never passed through the newly constructed roads inside the city.
Then I came up with a rather nasty idea: I only connect the entry road that allowed cars to get into the city, but I kept the exit highway disconnected so that new migrants could not move out (dark, I know).
My plan failed. Once I did that, no cars drove through the highway. People were not stupid. If there were no houses, no industry, no raw materials moving into the city, no public services, and no reputation, who would live in such a poor place?
I don't not remember if I had built enough building next to the roads, but at the beginning of the game, only a few brave individuals moved into the city. Some took a look and left, while others stayed, whom I appreciate. I want to say "thank you" to the first few residents.
Once they settled down for a while, more people came in, and the population grew faster. However, when it reached around 66k, population growth nearly stopped.
Traffic jam prevented people from moving, especially near the highway. Ambulances were blocked on the main roads and could not reach their destinations. Thousands of people died without receiving timely treatment, and their corpses remained in the apartments for months but could't be removed, even though the crematories were just one block away. There were not enough hearses, and even if there were (I built several cramatories to send out more hearses), they were stuck on the roads. Dead body diffused strange smell in the apartments. The smell of decomposing spread throughout the apartments. The people in the same buildings were displeased with it and eventually moved away.
These scenes repeated until I rebuilt the roads and city blocks, and relocated the garbage disposal station (which I will discuss in future articles). The city had wasted too many public services due its design. No matter how many resources a city has, such as hospitals, police stations, and crematories, if those services can't reach the buildings when residents ask for help, they turn out to be useless.
Last modified on 2023-05-31