Residential, commercial, industry: keeping the balance

Who needs whom – the numbers per level

• 🏠 A home brings four residents per level (twice as many once it’s a skyscraper), and 42% of them work.
• 🏢 A shop offers 2 jobs per level and, at the same level, serves about two and a half homes – and it needs goods itself.
• 🏭 A factory offers 3 jobs per level and, at the same level, supplies a little over two shops.

The basic rule is in the guide; the interesting part is what follows from it. Every connected building levels up as fast as the demand for its sector in its own road network allows. Neither jams nor commutes slow commerce and industry down; homes also need clean air, short commutes and free-flowing roads (more on that). And every level shifts the balance. If the bars swing out again after a growth spurt, that’s no cause for concern – it’s the normal rhythm.

In a young city you’ll notice something: once shops and goods are just covered at the same level, jobs are still missing – five homes bring more workers than two shops and a factory can employ. And as the city grows, so do expectations: per head it gradually needs up to 45% more shops, and per shop up to 45% more goods; half of that is reached at 5,000 residents.

What the demand card really shows

The R · C · I bars compare three balances: jobs against workers, shops against need, goods against need. When goods are missing, the industry bar always points right – even if workers are short at the same time, because goods only come from industry.

The bars show ratios, not amounts. Tap the card and it gives you the balance in real numbers, such as “Balance: jobs 35/42 · shops 30/30 · goods 20/18”. It’s worth it: even a gap like the one in the example below – a sixth of the workforce without a job – still shows as “balanced” on the card. With 5,000 workers, that would be more than 800 people out of work.

And “balanced” doesn’t mean “fast”: with every balance exactly covered, your buildings grow at only a little over a third of full speed. Parks give housing a boost but never replace a surplus. If your city is treading water, the card tells you itself – “Balanced means slow” – along with the current speed.

An example in numbers

Five homes, two shops and one factory, all at level 5, on one shared road, no parks: the demand card reports “balanced” for all three sectors. But the balance reads jobs 35/42 – seven people are out of work, and housing demand reaches barely 9% of full speed. The card won’t show that figure: it names the speed of the fastest sector, here around 53%.

A single new shop at level 1 lifts it to around 32%; a new factory only to around 16%. The shop creates jobs AND places to shop, so it feeds both ingredients of housing demand at once. That’s why the card offers you the “Zone Commercial” button in this situation.

What an imbalance costs

Too much housing: every unemployed resident costs you 0.6 💰 of welfare per second, so 100 unemployed cost 60 💰 per second – you’ll find it in the income tooltip under “− Welfare”. On top of that, your homes pay less tax, because missing work weighs more heavily for them than missing shops; the ⚡ value in the money card shows this.

Too much commerce or industry: open jobs cost no welfare, but shops and factories without staff pay less – and so do shops without customers and factories whose goods nobody buys. Tap a building: under “Needs (coverage)” you’ll see what’s missing, and for commerce and industry the “Jobs” line tells you how many are staffed.

You can’t lose anything this way: no building stands empty or shrinks for lack of jobs, and your net income never drops below zero. An imbalance only slows you down. Once upkeep and welfare together reach your taxes, the money card warns you with “⚠️ Upkeep” – your signal to create jobs.

Mix, don’t separate: shops among the homes

A home’s commute leads to the nearest workplace – the nearest shop or factory in the same road network. Up to ten tiles it costs nothing. Beyond that, every tile lowers the home’s taxes, its growth speed and the workforce that actually reaches shops and factories – down to 55% at 40 tiles.

So don’t bundle commerce into a distant shopping district; scatter it in small groups between the housing blocks. A shop on a residential street shortens the commute of every home around it, and it benefits too: homes and other shops nearby raise its location, worth up to +25% tax.

Industry, on the other hand, likes its own kind – other factories around it raise its location. The smog from ordinary industry reaches up to four tiles and mostly hurts homes; ordinary shops don’t mind it. A strip of commerce between factories and homes therefore creates distance and still counts as a workplace. More on this: Avoiding traffic jams and Beautiful neighbourhoods.

Your routine: read the HUD, adjust on purpose

• City: if a red “jobless” number follows your jobs, workplaces are missing. If “⚠️ split networks” shows up as well, connect the districts first.
• Supply: 🔌 shows connected buildings out of all of them; 🛍 and 📦 show shops and goods as supply against need. Amber (from 90%) is normal for a growing city, red is a real shortage.
• Demand: tap it and read the balance. If a sector shows “in demand”, the button below picks the tool of the one most in demand. If it says “Balanced means slow” instead, the button offers “Zone Commercial”.
• A single building: under “Growth” the panel names the brake, e.g. “growing slowly – low demand”. Red needs below 80% can be tapped and pick the right tool.

When adjusting: zone new land for the missing sector instead of rezoning grown buildings. Zoning is free, rezoning costs money – and the building starts again at level 1.

For real speed, keep one sector a little ahead: with around 13 more jobs than workers in the balance and shops covered, housing grows at full speed – given clean air, short commutes and free-flowing roads. The newcomers fill the jobs, then shops or goods run short, and the next sector is up.