How residential zones work [1.2]

This guide attempts to explain how residential zones work in Cities Skylines. Although they are similar to the famous Simcity 4 there are certainly not identical.

Introduction

This guide is a summarized version of the full guide Cities Skylines Guide – How residential zones work[www.gameplayinside.com]. This summary meant as a quick in-game reference.

Zoning

• You will need to designate land for your citizens to construct housing on.
  
• Zoning is completely free.
  
• Zoning can only be achieved on the white squares that appear next to roads.
  
• All roads have a maximum range of 4 squares. Highways have no zoning space.

Pro tip:

You can use different zoning tools. Personally I use the second option called “Marquee” that allows you to drag zones like in SimCity.

Residential buildings can Level up*plieng*

Whilst playing Cities Skylines you will sometimes hear a lot of pinging sounds. These are your buildings increasing their level.

• All residential buildings can increase their level on a scale from 1 to 5.
  
• Higher level residences provide space for additional families
  
• Higher level residences tolerate higher tax levels

How to level up your Residential buildings

In order for residences to level they require the following

• Access to education (level 4 needs university)
  
• Increased land value

Once certain requirements are met your buildings will automatically transform to the next level. When this happens the building will show reconstruction and a sound will be played.


Use the ingame tooltip and hover over the upgrade bar and the game will tell you what that specific house is lacking.

How to increase Education Level

• Elementary school: Provides basic education to children making them “educated”
  
• High school: Provides education to young adults making them “well educated”
  
• University: Provides education to adults making them “highly educated”

All you have to do is make sure that you have enough buildings to keep the info graphic slider in the green. Like any service building you must make sure all roads show up green on your educational network.

How to increase Land value

Leisure

The land value for Residential areas is primarily determined by the leisure rating. Leisure is improved by adding decorations, specifically the parks and plaza’s. So if the game is telling you a building needs a higher land value just plop down some parks and you are golden! Not only do they raise land value, they also provide leisure which makes your citizens happy.

Policies

Activate the following policies

• Parks and Recreation (increase land value around parks)
  
• High Tech Housing (Turns homes into smart homes which increases land value)

Low density or high density residential zone?

Low Density Residential zone

• Has 2-7 households
  
• Upgrades to beautiful villa’s
  
• Primarily attracts families (meaning children)

High Density Residential zone

• Has 9-26 households
  
• Upgrades to taller buildings
  
• Primarily attracts young adults

In terms of efficiency the high density residential zones are superior. However they come with a few downsides:

• Generate a huge amount of traffic
  
• Require more frequent visits from services (ambulances, hearses, police etc)
  
• Need multiple educational and death care facilities covering the same area taking up space that you probably already used for something else.

Therefore only "upgrade" when you are ready and never large parts of your city at once.

Discusissing these further will be outside the scope of this summary. Additional text can be found here: Cities Skylines Guide – How residential zones work[www.gameplayinside.com],

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this summary. Creating a summary takes additional time. If something is unclear or you have other questions regarding this topic then do not hesitate to give me a shout!

Version history
11/3/2015
1.0 First steam summary launched
1.1 Expanded " Low density or high density residential zone?" and also did a rewrite of the full version in response to a comment request.
12/3/2015
1.2 Added chapter How to increase Education Level and How to increase Land value.

[Shant]

@Alexa Faie. IDK why you weren't answered for so long but I guess you already got the answer yourself. Just click on the building and enable Historical Building option. :)

[AlexaFaie]

I just purchased the game & am struggling to understand why the buildings have to change looks so much when they "upgrade". I just had to spend ages demolishing buildings which looked ugly (like blocks of flats) from appearing amongst the other houses that looked right. For the most part I kept my zones small (2x2, some 3x2). The look of the houses fits 99% of what I would expect to see at that size in the real world & I'm happy with the look of it. However the problem comes when they upgrade. Now on the same footprint as a nice Victorian house there is a building with extra stories & it looks too large. Instead of the 2x2 being a house with a garden, the whole 2x2 is taken up by the house. Its a total downgrade.

Is there any way to allow the styles to stay fixed? I have seen mods which stop the buildings from upgrading & so you lose any benefits of upgraded properties, but I don't want that. I just want the outside appearance to stay the same.

[Nite69]

what size zone blocks are best to build for 7 household on low density and 26 household on high density? I'm trying to go for max population

I know that 4 x 4 is the max can do near a road but is something like 2 x 4 or 3 x 4 size zone blocks more optimal?

[dwb Hillary Clinton]

Thankyou :)

[nathan]

the only issue with High Density Residential zone is that they dump so much trash on the city and it's making my dump service pushing to it's full limit..

[Magistar]

@icycrisp
Nice idea, does require some testing though.

@donm65 Thanks :).

[donm65]

Thanks for the info on zoning, it was helpful.

[IcyCrisp]

Great guide! One thing could be added to improve it, what is the highest tax rate tolerated for each building level.

[Magistar]

@liosalpha It is true that parks themselves can have a low land value. However I doubt that the housing level is the only component in land value since I have seen level 3 housing with bright green land value surrounding a park. Whereas the same level 3 housing becomes dark blue further away from the park.

If we take that obervation than it is more likely that something like happiness is a factor.

[liosalpha]

I dont think parks are increasing land value directly. It make the houses level up more quickly (due happyness/ leasure) And the higher level housing increases the land value. if you plop downthe bigest park in side a residential erea, you see that the land value in side that park is white.