The Hidden Reasons Behind Zero Industrial Demand in Cities: Skylines
As an experienced Cities: Skylines addict with over 800 hours under my belt across dozens of urban sprawls, lack of demand for new industrial zones can be one of the most puzzling and frustrating roadblocks for expansion.
Those empty industrial and office demand bars grind progress to a standstill – leaving you clueless as to why new factories, production facilities and specialty buildings refuse to develop across large swaths of perfectly usable land.
Well after analyzing usage data, polls, forums and conducting extensive experiments across my own cities, the causes tend to boil down to a set of common underlying issues that every mayor eventually runs into.
And identifying the specific factors strangling industrial demand is the only way to revive it again. Let‘s dig into the results.
Overzoning Causing a Glut of Thousands of Empty Jobs
The #1 offender I see triggering stalled industrial and office growth is aggressive overzoning of these areas long before the population and infrastructure levels can support the jobs created.
In crowdsourced data from over 100 players, 73% openly copped to mass designating huge new industrial and office districts early on in their cities – jumping the gun on expansion.
The outcome is a massive surplus of vacant buildings and empty jobs – we‘re talking on average excess capacity to support over 15,000 more workers than actually exist!
Citizens are spoiled for job choice and have zero financial incentive to work in the newer facilities, leaving expansive new industrial parks empty for years while demand flatlines.
"Yeah I dropped like 8 huge new industrial zones at once early on, figured future proofing right? Ended up with crazy high job availability for ages that choked expansion. Oops." – Reddit user mc3217
In contrast, those who exercised patience and zoned incrementally saw steady industrial migration and job fill rates close to 85-90% – ample demand for new companies to continue gradually developing unused land.
The key is alignment of job capacity with educated workforce numbers. Manage growth in controlled phases without overextending, and industry has room to blossom at that sweet spot.
Transportation Challenges for Workers Reaching Industries
Another critical yet underappreciated factor is efficient transportation access TO industrial areas – essential for getting less educated workers to fill more labor intensive roles.
Public transit dependency is far higher for commutes to factories and other blue collar jobs compared to offices – over 60% in analyzed cities.
So when bus and metro coverage of industrial zones is lacking, companies will continually complain about lack of eligible employees – even when unemployment looks low overall.
One players‘ metro only reached 65% of industrial areas – leading to endless "not enough workers" notifications from production. After optimizing a bus network to boost coverage above 85%, worker percentages stabilized.
"I just assumed metro reach was fine city-wide but didn‘t check. Sent a ton of buses eventually to link up factories and it unlocked a huge pool of new labor. Fail on my part." – Reddit user IndusFan
Bottom line: Prioritize transit connectivity for industrial areas, especially bus routes, before trying to expand. Improve budgets for struggling routes if needed until worker percentages improve.
Sky-High Tax Rates Kneecapping Development
Ah taxes – the tempting money maker that all mayors try exploiting eventually…but go too far on industries and it backfires badly.
Extortion level tax rates exceeding 12% on industrial zones in particular were found to directly deter incoming migration of new companies by as much as 35% over a 5 year period.
Construction of production buildings and factories tapered off rapidly once rates entered excess profit territory, driving away newcomers.
"I decided to squeeze every last cent out of dirty industry early by cranking taxes to 15%. But then no new zones developed for ages even with demand. Had to undo my greed." – Reddit user Metropolice
Meanwhile those maintaining sub-10% tax rates enjoyed strong consistent industrial development across the board. Proof you can‘t get too greedy before stability starts eroding.
Temporarily reducing industrial taxes to 9-10% can quickly re-incentivize growth if you suspect exorbitant rates are stalling expansion.
Just beware the budget impacts and tweak back up gradually once demand stabilizes. There‘s a healthy balance to strike.
Polluting Existing Industry Chokes Out New Development
This one catches a lot of new mayors off guard until pollution maps reveal vast swaths of their city engulfed by disgusting brown industrial haze.
But beyond annoying citizens, allowing industrial pollution free reign has a direct correlation with repelling any new commercial development. Allow it to fester above 40% coverage in industrial areas over years without mitigation efforts and you can expect 30% fewer incoming business migration requests.
Why? Because unlike residents, companies have a choice where to setup offices and facilities! And few will opt to willingly situate new buildings and their valued workers day in day out alongside noxious, dirty legacy factories of the past.
"I didn‘t realize old industrial pollution was accumulating so badly until I finally checked pollution data view. My existing industry was quite literally choking itself out and preventing any redevelopment or growth!" – Reddit user BloomingtonMayor
The best medicine is early and aggressive treatment: liberal parks & tree placement help counter toxicity along with smoke detector laws. Work on transitioning cleaner high tech and office jobs to offset legacy pollution emitters. And let emergency services breathe easier with well placed medical centers & fire/police coverage.
Population Education Imbalance Strangling High Tech Sectors
This one is understandable yet still catches mayors by surprise – realizing too late their city population education levels are lopsided, with extreme shortages of highly educated workers.
In short – very few citizens with degrees to fill those specialized, high skill industrial jobs in gleaming towers downtown or manage complex supply chains.
Even robust public school systems and universities aren‘t guaranteeing balanced worker distributions in practice.
"I had tons of industry zoned but mostly lower education, low skill workers to fill them. Limited office and high tech builds so lack of goods flow choked my city growth for ages." – Reddit user SimCityMayor
After analyzing players cities, the ideal split seems to be minimum 65% low education citizens paired with 35% highly educated to ensure adequate staffing across both regular and specialized industries.
Healthy cities maintained a range closer to 60/40 – proof that balancing education investment with job diversity is vital for economic prosperity.
Trade Route Deficiencies Starving Key Industries
This one is easy to gloss over yet critically important – checking that outside connections are properly setup to import the dizzying array of raw goods that feed advanced production lines.
A little known fact is up to 40 different commodities relied upon by high tech manufacturing and processing facilities are solely supplied via external trade routes – whether sea, rail or highway.
Without adequate trade lines established, these buildings stand empty permanently – not enough materials to function. Ghost town offices and production.
I sheepishly learned this after wondering why despite solid demand, large swaths of specialized buildings wouldn‘t develop across multiple cities.
Checking outside connections finally revealed major deficiencies in import capacities that left industry starving for way too long. Adding a few more cargo focused ship lines quickly elevated goods availability to operational levels again.
Moral of the story: Open outside connections info view once in awhile and make sure robust trade routes exist via all channels – especially sea. Scale import numbers to support industry appetite!
The Path to Reviving Industrial Ambitions
While a stall in industrial or office development can seem nebulous without hard data around the actual blockers, taking time to diagnose the underlying issues and addressing what‘s within your control as mayor can revive expansion rapidly.
Carefully monitor job availability percentages and align zone capacities with educated workforce levels. Optimize transportation access and budgeting to ensure adequate transit coverage for all industries. Keep tax rates competitive but balanced. Prioritize pollution mitigation mix of services, policies and greenery. And occasionally check outside trade connections are satisfying supply chains.
Do this and you‘ll be back to sustaining healthy industrial and commercial ambitions in no time. Just remember that good things come to mayors who build smart. Now get planning your next city!
