Hi there, you city builder aficionados!

Once again it is the time for another

exciting story from the pages of developer diaries. I am your humble host,
Henkka, and I am here to talk about zoning. So, gather around by the fire
and let your imagination fly...
Oh, and in case you missed the previous entry to the dev diaries, here it is:
Dev Diary 1: Roads.
Basics of zoning (or "Why zoning instead of manually placing all buildings?")
If the roads are the bones of the city, then the zones are the meat around
the bones. Very early on in the development process it was clear that we
wanted the game to feature a zoning tool instead of placing the myriad of
the regular buildings manually. With zoning the player's job is to rule where
the different types of buildings appear but it is the citizens' (that is the
game's) job to actually move in and build the new houses, shops and
factories, all according to the different needs of the city. The player can
determine what the city requires and when by using the RCI indicator in the
GUI.
While discussing the possible ways to build a city a few ways emerged:
placing buildings individually and zoning. While individual placing of
buildings seemed interesting and in theory allowed the player to create the
exact city they wanted it became clear that creating large cities would be
difficult and cumbersome. The sheer amount of buildings needed to place
would turn the game into an editor rather than a city builder. Also problems
would arise with the needs of the city conflicting with the artistic visions of
the player: the player would want to build 10 tenements in an area while the
game calculated the city required only 3. Communicating this kind of
information that is always changing as the game progresses would be
impractical. And as the city grows and new technological levels are reached,
the player would need to manually upgrade all the buildings in the city
which in the end would mean going through thousands upon thousands of
buildings.
Zoning on the other hand simulates more closely city planning on the higher
level where the city planners lay down guidelines and rules for citizens and
companies to work in. We decided that zoning is the way to go in a game of
this scale. And clever city planners can take advantage of the various zoning
tools and have more control over the zoneable buildings than just painting
large areas if they so choose. For example, instead of zoning the full depth
of the zone grid (4 cells) the player can zone thinner slices, like 2 cell deep
areas, that spawn smaller building fitting the 2 cell deep restriction.

Zone types
Cities: Skylines features three main categories for zoning: residential,
commercial and workplaces. All three are divided into two types, low and
high density for residential and commercial, and industry and offices for
workplaces.

Residential areas are the backbone of your city. Detached houses such as the ones on low
density residential zones are inviting to older people and families with kids. High density
residential apartment buildings on the other hand serve the needs of younger adults who
value cheaper living costs among other things.

Each zone type serves different groups of citizens even though some
overlapping occurs. For example, low density residential building are favored
by families with young children and seniors while high density buildings are
favored by young adults and families with no children. Low and high density
commercial building work in a similar way: different citizen groups choose
one zone type over the other if both are available in the city and can be
accessed by good road connections.
While most of the workplaces are in the industrial and office zones
commercial zones create workplaces as well even though their main
function is to sell goods to citizens and accept goods deliveries from local
industry. The first to unlock in the workplaces is the industrial zone which
creates factories of all sizes according to workplace demand. Industrial
efficiency is connected to the quality of workforce (workers' education) as
well as their ability to ship goods they produce and if all the stores and

shops in the city have full storages industry can stagnate until the issue is
solved by providing new businesses or outside connections to ship their
goods to. Offices, just like the high density residential and commercial
zones, unlocks later in the game when the city is able to provide workers
who are adequetly educated to perform in those jobs.

Zoning some high density commercial areas.

Zoning tools
In Cities: Skylines there are various tools for zoning, each having its uses.
Fill tool lets the player zone large areas on one click. This tool is especially
useful with city blocks of small and medium sizes since it can fill them on
one go.
Marquee tool allows the player to click and drag an area of their choosing
and zone huge areas at once. The margquee tool aligns itself with the grid if
the drawing of the area starts next to a zone grid.
The game also features two zoning brushes, a small and a large brush. With
these brushes the player can paint zoned areas. The only thing that needs
to keep in mind is that the zones have to reach the road or otherwise the
buildings won't spawn.

Large zoning brush in action.

Building leveling Residential

Each zoned building has a level. This refers to the education level of the
inhabitants, the land value in the neighborhood and the services available
close by. As the citizens are educated and the overall quality of life increases
with new city service offerings, the buildings gain levels. Lower levels have
fewer requirements, for example they require only some of the city services.
Lower levels on the other hand have bigger negative impact on the
surroundings from polluting factories to residential buildings generating
more garbage. The highest levels require full city service coverage as well
as great commercial and workplace connections to keep up their standard of
living.

Building leveling Commercial

Similarly to residential buildings commercial buildings require that their
neighborhood is at a suitable standard to level up and be able to offer
services to higher level citizens (level 1 has general stores while level 3 has
designer shops and so on). In most cases the bonuses granted by the
presence of city services and the high enough land value will eventually
lead commercial buildings to achieve conditions to level up. Unlike
residential levels, commercial and industrial buildings with higher levels
require workers with higher education. Almost every workplace has some
level 0 jobs but in order to get the most out of a 3rd level workplace it
requires staff with proper levels of education.

Building leveling Industrial / Office

Workplaces like industrial buildings and offices level up when the
surrounding conditions are met. Land value plays an important role for
achieving higher levels and worker education levels are equally important to
be able to run the businesses after said leveling has happened. Industry in
particular experiences drastic changes when reaching highest level: goods
produced are of the highest quality and pollution which is a trademark of
lower level factories and such is a thing of the past.

Offices don't create pollution which is why they can be safely zoned next to a
residential area.

Offices unlock at a later stage since they require even more educated
personnel to be functional. Once the player reaches this level and is able to
really start educating their citizens with the higher level of schools they can
choose to switch to office workplaces instead of industry on the expense
that it might not create as much tax income as the more polluting yet
profitable regular industry.