#citiesskylines2 I think I figured out how to satisfy low density residential demand in the game. It basically operates on the concept of Induced Demand. Just like adding a lane to a highway incentivizes people to use the highway more, leading to the same congestion problems. If you constantly zone low density residential in an attempt to "chase the demand bar," what you're doing is increasing the supply of houses. Meaning, driving down the COST of housing. Meaning more citizens can afford a house, meaning they buy up that supply, so they demand more... it's a feedback loop, like acquiescing to a child who only ever wants to eat chocolate.
So, counterintuitively, you need to IGNORE their demand. By keeping the supply constant, and with demand increasing, the cost of the housing goes up. This prices out some of your citizens, and so they will begin demanding lower-cost options. Enter, medium density housing. You start with row housing, then medium density, then mixed-use. This doesn't happen fast, let alone instantly, so you kind of have to plan this strategy from the founding of your city. At one point I had a 15k pop with almost exclusive demand for medium density housing.
As your citizens get more educated through college and university levels, they'll be able to afford those suburbs again, and the demand will return. But they'll also be young enough that living "in the big city" will be desirable and they'll start demanding high density apartments close to shops and offices. Beware the Low Rent zoning type! Despite being high density, if your citizens are too well educated and make too much money, they'll abandon these buildings the moment they can afford nicer places. But I guess they're a good stopgap measure between medium density and regular high density.
So Induced Demand is a double edged sword: you want to avoid inducing demand for low density suburbs, and purposely induce demand for higher densities.
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@HarkMahlberg Yeah, it's a bit of an adjustment to go from thinking about satisfying demand to thinking about creating it. The demand bars are honestly not super useful in this game other than helping you figure out when you finally created some incentive to use the zoning you want. And even then you can just plop it down and look at it to see if it grows, so...
A good habit to get into is to avoid zoning with the paint tool, always use the Marquee tool and zone one block at a time. 2x3, 3x4, 4x5, 2x4, 3x5, 4x6, etc. Only zone that density for which you have a full bar, don't even bother with a bar that's only half full. Keep an eye on the demand bar after each block you make, because if it IMMEDIATELY goes to 0 after a single building got zoned, then that's all you needed to do. Eventually it will replenish and then you can zone another.
Also use the marquee tool to sprinkle in office and commercial near your medium and high density buildings, because your businesses will get the "Not Enough Customers" flag if you decide to zone a commercial complex too far away from your residences. That's right, customers are a resource. So you have to zone commercial where the "deposits" of customers is highest. XD
If your citizens are well educated and they live in high density blocks, placing office buildings near their apartment buildings will cut down their commute and allow them to simply walk to work. This increases the value of their apartments, the offices will be happy because they have a steady supply of labor, and you won't have to deal with nearly as much traffic.
Anyway shoutout to @infrastructurist, his videos in CS2 early access are extremely worth the watch, the techniques he shows off are super useful for understanding the way the game works and how to bend it to your whimsy.
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