Mixed use experiment

One of the biggest trends in urban planning is mixed use zoning. This is problematic in game because cims don't like noise and they don't like pollution, which means they don't want to live near industrial or dense commercial. Practical mixed use zoning in the game, like in reality, is more along the lines of mixing low and high density with some office and light commercial. But I thought I'd try to create some monster mixed use zones that added in everything to see what would happen.

I used the pattern of LR-LC-I-HC-O-HR and repeated this as a chain down very long streets. How much of each I zoned was dependent on the RCI bars. Here's an overall view of this part of my city:

So as you can see I've got everything mixed in there on very long street, with only bike paths as cross connectors, which can also take you to the mainland. With the long streets and well travelled bike paths there isn't much traffic. Cims don't have to go very far to get to work or shopping, and traffic between industrial and commercial is pretty light. There is some degree of traffic for industrial imports, but considering how spread out the industrial zones are, even the heavy truck traffic is fairly light:

I also kept each side of the street the same size. So the very top of the top street is all 1x2, then the next road is 1x3, all the way down to 4x3 and 4x4 on the bottom street. I did this to make sure my zone buffering layout stayed relatively even. This way the 4x4 industry which makes so much pollution would have a bigger buffer of other zones between it and the commercial.

This experimental layout is fundamentally flawed though. The pollution from industry causes sickness all over the place, and I had to put in a hospital and cemetery just to deal with this problem. So it's not recommended unless you want sickness and dead body icons all over the place. It is decent for traffic though.

Despite the sickness problems, the area actually did a pretty good job of levelling up as you can see from the picture below. Industry and commercial almost maxed, and residential well over 4, with office being the only one not levelling up as well.

So overall, aggressive zone mixing doesn't work that well, but it's also not terrible, especially if you're worried about traffic or getting buildings to level up. I mainly don't like it because I hate seeing the dead body icons, as they make me think I've got a death wave incoming. I guess this layout could be good if you don't want any seniors in your town, as the pollution seems to keep life expectancy low!