The Appian Way

Housing Stability

In various other places I have harped on and on (and on) about the importance of housing stability. It really is time that I started to justify this assertion. The easiest way to do that is to highlight some of the problems associated with housing instability.

• Population Instability
  Unstable housing leads to fluctuations in population. Not only can this prevent (or at best delay) you achieving the target populations on some missions, it also leads to fluctuations in the workforce. Although not always so serious, a large drop in the available workforce in the city can cause loss of some services, which will cause further houses to devolve, reducing the labour pool still further. This rather nasty little example of positive feedback is really best avoided!
• Prosperity Rating Problems
  If housing is unstable, Murphy's Law dictates that it will choose to devolve in December, just before your Prosperity rating is calculated, ensuring that your Rating takes a massive hit. A bunch of Small Casa devolving right down to tents because they have run out of food might, in unfortunate circumstances, be sufficient to turn a Prosperity rise into a Prosperity decrease. A bunch of Villas or Palaces devolving could do even nastier things to your Prosperity rating. Such calamities can often take several years to recover from.
• Use of Non-Food Goods
  When a house is first supplied with a particular non-food item, a certain proportion of the item supplied is 'lost' i.e. not all the goods supplied are stored by the house for future use. When a house devolves through lack of a non-food item, it must be resupplied with the full 'initial supply' amount, rather than having its existing supplies replenished. Houses engaged in evolution-devolution cycles thus use considerably more non-food items than houses stable at that level.
• Aesthetics and General Annoyance
  There is nothing more annoying to look at, in my opinion, than a bunch of houses engaged engaged in a yo-yo evolution-devolution cycle. It just looks really nasty. Especially if the bottom end of the cycle is a Tent. Besides, devolving housing is a headache. It takes up time and money to sort out. Stable housing makes for a much easier-to-run city, which can only be a good thing!

How do I get stable housing?

To answer this question it is useful to consider the reasons why housing devolves. I will consider the major causes, and propose a few solutions to these problems.

• Poor access to services
  This is probably the most common cause of housing devolution. When a house is passed by a service walker, it receives a number of 'points' for that service. These points decay over time, and if they reach zero before the house is passed by that walker again, the house loses access to that service. If this is a service required for evolution to that housing level (or any of those below it), the house devolves. The decay of these points can be visually monitored with the relevant overlays.

  In order to prevent this happening, you need to ensure that houses are regularly passed by the relevant walkers. The article on Walker Control contains several useful tips on this subject. These principles are also illustrated in my discussion of Housing Blocks

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• Insufficient supplies of food and goods
  In ensuring a reliable supply of food and good it is necessary to have an efficient distribution system. Many of the key points are discussed on the Market Ladies and Distribution pages, but some of them are worth reiterating. In addition to controlling the movement of Market Sellers, it is vital that you keep supplies of all available food types and goods you wish to distribute close to all of your markets. If you still have distribution problems: add more markets.
• Desirability
  Although this is comparatively rare, it is worth mentioning. Occasionally, when a house expands (Medium Insulae to Large Insulae; Medium Villa to Large Villa; Medium Palace to Large Palace), it does so into gardens. The gardens are lost when the house expands so the desirability of the area falls. If there are insufficient additional beautification structures in the area, then the house may devolve again. In order to prevent this happening, keep all your intended luxury housing surrounded by large statues!

This website was created by Mark Snow a.k.a. Caesar Alan. Most of the information presented here was gleaned from a number of other websites. Where possible I have credited my sources. You are free to use any of the information here, provided you acknowledge your source!