Willow Flats

Land use guide

• Residential. $24 a tile. Holds 7 people at stage 1, 18 at stage 2, 38 at stage 3. Grows only when there are jobs for the people already here. Stage 2 needs land value 36 and happiness over 40; stage 3 needs land value 60, happiness over 55, and at least two of its four services in range. Draws 3 MW, 2 kL and 2 t of waste per stage. Pays the most tax of the three.
• Commercial. $28 a tile. 5 / 12 / 24 jobs by stage. Demand comes from residents and, more weakly, from factories that need somewhere to sell. Needs land value 30 for stage 2, 50 plus one service for stage 3. Only cares about fire and police — a school next door does nothing.
• Industrial. $32 a tile. 8 / 18 / 36 jobs by stage — the cheapest jobs you can build. Reaches stage 2 at land value 10 and stage 3 at 20, so it thrives in the corner nobody else wants. It only needs fire cover. In exchange it pumps out smog that spreads roughly five tiles and builds up or fades over about two years rather than snapping instantly, dropping land value for everything downwind. Clean industrial ($60/tile) does the same job with zero smog — it unlocks once you've raised the Willow Tower, for building a genuinely clean city on a second run.
• The equilibrium mix is roughly 60% residential, 20% commercial, 20% industrial. At that ratio all three demand bars sit near zero and the city grows evenly. Skew it and one bar pins high while the others go negative.
• Coal plant $1,600 — 600 MW, about 65 developed lots. $25/month idle, $150 at full load. Smokes. Wind farm $2,200 — 320 MW, no pollution, higher idle cost.
• Water tower $600 — 400 kL, about 65 lots. Aquifer $1,800 — 950 kL on one tile, unlocks at 1,800 residents — the land-efficient option once space runs short. Landfill $700 — 260 t, and a savage hit to land value for several tiles. Sanitation center $3,200 — 750 t in one tile with a much smaller land-value hit and, unlike a landfill, no smog at all.
• Park $90 — raises land value for several tiles around it and gives a flat happiness bonus (+0.7 each, capped at +10). The single best thing you can put in a dense neighbourhood.
• Bus stop $300, 4-tile radius, unlocks at 1,200 residents. Once you have two or more stops on the same road network, homes within 4 tiles of a stop send about 45% fewer cars onto the roads. It doesn't change where people work or how much tax they pay — it purely removes traffic, which means less congestion, higher land value on the jammed streets, and one fewer avenue to pay for. Covered lots also gain a little land value (+3). Stops on their own do nothing; you need a pair before anyone rides.
• Fire 7 tiles, police 8, clinic 9, school 10. Coverage feeds happiness (±5 each) and land value (+7 per service on the tile), and homes need two of them to reach stage 3. Clinic and school only count toward homes — shops only care about fire and police, factories about fire alone — so they carry the same weight as the others once built, they're just easy to skip early since they unlock later (1,000 / 2,200 pop).
• Willow Tower $100,000, unlocks at 6,000 residents. Forces land value to a flat 100 in a 5-tile radius around it — a guaranteed high-value core for whatever you build nearby.

Reference

• The highway is where everyone comes from. Residents only move in if their street traces back to the ramp on the west edge. It also supplies about 200 out-of-town jobs, which is what carries you until you build your own.
• Roads upgrade in tiers: street (400 commuters) → avenue (1,400) → boulevard (3,200). You can only build streets. Use the Upgrade tool: click two ends of a run, or right-drag a box.
• Zone in balance. Housing demand comes from jobs, shop demand from residents, factory demand from residents and shops. Spamming one type stalls all three.
• Waste needs landfills, which wreck land value nearby, or a sanitation center, which handles far more per tile with almost no land-value hit and no smog either.
• Services by land use: homes want all four, shops fire and police, factories fire only.
• Land outside your border lights up with its price when you hover it. Click to buy, if it touches something you already own. Each parcel costs 32% more than the last.
• Zoom with the scroll wheel, pan with middle-drag or the arrow keys.
• Bonds run ten years at 140% of face value — a $10,000 bond costs $117 a month for a decade. You can't borrow more than about eighteen months of revenue, so the bigger bonds stay locked until the city can service them. Repay one in full and future bonds drop to 125%.
• Bulldoze is free and refunds 40% of what the tile cost to build — clearing a coal plant you no longer need puts $640 back in the treasury. It drags like the zone tools for one-by-one clearing, or right-drag a box to clear a whole area at once with a confirm step.
• Undo reverses the last build, upgrade or land purchase. Ctrl+Z works too.
• Commendations — ten to find, each worth a small permanent discount and half a point toward your final score. Check the Commendations tab for what's still open.
• Score, shown when you win, breaks into five even parts — speed, happiness, low taxation, livability, and prosperity (land value plus commendations) — each worth 20, then scaled by difficulty.
• Taxes unlock as you grow. The rate is fixed at 9% until 500 residents. From 500 you get one slider for everyone, and from 1,000 you set homes, shops and factories separately. A higher rate brings in more money per point, but the homes rate costs happiness and the shops and factories rates cool demand for new ones. Lower average taxes also score better.
• Policies unlock at 800 residents: recycling, clean air rules, free buses, a safety campaign and a tourism campaign. Each costs money every month and has a trade-off, and you can run one at a time at first, two from 2,000 residents and three from 4,000.