[pierreh]

Poor weather and the confinement kept me at home for long periods and I could play my cities, with some daunting issues with traffic, more about those at a later time.

I have always been bothered by industrial areas, first because the game always asks for more of those (but I found out that it is possble to resist and zone industry quite parsimoniously), second because what gets built is, at least at the beginning, very ugly, dirty, smoky and polluting. Gradually, as a city grows and ages, dirty industry gets replaced (partially) by high-tech, which looks a lot better and pollutes less.

Here is a small corner of the industrial area of Polsay, where high-tech has become prevalent:



On the upper right of the picture is a section of the commercial area where new buildings are being erected. On the left of the picture is the 2 X 4-lane highway linking to Salveille (which is congested, but that is another story).

I have tried, with some degree of success - but I don't really know whether it makes a significant difference - to adjust tax rates to encourage high-tech. Here are the tax rates for industry in Polsay:



As can be seen, dirty industry ('polluante') is heavily taxed, whereas high.tech ('de pointe') is very lightly taxed. Has anyone else played with tax rates, and has seen some effects?