Hello, builders! How is the construction of your city progressing? Are there enough jobs for your population? Do you protect the environment? Yes, the topic of this article is related to pollution in your cities. Pollution is a problem we struggle with in the real world as well, so why would the virtual world be spared?
But it is good to know that the human population can very well influence the reduction of the level of pollution wherever it is located, even in a virtual game. What types of pollution exist and how to reduce pollution in the city you will find out later in this article.
Cities: Skylines is a simulation game in which you build a city of your choice. This game was released in 2015, is currently on the Steam platform, and can be downloaded in the PC version and in the Xbox One and PS4 versions as well. With a specific budget, you start with the construction of city infrastructure, traffic, residential, industrial, and commercial areas, and other facilities.
In addition, you have to regulate jobs, pay attention to citizens’ health and satisfaction with city facilities, and provide them with quality public transport connections. Basically, your city must have all the facilities as an actual city. For example, residential areas must be away from industrial areas but not too far, and public transport must function well so that your citizens do not have to travel long from work to home. Of course, you will have many more tasks as mayor, and today we will focus on the pollution that is a big problem in every city.
Also Read: How to Undo in Cities: Skylines?
Pollution in Cities: Skylines
Pollution is a negative phenomenon that affects the health of citizens and can cause death and abandonment of buildings that are responsible for creating pollution. As in the real world, pollution can reduce the population because people will leave jobs and homes due to impaired health. That’s why you have to take the pollution problem seriously. There are three types of pollution in Cities: Skylines – ground, noise, and water pollution.
Ground pollution is related to industrial zones because they create unhealthy atmospheric conditions. Noise pollution is related to, for example, airports, because loud frequencies are created that also affect citizens’ quality of life. Water pollution takes place through sewage found in water, produced by factories, and thus polluting water surfaces.
Also Read: How To Make Elevated Roads in Cities: Skylines
Noise Pollution
Noise pollution in Cities: Skylines is caused mainly by traffic. Buses, subways, and trains, along with harbors and buildings, affect citizens’ quality of life. The simplest solution is to build such buildings away from residential and commercial areas, and this will significantly reduce noise pollution. Also, building parks near such facilities helps a lot in reducing noise pollution.
It is impossible to avoid noise pollution in building construction, but various methods reduce its level. High levels of noise pollution can negatively affect the health of nearby citizens, and they can get sick.
Try to upgrade your roads and place trees down your road as trees will significantly reduce noise pollution levels. Furthermore, placing offices will reduce the noise pollution.
Also, build highways with sound barriers. Sound barriers affect the level of noise pollution, and you can only set them on highways. But if you are building a city connected to the highway, this is an ideal way to minimize noise pollution in your city.
However, you will help your citizens the most not to feel the consequences of noise pollution by building areas in such a way that all zones with a high level of noise pollution are away from residential and commercial areas, so keep that in mind.
Also Read: How to Connect Power in Cities: Skylines?
Ground Pollution
The industry is the main reason for ground pollution, and pollution affects the ground on which factories and other buildings that produce ground pollution are built. However, farming and forestry industries do not create almost any ground pollution, except for some of the Farm Area and Forestry Area buildings.
Ground pollution is difficult to deal with; even if the ground building is removed, it will still remain polluted and will take some time to recover.
But if there is a natural disaster like a tsunami, ground pollution will go away. Also, garbage also creates ground pollution. For example, if some buildings do not dump their garbage for a long time, they will also pollute the ground. Sewage water will also pollute the ground after a while.
The greater the ground pollution, the more quickly citizens will get sick and die from contaminated drinking water.
Water Pollution
Water pollution is related to sewage. Almost all buildings produce sewage which is then released into nearby rivers. Build water drain pipes for drainage because the water will be healthy to drink and will not be polluted and affect the health of citizens. If water flowing downstream of outflows appears discolored, it means that that flow is polluted.
If you set up a pumping station poorly, it can pump contaminated water into the drinking water stream and pollute it. The fastest way to get your citizens sick.
For even more excellent protection, you can build a Floating Garbage Collector that will filter the water, and anything that can contaminate it will remove.
Pollution Solution Mod for Cities: Skylines
If nothing helps – there is a mod. This mod can quickly solve your pollution problem in your city. With this mod, you can enable or disable every kind of pollution in just a few seconds.
It takes a few seconds for enabling of disabling pollution to have an impact in your city.
You can find this mod on the Steam Workshop site, where you can download and install it in your game.
Warning: Use mods at your own risk. Each mod was created by mod creators and is not part of the official version of Cities: Skylines. You agree to make your data visible to the creator by downloading the mod. Also, the mod can negatively affect your game so remember to save your game before restarting it with the new mod so as not to lose progress in case the mod messes up with your game.
Also Read: How to Delete Bus Lines in Cities: Skylines?
Final Thoughts
As you can see, virtual cities are not spared pollution problems either. Noise pollution, ground pollution, and water pollution significantly affect the quality of life of citizens and their health. What is important to remember is that pollution cannot be eradicated entirely, but that it can be drastically reduced so that it does not affect the health of citizens.
For example, building parks can reduce noise pollution as well as building sound barriers on highways. For water pollution, it is important to pay attention to sewage that flows into rivers from factories and pollutes drinking water. Polluted drinking water will quickly take your citizens to the hospital. For prevention, it is necessary to build water pumps and position the pumping stations well.
Ground pollution can be reduced by building industrial areas away from residential and commercial areas. This is actually universal advice for combating pollution, and the farther these zones are from people and their homes, the less likely people are to be affected by pollution.
If you have some more tips on how to clean the city from pollution, feel free to share them with us.
