Northstar, 17 October: new access roads fill housing and create new bottlenecks

Northstar ended 17 October just below its population at the start of the day. After a clear drop, the city recovered through the afternoon and evening. Two housing areas studied gained more households than their comparison areas after new road connections. The southwest connection was used so heavily that its junction became a new bottleneck, and the large demolition of empty factory buildings did not trigger the hoped-for wave of new construction. All times are Berlin time.

Recovered in the evening, slightly down on the day

Between the first and last sample the city was down by about 10,000 residents, nearly 0.6 percent. Two million residents were not reached, and the long-term five-million goal remains a planning task. Part of the population again arrived in surges, with temporary sharp falls in between. Later in the evening the build logs showed shorter stretches of growth without a large influx surge. That is a more favourable sign than in the morning, but not proof of a lasting stable growth regime.

The backlog of waiting households stayed large. At 00:07 about 580,000 households were in the corresponding status; the late overview showed about 708,000. Households are a different quantity from residents and are not added to the actual population. The larger backlog is also no proof that all the additional households will actually move in later.

The late unemployment rate was 9.21 percent, inside the documented band. The city overview counted about 947,000 jobs. Local labour reports, the qualification of vacant jobs and the reachability of individual businesses remain separate questions.

Housing fields occupied, demolition without a rebuilding wave

The housing fields opened up the previous evening were largely built up by morning according to the build log. A supplementary occupancy survey also showed actual households and residents in the new areas. Its counting areas differ from the earlier field counters, so building counts and resident counts are not simply added into one balance.

Further dense housing demand stalled. The build process examined in particular the decline in vacant low-skill jobs: additional residents filled positions while the earlier positive demand factor for vacant jobs disappeared. This diagnosis explains part of the planning; it does not show that any single intervention could bring all demand back. Vacancies also remained in areas already served by metro.

In the morning about 1,200 empty industrial buildings were inventoried, and nearly all of them qualified for the planned demolition as manufacturing buildings. Stored build receipts confirm demolitions of nearly all of those candidates. The aim was to restart industrial construction blocked by empty company buildings and create additional low-skill jobs.

The immediate result report then still listed more than 1,100 vacant industrial parcels and no industrial demand. Later follow-up runs found empty manufacturing buildings again, and the repeating demolition cycle was ended. The large initial number is not a measure of success for employment or the economy; a long-term improvement from this attempt is not shown.

South connection: more households in a previously weak district

At about 11:28 a new road link to the map edge in the south was built. It required additional tile purchases and links between previously separate parts of the southern housing area. The game crashed, the saved state was reloaded, and the classification of the end node as an outside connection was read back again afterwards.

The purpose was shorter access to empty housing; a metro stop alone had shown no convincing catchment advantage in the south the day before. In the paired buildings of the circle studied, households rose by about 27 percent. In the comparison circle the count fell by about 18 percent. This is an observed advantage for the connected area. Other parts of the city changed in parallel, and a restart lay between the samples, so neither the overall population movement nor every single move-in can be attributed to the connection alone. The local effect also stayed small against the temporary citywide falls.

Southwest: an effective access with an overloaded junction

At about 15:46 another connection from the western map edge into the southwest was opened. It led to an existing dead end and crossed the railway; the documented build sequence needed no demolitions.

In the paired group around the area's centre, households rose by about 23 percent. The two comparison areas changed by roughly plus one and minus nine percent. This points to a local catchment advantage; no statistically established probability of general effectiveness is derived from it.

The new road was heavily used quickly. On the existing section directly behind the junction, the flow value fell sharply:

The flow value is a dimensionless game metric between zero and one, not a speed. The traffic volume is likewise a game reading, not an independently counted number of vehicles. The section stayed the same across the four samples; the network around it changed.

At 18:26 a truck ban was activated on the new route as a trial. The next sample showed no improvement at the junction in question, and neighbouring corridors got worse. The ban was withdrawn at 19:46. The assumption that industrial trucks were the decisive cause of the overload was not confirmed in this trial; no full breakdown of traffic by trip purpose was available.

A second junction into another block street followed. It spread the inflow: volume at the old bottleneck fell and the new branch was used. Even so, the flow value there stayed below the target in the 21:10 sample. Later build-log samples point to further local relief but still note congestion at edge pieces. The connection was kept; a lastingly congestion-free solution was not shown by the end of the day.

North edge: clear growth, no usable control

At 17:16 a short road stub was built at the north edge. In the paired group of the circle studied, households rose by about 15 percent. The intended control circle was missing entirely from the survey, which recorded no buildings there, and the before-sample already lay before the southwest connection. This is therefore no clean proof of the stub's isolated contribution: the growth is observed, but its attribution to this connection remains provisional. The build log also notes rising use and later weaker flow values at the edge.

Another northwestern connection was opened and measured as well; its rising use was a reason to keep watching the load on the existing road network. The eastern access stayed on hold because of terrain, city borders and a costly route.

Power, cash, performance

On a hint recorded in the build log, the power output of a waste incineration plant was connected with an underground cable. Another gas power plant studied had already been destroyed; it was not rebuilt, because of conflicts with network later built over it. The ruin and a no-longer-needed line stub were removed instead, and a replacement plant was still open. The following operations check reported no power warnings. That is a dated check, not a guarantee for all later load states.

In funeral maintenance, two background cycles had run side by side for a time, causing overlapping cemetery swaps and an aborted operation. The older run was ended and a lock against double starts was added. The reporter neither steered nor changed these routines.

The residential tax was raised in the morning and again later; the documented reason was the falling cash balance. The late cash reading was about 949 million game money, inside the documented band. Tax changes, move-ins and construction spending ran at the same time, so an isolated tax effect on the population is not shown.

For the whole of 17 October the contractually qualified performance source again has no usable readings, a full-day gap of unknown cause. A crash at about 11:29 and the restart interrupt the day's measurement, and its cause cannot be determined from the work running at the time. No conclusion about CPU optimisation or about carrying five million residents is drawn from this day.

The next check has to show whether the more favourable late move-in holds over further cycles and whether the new access roads stay viable under growing load. A local household gain, a busy new road and a lastingly met city goal are three different results.