Guide
Desirability and land value
Desirability is what a lot's neighbours add up to. It decides which streets fill with towers and which empty out.
The 0 to 9 scale
Every tile in a Blockline city has a desirability: how much people want to live or work there. Underneath, it is a score from 0 to 100 built up from everything nearby. The game groups that score into ten bands of ten points, numbered 0 to 9, and those bands are what the desirability overlay paints on the map and what the growth checks read.
| Band | Described as |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | Blighted |
| 2–3 | Poor |
| 4–5 | Fair |
| 6–7 | Good |
| 8–9 | Prime |
Because the bands are ten points wide, the bonuses and penalties further down are in the underlying points. A +3 from a bus stop is a third of a band; a landmark's +12 at its gates can lift a street by more than a full band.
What desirability does
- Growth. To climb a level, a lot needs at least 2 (from zoned land), 2 (from construction), 3 (from established) and 4 (from growing).
- Decline. At 1 or below, a lot loses a level at its fortnightly check. A lot that declines all the way is abandoned and left derelict.
- Recovery. An abandoned lot is reoccupied once desirability climbs back to 3 and there is demand for that zone.
Derelict lots are themselves a drag on the land around them, so decline spreads if it is left alone. Catching a slipping street early is much cheaper than rescuing a blighted one. For homes, desirability is also the household's local mood, so a pleasant street means happier residents as well as taller buildings.
What raises it
Everyday services
Parks are the simplest lift, and schools and police stations raise the land around them too. A bus stop adds +3 within 3 tiles. Several civic buildings carry their own lift, strongest beside them and fading with distance:
- Library: +3, reaching 6 tiles
- Clinic: +3, reaching 8 tiles
- Community centre: +3, reaching 6 tiles
- Courthouse: +2, reaching 6 tiles
The town hall also lifts its surroundings once it outgrows the Founder's Office, and more with every tier.
Leisure
Neighbourhood leisure makes nearby homes happier and lifts land value around it. A second venue of the same kind right beside the first adds nothing, so spread them out and mix the kinds.
| Venue | Land value | Reach |
|---|---|---|
| Cinema | +4 | 5 tiles |
| Bowling alley | +3 | 4 tiles |
| Arcade | +2 | 3 tiles |
| Playground | +4 | 4 tiles |
| Swimming pool | +4 | 5 tiles |
Attractions
The landmarks and big days out are one per city and need a minimum population, but their pull on land value is the strongest in the game:
| Attraction | At the gates | Reach | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Museum | +12 | 8 tiles | 6,000 residents |
| Botanical garden | +16 | 7 tiles | 12,000 residents |
| Stadium | +10 | 10 tiles | 20,000 residents |
| Zoo | +10 | 7 tiles | 4,500 residents |
| Theme park | +8 | 8 tiles | 10,000 residents |
The music venue lifts the quarter around it as well, more as its reputation grows (see the venues guide).
What lowers it
Industry
Industrial lots weigh on land nearby, and how far depends on how modern they are. The figures are the peak penalty beside the lot and how many tiles it reaches:
| Industry level | Peak | Reach |
|---|---|---|
| Workshops | −5 | 5 tiles |
| Factories | −5 | 5 tiles |
| Clean manufacturing | −3 | 4 tiles |
| High-tech | −2 | 3 tiles |
Early workshops and factories are the problem; high-tech industry is close to a good neighbour. Shops feel smoke at half strength, and they treat passing traffic as footfall rather than noise.
Other nuisances
- Smoke from power plants, especially coal. An air filtration plant can scrub smoke from the streets around it, but does nothing for noise.
- Busy roads and any highway. A quiet road costs nothing, but congestion on nearby streets does, and a highway is loud for the homes alongside it.
- Level crossings ring their bells: −4 within 1 tile.
- Waste. Past 2,500 residents, homes that no waste depot collects from lose up to 5 points. A landfill smells; a recycling centre is a milder neighbour.
- Crime and dereliction. Unpoliced streets feel local crime more, and abandoned lots drag their neighbours down.
- Loud attractions. The stadium and theme park are noisy right beside them, the City Prison is unwelcome next door, and a music venue's loud nights bother the homes beside it unless it is soundproofed.
Planning for land value
The pattern that works is simple: keep industry and power a few streets away from homes, put a park or a quiet commercial strip between them, and spread small services through residential areas instead of clustering them. Turn on the desirability overlay (Shift+D cycles the overlays) after any big change and look for red patches spreading from a single source.
Tip. A buffer of shops between homes and industry does double duty: shops mind smoke less than homes do, and they give both sides somewhere to work.
For the growth checks that read desirability, see why isn't my city growing?. For the overlays themselves, see reading the map.