I started a city thinking that since I'm older I might do better, but my residential demmand is MASSIVE but people don't develop the residential zones. I've used Dense almost exclusively but does the demand also cover demand for Light zones?
Or is it simply just too far from work to commute or by road? I honestly don't get it and the manual leaves some things to be desired.

Also: What's the point of water towers?

I only ever build Dense zones, you don't ever require specific Light zones (although they may be desirable for other reasons such as lower pollution).

Can you attach a screenshot of the affected zone(s) and the area around them? Without that it's hard to say what the specific problem might be. But in general your residential zone must be: within 3 squares of a road, powered (each square needs to have a connected powerline or to be adjacent to a connected powerline or adjacent to an existing building which is connected to power), and connected to an industrial or commercial zone (most likely by road, and not too far away).

Water towers will store excess water and then deliver it in times of water shortage.

So odd. Residential Demand is hich but I have a ton of abandoned buildings. Residential tax is at 5%.

https://i.imgur.com/38zfKl0.png

It looks like some of those areas may be unpowered (for example, the area on the far right next to the park), but not all of them so that's not really the explanation.

The only other thing I can think of is that you may need more Industrial and Commercial as well (perhaps more Residential can't move in because all the current jobs in the industrial/commercial are full?). So I would try adding more of those two and see if that helps the residential.

The tax rate does affect things, but if it was too high then the residential demand bar would be lower to reflect that fact (the RCI demand bars take into account the tax rates, although it will take at least a few months after you change a tax rate for it to have its full effect).

I didn't mention the possibility of a water shortage.

I notice that you do have water pumps, although I can't see how they are connected with pipes, and it looks like they may be unpowered at the moment because their power supply comes through some abandoned buildings?

Lack of water can also cause black/abandoned buildings even with high demand, but usually it is seasonal in nature and once the water supply is restored then the buildings will be rebuilt. You would also get "water shortage" messages from the newspapers.

Abandones buildings still transmit power and I have pipes under all the roads.

Only thing I can think of is a bugged RCI display because those are not the RCI values I saved with. It was 100% green and 0% blue and yellow.

You might also need a desirability building or have an overarching problem. Check the data views.

I wonder if those abandoned buildings are just outside of your police station's effective range. A high crime rate would certainly depress that part of town.

sorry if this is too necro, not sure if this city still exists, but for future reference, the roads near the larger abandoned buildings, toward the bottom, don't seem to connect, that may be part of the problem.

then i would say it may be low power, hydro dams do not provide a ton. For saome reason, i remember the hydro and wind generators not reporting the percentage of power used like all the others. If that is correct, I would try building more dams to see if that causes growth or build a cheap power plant to monitor available power

I once made a whole city on nothing but hydro and i think it took 2 full rows across the entire map and still wasnt enough. they are great for reliability, no replacement costs and zero pollution, but the cost of real estate means eventually its best to flatten the land and build a stronger power plant and use the extra space to make more money, if maximizing money and population is your goal

Nah, just building for fun. :) The hydro plants all act as one individual powerplant as far as I remember.

I think it might be road capacity.