City not growing?

Find the bottleneck in order

1. Open the town window and expand the level progress bar. Distinguish a lack of earned XP from a weak multiplier; check completed journeys and deliveries to this town.
2. Open Supplies. Check actual passenger use and the demanded cargo for each district, then follow an animated supplier link or completed delivery. A profitable train passing the town is not proof of fulfilled demand.
3. Inspect Authority and its weakest rating. Reputation, Happiness, Delivery, Traffic, Noise and Pollution contribute; the current manual says the lowest determines Authority. Use the matching layer and affected residents or buildings to locate the cause.
4. Change the identified bottleneck and compare the same town after completed service. Check newly added district demands as the town levels up. An HQ bonus helps the multiplier but cannot replace absent deliveries or a blocked passenger path.

Which rating should you investigate?

Sandbox: inspect the town's Editor tab

With Sandbox active, open the town's Editor tab and inspect Target District Capacities and Enable Town Development. These control names come from the October 8 author walkthrough. For mode activation, follow the new-game or existing-save steps.

Before editing, record the displayed capacities, actual residents and development setting separately. Change one setting in a separate save and compare that same town after simulation advances. A target value in an editor is not proof of a hard simulation limit or an instant resident count.

Is 5,000 the limit? Can a town reach one million?

The checked town manual does not establish either numerical population ceiling or a demonstrated route to one million residents. Its 18 town levels describe progression, not a verified maximum population. A large target capacity alone does not demonstrate that a town has reached it. We therefore do not label 5,000 a hard cap or promise a million-person city.

Want to control where districts build? Use the separate zoning-mod instructions. A growth rating is not a zoning brush, and drawing a boundary does not itself supply a town.

How to tell it worked

Completed journeys or required deliveries add XP, the targeted Supplies or Authority limitation improves, and the town’s progress breakdown resumes advancing. Population and individual building development can lag; compare the same town rather than a company-income total.

If population remains flat

• No completed service: trace the passenger destination or cargo route rather than changing environmental ratings. If a later supply chain is absent altogether, check when its industry appears.
• XP arrives but growth is weak: inspect all six ratings; adding more of the same delivery may have limited effect while a rating remains low.
• Delivery rating is low: follow the late-load checklist. For missing freight, start with the pickup check.
• You are in sandbox mode: check whether city growth was frozen or city size changed in your settings. Urban Games says sandbox can do both; use the settings actually offered for this save.

Looking for company revenue rather than population? Use the line income and running-cost checklist. Growth XP and transport profit answer different questions.