When players check the info views in Cities: Skylines, one of the icons is a dollar sign. Clicking this will display the land value, or how much a person would pay to own a square meter of land in a given area.
Just like education, land value has a major impact on whether a "growable" building can reach its highest level. Every zone except industry benefits from a high land value, and so maximizing this number is essential to building a high-end, profitable city. However, the factors that go into raising land value aren't as clear as the ones for raising education levels.
Leisure Access
The single biggest factor that influences land value in Cities: Skylines is leisure access. Parks, plazas, libraries, unique buildings, and other leisure sites increase land value and also create destinations that tourists can visit to spend their money. Tourist income isn't very high (at least not without the right expansions), but the money they spend can end up being a big part of a player's profit margin.
The amount of land value a leisure building adds depends on its entertainment value. Players can see this number by hovering over the building in the construction menu. In the base game, the buildings with the highest entertainment value are the carousel park and the botanical garden, both of which provide 150 entertainment. The carousel park is smaller and costs less to build and maintain, making it the overall best option. Players will know they have enough entertainment coverage when every building in a neighborhood is light blue.
Players can also boost the effect of parks and recreation buildings by increasing the Parks and Plazas budget, and by enacting the Parks and Recreation policy unlocked by the Tiny Town milestone. This policy has a direct impact on land values, but it also boosts the budget for these buildings by 20 percent.
Other Factors
- Service access is another big factor that determines land value. With electricity and water this is easy to check, but for other services players should check their info views for green roads. These views track access efficiency, and green roads indicate that the service type can easily reach the area. Players should also note that these green roads will shrink if they reduce the budget for a service, and they can preview how much access a building will add before placing it.
- Each type of healthcare counts separately for access purposes. Residential zones like to have access to all four types, but commercial and office zones only need general healthcare and death care. Elder care and childcare can still raise property values, but not by enough to justify the building maintenance costs.
- Shorelines add a small but persistent bonus to land value regardless of all other factors. Players should line the lakes and rivers on the map with quays to maximize their building area.
- Pollution reduces land value, which is the main reason why industry buildings don't need high land value to level up. Players should also keep in mind that both garbage buildings in the base game produce pollution, and so they should never sit too close to residences or commercial buildings even if this reduces service access.
- Finally, High-level buildings improve land values all on their own. This can lead to a domino effect where the buildings close to a new service level up, then the ones behind them level up thanks to the boosted land value, and so on. This also means that buildings on the edges of a neighborhood will tend to have lower levels even if they have good service access. Players can further boost this effect (at least for residential buildings) with the High Tech Housing policy that unlocks at the Small City milestone.
Cities: Skylines is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.