**420k+ population self-sufficient industrial welfare-state city**

I wanted to share my current Cities: Skylines II city, because it has slowly turned into something much more interesting than just “a big city.”

The city has over **420,000 population** and is built around a highly productive, almost fully self-sufficient industrial economy. It produces almost everything it needs locally, imports very little, and exports a massive amount of goods every month.

The basic idea of the city is simple:

**Industry pays for everything.**

Electricity is free.  
Water is free.  
Public transport is free.  
Residential and commercial zones are either heavily subsidized through negative taxes or kept at very low/zero taxation.  
The whole city is basically funded by industrial tax revenue alone.

Despite that, the city is still financially stable because the industrial base is extremely strong.

Some current stats:

* **420k+ population**
* Around **+75 happiness**
* Around **70% traffic flow**
* Traffic congestion is mostly limited to industrial districts
* Residential, commercial and downtown areas are mostly smooth
* Around **350k–400k monthly public transport users**
* Almost **500k tons/month of cargo movement**
* Most cargo activity is export-oriented
* The city has very little import dependency
* Production chains are roughly **99% self-sufficient**
* Free electricity
* Free water
* Free public transport
* Residential areas are subsidized
* Commercial areas are subsidized or lightly taxed
* Industrial taxes alone fund the city budget
* Heavy bicycle usage across the whole city
* Most citizens seem to prefer bikes or public transport over private cars

The most interesting part for me is that the city does not really have a general traffic problem. Most of the city is flowing smoothly. The traffic flow number is pulled down mainly by heavy industrial traffic, cargo terminals, factories, ports, warehouses and export routes.

So instead of having a car-dependent city where every district is congested, the only real bottleneck is the industrial machine that keeps the entire city alive.

The city has a large public transport system with metro, tram, bus, train, taxi, ship and airport connections. Public transport is completely free, and it carries hundreds of thousands of passengers per month. The bike network is also very heavily used, so a lot of citizen movement happens without cars.

The economy is probably the most satisfying part. The city barely needs imports because raw materials, processed goods, commercial supply chains and electricity are mostly handled internally. It exports a huge amount of excess production, and that industrial output funds the entire welfare model of the city.

In other words:

The citizens get free utilities, free transport, subsidized taxes and high happiness.

The industries get huge production chains, cargo terminals, export infrastructure and a city designed around logistics.

The price is that industrial districts are never truly “clean” from a traffic perspective, but honestly, that feels realistic. When a city moves nearly half a million tons of cargo per month, some industrial congestion is expected.

At this point I’m not really trying to make every road green. I’m treating the industrial traffic as the physical cost of running a massive export economy.

It’s basically an export-powered industrial welfare state.

Not sure if this is the most efficient way to build a city, but it is definitely the most satisfying city I’ve built so far.