Cities: Skylines Floating Gardens Unlock Guide

Floating Gardens
DLC	Green Cities
Building Type	Unique Building
Level/Category	4
Build Cost	₡70,000
Upkeep Cost	₡1,280/week
Milestone Required	Busy Town
Entertainment Value	20
Noise Pollution	30
Visitor Capacity	100

The Floating Gardens is a level 4 unique building that you can build with the Cities: Skylines Green Cities DLC. To unlock it, you must build 5,000 squares of organic and local produce specialized commercial zones in your city. You’ll also need to reach the Busy Town milestone (1,200 – 5,000 population, depending on the map)

Once these requirements are fulfilled, you can build the Floating Gardens from the level 4 tab of the Unique Buildings menu for ₡70,000.

Until then, hovering over its silhouette in the menu will show you your progress towards the 5,000 squares.

The Floating Gardens unlock progress bar.

The Floating Gardens are a requirement for the Ultimate Recycling Plant monument.

Zoning Organic and Local Produce

Organic and local produce is a commercial specialization that is only available with the Green Cities expansion.

Step 1: Use the Paint District tool from the Districts and Areas menu to create a district over the desired area.

Painting a district

Step 2: Click on the Commercial Specializations tab, and select ‘Organic and Local Produce’.

Step 3: Click on your newly created district on the map. A leaf icon will indicate that the Organic and Local Produce specialization has been applied to the district.

Applying the Organic and Local Produce specialization

Once this is done, any commercial zoning that you draw within that district will grow Organic and Local Produce specialized buildings.

If you have any generic (non-specialized) commercial buildings already existing within that district, they will eventually get torn down and replaced with specialized buildings.

The specialization applies to low- and high-density buildings alike.

Getting Enough Demand for Commercial Zoning

In order to count towards your unlock progress, the specialized commercial zones need to grow buildings on them (they cannot be empty zones).

Since buildings only grow if there’s demand, it means one of the main challenges for this unlock is getting enough commercial demand for the 5,000 squares.

According to the Skylines Wiki, commercial demand is satisfied (zero) when there is 1 commercial worker for every 8 citizens in your city.

This basically means in order to generate demand, you’ll need to grow your population accordingly.

Another factor in commercial demand is parks and plazas, since these fulfill your citizens’ need for places to visit (whereas without parks and plazas, they would seek commercial buildings for leisure).

This means if your city has a large number of parks and plazas, you might have slightly lower demand for commercial zoning.

Alternative: Using the Infinite Demand Mod

If you’re okay with using mods, one way to make this unlock much easier is to use the Infinite Demand mod.

As the name suggests, this mod always has your demand bars full, so any zoning you paint will grow buildings.

Be aware, however, that the use of any mods will disable Steam Achievements.

What Does Organic and Local Produce Specialization Do?

The Organic and Local Produce specialization allows commercial buildings to produce 50% of its goods on-site, rather than relying on deliveries from industry areas and imports.

This allows for significantly less truck traffic in their area. You can zone them fairly near your residential areas without having to worry about the trucks and vans clogging up your smaller streets.

The downside is that they consume more electricity than generic commercial buildings.

In terms of visuals, you can expect districts with this specialization to grow health food shops, farmers’ markets, restaurants, and similar establishments.

Organic and local produce buildings look great alongside residential zones with the Self-Sufficient Buildings specialization, if you’d like to create an eco- and health-aware themed district.

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Liz Villegas

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Liz is a writer and photographer with a love for building and strategy games. Her spare time is often split between lifting, reading, drawing, annoying her dog Mr. Porky Butt, and squinting at stat tables on the wiki pages of whatever game she's currently playing.

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