When should you upgrade your city?

[NoodlePickle]

I remember reading a while back that one should not automatically upgrade their cities. Is there a link or guide to doing this, I cannot seem to find one.
Thank you!

[eddieballgame]

I think 'DasTactic' suggested upgrading to a level 3 city (for example) was not necessary until the option to upgrade to level 3 buildings.
Not sure if population is a factor in having to do so, for living space.

[GodwinW]

The only problem with upgrading a city is that the net QOL score goes down, which can negatively impact happiness.
QOL points/City level is the max QOL score.

So if you have high enough QOL, plenty of capability to build more and/or a good governor/profile feat boosting those QOL scores you'd probably want to upgrade.

Especially now that truck station logistics points have been nerfed (and deservedly so: game plays a lot better/sensibly now).
But in general you'll always want the highest bureaucratic office you can afford.

(just be careful that you can afford the workers to staff those higher level buildings, and I do not mean that you have population, but that you have non-working (in private jobs) population for it!)

[zgrssd]

City Level acts as a Limiter on any new construction or Upgrade in the city. That is the only reason you increase it.

QOL Score for each of the 4 QOL Areas is defined as: QOL Scores/City Level. But that effect is usually limited to a temporary happiness modifier while Civilisation Level increases or decreases to follow it.
There are way bigger factors for happiness. And I actually managed to keep my civilsiaiton level intetnionally low via City Level Upgrades