Possible gamebreaking Dirty-Industry demand bug?

[BOOST15673 6]

So I discussed this with A Nonny Moose already in August 2015, but his suggestions did not fix my problem. This is not good, as this problem, until I understand exactly what is causing it, is pushing me away from SC4. I am convinced it is a bug or glitch of sorts, so until I know that it isn't, it's hard to look past it. Anyways, here is a copy-paste of what I wrote A Nonny Moose, here's to hoping somebody can help me fix this!:

"My problems are as followed, these always happen, I have yet to see it not happen and I have been playing on and off since 2006 or so. Do note that I have yet to find somebody with the exact problem, thus I could not properly fix this myself yet:

Whenever I start a new region, my first city is always perfect, it always works without problem, and any problems that arise are manageable, for example, my first city in a new region I started is 100% finished with 172K people and I am very proud of the city. Now I started a new city on the block right next to it, this is where the problems begin.

I notice that I-D demand is -6000. How can this be? I have no clean air act or similar ordinances, I have the taxes at the standard 9% (even changing it to 0%, just for a test, doesn't change anything after 6 in-game months). As with most people I always start with dirty industry, this won't work. As odd as it seems, Manufacturing & High-Tech always want in and build up right away, where as in the first city it was the opposite (until much later in-game of course). So basically, in city 1, it's normal, at the start, dirty wants in, but not manufacturing or high-tech, but in city 2 it's vice-versa, and even after 27 in game years (I play at turtle speed) no matter what I do, dirty has never once wanted to come in, despite me never doing one single thing to negatively influence their demand. I also have no RCI or demand mods installed.

For some reason, in city 1, unemployment was manageable and no annoyances occured, sure it's not 100% employment, but that isn't my goal of course, my goal is fun and enjoyment. In city 2, despite being more commercial and industrial jobs than citizens, unemployment keeps coming and coming (my worst attempt saw nearly 65% unemployment). Residents want in, but commercial and industry wants out aka doesn't develop. Odd thing is that the unemployment is changing between all wealths, it's not just upper-class like by so many others that have this problem.

This always seems to happen when I connect the two cities aka make use of the roads and what not. Pretty much acting as if city 1's citizens are stealing city 2's citizens' jobs but not vice-versa. Mass-transit doesn't seem to help much either and this is quite frustrating...

So yeah, those are my problems that ALWAYS (at least by me) seem to happen when I start a second city in a region, I always play on hard difficulty, but believe it or not, hard difficulty in city 1 is vastly easier than in city 2, which makes no sense. I realize that I get more citizens because some from city 1 will come, but why is it that tactics that worked in city 1 for per se, 30K citizens, doesn't work in city 2 for 30K as well? 30K's 30K, how should that make anything harder, this is just an example, but still. I am so frustrated that I already attempted city 2 10 times, I haven't started the 11th attempt yet.

I feel as if something is wrong with the industry if the start is the same in both cities, yet city 1 wants dirty, whereas city 2 doesn't. Hmm, I hope I didn't confuse you, explaining is a serious weakness of mine. I thought i'd ask you first before posting to get your two cents since you seem to be the elite of elites in terms of knowledge :)"

[CorinaMarie 29,860]

The first thing which comes to my mind is that since the cities are connected they share the demand. Does City 1 also show -6000 for ID regardless of lowering the tax rate? My (limited) understanding is that when they are connected it's pretty much as if both tiles were one, demandwise. What about zoning bunches of low density, unwatered res in city 2 and do not educate them? Does the ID demand start coming up from rock bottom? Set the tax rate in City 2 for low res at least 1% less than it is in City 1 and crank up the medium and high for this test.

[matias93 7,535]

Maybe this could have been said before, but I think your problem yields on the fact that your second city begins to be developed when the first one is full, so small unbalances of demand and supply in the first city's work market shock the newer and less populated city, overwhelming its balance. If this is the case, I could only think on two ways to test it, and to avoid the problem: you can keep both cities unconnected until their populations and work supplies get to similar levels, or you can simply connect cities from the beggining and play them alternately to avoid demand and/or supply shocks.

Try any of those ideas, preferably running at max speed to note changes easily, and tell us what happened.

[BOOST15673 6]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

The first thing which comes to my mind is that since the cities are connected they share the demand. Does City 1 also show -6000 for ID regardless of lowering the tax rate? My (limited) understanding is that when they are connected it's pretty much as if both tiles were one, demandwise. What about zoning bunches of low density, unwatered res in city 2 and do not educate them? Does the ID demand start coming up from rock bottom? Set the tax rate in City 2 for low res at least 1% less than it is in City 1 and crank up the medium and high for this test.

City 1 shows -6000 I-D demand yes,  interesting... Never heard of these connected cities acting as one thing, makes sense. In City 1, the tax rate is 9% for low res, so I put it in city 2 to 7%, medium and high were set to 10% and 12% respectively. Then later I raised the two to 20% as a second test. Nothing has changed, the demand is still at -6000
 

1 hour ago, matias93 said:

Maybe this could have been said before, but I think your problem yields on the fact that your second city begins to be developed when the first one is full, so small unbalances of demand and supply in the first city's work market shock the newer and less populated city, overwhelming its balance. If this is the case, I could only think on two ways to test it, and to avoid the problem: you can keep both cities unconnected until their populations and work supplies get to similar levels, or you can simply connect cities from the beggining and play them alternately to avoid demand and/or supply shocks.

Try any of those ideas, preferably running at max speed to note changes easily, and tell us what happened.

Both of these ideas are the stuff I always do by default when I start on a second or third, etc. city. If one doesn't work then I try the other, but currently, neither of your two suggestions have worked.

[CorinaMarie 29,860]

What is the demand for Low Wealth Res in both cities? I believe you need to get a bunch of them to move in to get the ID demand up. Just changing the taxes by itself isn't enough.

[BOOST15673 6]

49 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

What is the demand for Low Wealth Res in both cities? I believe you need to get a bunch of them to move in to get the ID demand up. Just changing the taxes by itself isn't enough.

City 1 = ~+5500

City 2 = +6000

[matias93 7,535]

So that's your problem: demography. You need a lot of proles low wealth citizens to work on dirty industry, your more educated sims simply won't go to the mills to get their hands dirty. I recommend you to zone high-density residential around your current dirty industrial parks, to allow low wealth housing to grow and alleviate a bit that demand.

[CorinaMarie 29,860]

1 hour ago, 15673 said:

City 1 = ~+5500

City 2 = +6000

As this shows, the riff-raff low wealth sims are begging to move in. You need to fulfill that demand before the ID demand will come up. As @matias93 said, they are the ones who will work there. Get bunches and bunches (and bunches) of them to move in.

Edit: You are turning time on after doing all the res zoning, right?

[cogeo 960]

9 hours ago, matias93 said:

So that's your problem: demography. You need a lot of proles low wealth citizens to work on dirty industry, your more educated sims simply won't go to the mills to get their hands dirty. I recommend you to zone high-density residential around your current dirty industrial parks, to allow low wealth housing to grow and alleviate a bit that demand.

Yup! Your problem is due to your attempt to build high(-er) wealth cities, and you have done so trying to keep everything low-wealth out. It doesn't work this way, and this definitely hurts your cities' growth rate. You have an educated workforce, and this doesn't want to work at I-D (and I-R, if you have any). And it's not just about I-D, R$ is needed for CO too. You will soon run out of CO demand as well, due to the lack of educated workforce this time - they will all find jobs, no high-EQ workforce will be available then,  and as a result CO demand will stagnate. You need fresh loads of workers, which you will have to educate, to create more CO demand and development. Unfortunately high-EQ workers can't be "imported", newcomers have a very low EQ; needless to mention, you need good education coverage (elem & high schools and libraries locally, plus college/university and museum - these last two ones cover the whole city). You should satisfy all R demand - that's what you are after finally, aren't you?

So, as Corina said, don't snub R$, build new R$ residences (you can, because you do have the demand) and educate them - this will increase CO demand and drive another CO->R->CS->R growth cycle. And something not mentioned above, I guess your CS$ demand is nailed to the top, isn't it? Why not create more CS$ jobs, to employ all these R$ (and later on R$$ and R$$$ workers, as they get educated)? After all, CS$ is "better" than I-D in many ways: doesn't pollute, needs less power (means less pollution too), generally has shorter commute times, needs a lot less space (there are buildings offering 143 to 170+ CS$ jobs in lots as small as 1x3 and 1x2 - jobs density 2nd only to hirise CO$$$), and most importantly, they can be upgraded to CO. Also, CS$$ and CS$$$, while offering a jobs mix worse than CO, do employ R$$ and R$$$ sims as well, and pay a a lot of taxes. I would suggest that you try to exhaust all CS demand (of any wealth level), before zoning for more industry.

Aaah, and don't be tinkering so much with taxes, this causes unbalanced growth and distorts demands, often resulting in unsustainable development - you may only increase taxes to above 10% for the development types you want to keep out (called "taxing them out"). Players usually do this for I-D, but... you don't need to, you have achieved this by depriving them of R$ workforce! I would say try to restore tax rates to the neutral (for your city size) levels - for the development types with low or negative demand do this slowly and gradually.

[BOOST15673 6]

18 hours ago, cogeo said:

Yup! Your problem is due to your attempt to build high(-er) wealth cities, and you have done so trying to keep everything low-wealth out. It doesn't work this way, and this definitely hurts your cities' growth rate. You have an educated workforce, and this doesn't want to work at I-D (and I-R, if you have any). And it's not just about I-D, R$ is needed for CO too. You will soon run out of CO demand as well, due to the lack of educated workforce this time - they will all find jobs, no high-EQ workforce will be available then,  and as a result CO demand will stagnate. You need fresh loads of workers, which you will have to educate, to create more CO demand and development. Unfortunately high-EQ workers can't be "imported", newcomers have a very low EQ; needless to mention, you need good education coverage (elem & high schools and libraries locally, plus college/university and museum - these last two ones cover the whole city). You should satisfy all R demand - that's what you are after finally, aren't you?

So, as Corina said, don't snub R$, build new R$ residences (you can, because you do have the demand) and educate them - this will increase CO demand and drive another CO->R->CS->R growth cycle. And something not mentioned above, I guess your CS$ demand is nailed to the top, isn't it? Why not create more CS$ jobs, to employ all these R$ (and later on R$$ and R$$$ workers, as they get educated)? After all, CS$ is "better" than I-D in many ways: doesn't pollute, needs less power (means less pollution too), generally has shorter commute times, needs a lot less space (there are buildings offering 143 to 170+ CS$ jobs in lots as small as 1x3 and 1x2 - jobs density 2nd only to hirise CO$$$), and most importantly, they can be upgraded to CO. Also, CS$$ and CS$$$, while offering a jobs mix worse than CO, do employ R$$ and R$$$ sims as well, and pay a a lot of taxes. I would suggest that you try to exhaust all CS demand (of any wealth level), before zoning for more industry.

Aaah, and don't be tinkering so much with taxes, this causes unbalanced growth and distorts demands, often resulting in unsustainable development - you may only increase taxes to above 10% for the development types you want to keep out (called "taxing them out"). Players usually do this for I-D, but... you don't need to, you have achieved this by depriving them of R$ workforce! I would say try to restore tax rates to the neutral (for your city size) levels - for the development types with low or negative demand do this slowly and gradually.

I understand exactly what you say, well explained sir. But the problem is, I usually only have R$ zoned until I get around 30 - 50k citizens, or start running out of room. Then I gradually upgrade them in accordance to the available jobs/zoned land, wealth-wise. I don't start from scratch with R$$ or R$$$, I like starting in a small low-wealth town and turning it into a sprawling metropolis over time. In city 1 I got I-D demand from the start before building anything at all, which I used to help start my city, but since this is no longer the case (unless I am misunderstanding something you wrote), I don't know what to do without I-D. I might be misinterpreting it as a glitch/bug when in reality, according to what you wrote, it isn't, but it is strange that it works perfectly in city 1, but not 2, I always start a city in the same way, then change it as the city needs it, the start of the city is what is baffling me.

Although I understand what you wrote, I may have misunderstood one thing despite being convinced I get your point. I-D does not want in no matter how low-wealth my city is, lack of water, education, etc. This is what I am not understanding. Also, the R$ requirements are always that high at the start of a city, so how is this something special? Out of curiosity I am asking. I have no problem starting off a city if I-D demand is there, but since in city 1 it was there at the start before doing anything, I simply zoned low-wealth residential, commercial, and dirty industry, the start worked out fine, but the exact same situation in city 2's start is here except for the fact that I-D demand is -6000, what I don't understand is why is there a difference in the start of city 1 & 2? How is city 2 starting differently than city 1 before I even do anything? Please do forgive me if this is frustrating you, I just need to make sure that I know exactly what you mean.

[matias93 7,535]

Maybe it's just me getting confused in sequential translations, but it could be that you are mistaking density levels for wealth levels. What you can specify when zoning is density (height of buildings, or more specifically, the number of sims that can be put over a tile), not wealth; in fact, you cannot control wealth directly, just stimulate the sims' preferences manipulating the environment (more offer of public services usually mean more wealthy sims moving to a place).

[CorinaMarie 29,860]

1 hour ago, 15673 said:

How is city 2 starting differently than city 1 before I even do anything?

I still believe this is the difference:

23 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

... since the cities are connected they share the demand.

When you started City 1 there was just the normal demand and it is adjusted by what you zoned and what grew as you developed the city. Now that it's 172k population and City 2 is connected to it, it's like the two tiles are one as far as for what wants to grow there. aka Demand.

Try bulldozing all connections between City 1 and City 2 and obliterate everything in City 2 except the flora. Now start City 2 running and see if the demands are what you normally see when you start a brand new tile. Without connections it should be. If they are not back to normal then some plugin is affecting demand.

[BOOST15673 6]

16 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I still believe this is the difference:

When you started City 1 there was just the normal demand and it is adjusted by what you zoned and what grew as you developed the city. Now that it's 172k population and City 2 is connected to it, it's like the two tiles are one as far as for what wants to grow there. aka Demand.

Try bulldozing all connections between City 1 and City 2 and obliterate everything in City 2 except the flora. Now start City 2 running and see if the demands are what you normally see when you start a brand new tile. Without connections it should be. If they are not back to normal then some plugin is affecting demand.

Nothing changed, the only plugins I have that I know affect demand (or I believe do) are the following:
IH_census_10_78_12_fixed
industry_quadrupler

Upon removing these, nothing has changed. The neighbor connections & plugins removal both changed nothing.

[CorinaMarie 29,860]

1 hour ago, 15673 said:

The neighbor connections & plugins removal both changed nothing.

Ok. So now I'm totally baffled.

Any chance you have a public OneDrive or someplace you could zip up that 172k City 1 and host it there so I could try it myself?

[BOOST15673 6]

53 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Ok. So now I'm totally baffled.

Any chance you have a public OneDrive or someplace you could zip up that 172k City 1 and host it there so I could try it myself?

I do not have a OneDrive account, but I have a website I like uploading files to for sharing, here's the link:
City 1 - Zerristia

EDIT: Whoops forgot to say, hope you don't mind I reconnected the roads to city 2 after seeing how getting rid of them did nothing.

[CorinaMarie 29,860]

Ok, here's what I see in your delightful city:

Then I opened a new one adjacent to this corner. (I only did a random region so the tile I'm in is a Medium.) I ran it for 5 years to see if there was any change:

Then I bulldozed all neighborhood connections including the subways:

And now the Demand Graph looks like I would expect it to.

The only mods I have are a full NAM 34 install and the SC4Fix.dll so I still maintain that the demand is simply because the two tiles share the demand of your big city when connected. It's just as if you had more land available in Zerristia. I have to say everything is working as intended.

Edit:

On 6/17/2016 at 10:43 PM, 15673 said:

EDIT: Whoops forgot to say, hope you don't mind I reconnected the roads to city 2 after seeing how getting rid of them did nothing.

That's perfect. I did want to see how it went with them connected.

[BOOST15673 6]

@CorinaMarie: Wait a minute, you just embarrassed me to no end! Oh gosh, please forgive me! The last time I played Zerristia before the edits this topic suggested was around November 2015! Oh god I completely forgot about my subway lines that went all over the place! (Please don't use public transportation if you ever move there, it's built very confusingly, haha). Ok, Now I deleted the connections AND the subway lines as well that were connected and now it is like a blank unconnected block. Thank you SO SO MUCH. You fixed my problem by mentioning the subway lines, thanks thanks thanks. Now I know it is no glitch but, like you perfectly stated "It's just as if you had more land available in Zerristia."

EDIT: Thank you very much, now it's my turn. Now I will have to see if I want to start off as if it was city 1 and then run into serious population increases once I connect the two cities, or play as if it is an extended Zerristia and start off hard but end up with an even better city. This will be fun!  I heard you like my city? It's the first city I ever fully completed! What I mean is, my goal was to fill every single tile with something, and that I did, I am proud of my city

[Prophet42 1,503]

Have you zoned large tracts of industrial?  Check the route query and see if anybody is actually working at the factories.  You may have an issue were you have satisfied demand but not actually provided jobs.  Don't just query the building.  This only gives you the number of possible jobs the building can provide.  You have to use the route query to actually see how many sims are working at the building.

I have found that if large zones of industrial are laid down, then a lot of the time nobody is actually working at the buildings in the center  (even though it is shipping frieght ).  The solution is to either mix your zones more or provide more mass transit, especially bus stops, in the center regions of the zoned tract.  If you do find that you have a lot of un-utilized I-D buildings, this may be causing the unbalanced demands.

The way I usually play a region is that I will play each city only 10-25 sim years at a time.  This helps keep the demand in balance since I am making smaller adjustments to the region and also builds up the region in a more realistic manner.

Good luck, I hope you find your solution.

[BOOST15673 6]

6 minutes ago, Prophet42 said:

Have you zoned large tracts of industrial?  Check the route query and see if anybody is actually working at the factories.  You may have an issue were you have satisfied demand but not actually provided jobs.  Don't just query the building.  This only gives you the number of possible jobs the building can provide.  You have to use the route query to actually see how many sims are working at the building.

I have found that if large zones of industrial are laid down, then a lot of the time nobody is actually working at the buildings in the center  (even though it is shipping frieght ).  The solution is to either mix your zones more or provide more mass transit, especially bus stops, in the center regions of the zoned tract.  If you do find that you have a lot of un-utilized I-D buildings, this may be causing the unbalanced demands.

The way I usually play a region is that I will play each city only 10-25 sim years at a time.  This helps keep the demand in balance since I am making smaller adjustments to the region and also builds up the region in a more realistic manner.

Good luck, I hope you find your solution.

Thanks, but as you can see above, CorinaMarie has solved my problem, I do not have any problems with sims working, the only problems I had were that the demand was never there making me start city 2 with Dirty Industry very hard. Thanks though anyways, I have made a text document and copy-pasted your suggestions for use in the future as needed

[Prophet42 1,503]

Glad to hear you resolved the issue!  Have fun and enjoy.

[CorinaMarie 29,860]

@15673 Just for reference my other idea works too. This is a medium tile connected to Zerristia and zoned with only unwatered low density res and some comm. At 20k peeps, the Dirty Industrial Demand is now positive. So, going with high density as @matias93 said you could prolly do this in a small residential block with just a few tall buildings.

[BOOST15673 6]

@CorinaMarie Thank you very much, I will take note of this in my SC4 folder for future reference if needed

 

[cogeo 960]

Well, once again Corina provided valuable help and analyzed your problem very well!

What I don't understand at all is why want to necessarily start City 2 with I-D. You have such a high demand for all other development types, and it all goes waste! I-D will only offer you some jobs for your R$ citizens, which you will have to educate, to create CO demand - this is how a region is typically started. But here you don't even need to. You have the demand, you can zone for R, and get residential population (don't be afraid about unemployment, they will all find jobs - you do have a positive demand, which means vacant jobs). Many (most?) players would actually want to skip the I-D-based (initial) growth stage if possible, and you seem willing to bulldoze your connections, only to allow more I-D to be built! What's the point of developing more I-D? It will only further increase R$ demand, which you currently don't need, as you don't turn it to development! I would say try to satisfy R demand first (grow more R buildings). Hirise R can accommodate a lot or residents - you will be surprised to see in how little space! Zone for more high-density R - it needs water, and good services (edu, health, police, fire, mass-transit), even mid- & hirise R$ requires a fairly high desirability to develop. I would imagine that if you satisfy all this R$ demand, I-D demand would return, and Corina verified this too.

Again, you have positive (and high) C demand, for all types. Why don't you develop more C instead of I-D? You know, they too create jobs! This will further increase R demand, allowing you to attract even more residents! And as said in my previous post, even CS$ is preferable to I-D. Sorry, I don't understand what you want to make here! Check the pics in this post, to see how dense CS$ and CS$$ development can be!

[BOOST15673 6]

3 hours ago, cogeo said:

Well, once again Corina provided valuable help and analyzed your problem very well!

What I don't understand at all is why want to necessarily start City 2 with I-D. You have such a high demand for all other development types, and it all goes waste! I-D will only offer you some jobs for your R$ citizens, which you will have to educate, to create CO demand - this is how a region is typically started. But here you don't even need to. You have the demand, you can zone for R, and get residential population (don't be afraid about unemployment, they will all find jobs - you do have a positive demand, which means vacant jobs). Many (most?) players would actually want to skip the I-D-based (initial) growth stage if possible, and you seem willing to bulldoze your connections, only to allow more I-D to be built! What's the point of developing more I-D? It will only further increase R$ demand, which you currently don't need, as you don't turn it to development! I would say try to satisfy R demand first (grow more R buildings). Hirise R can accommodate a lot or residents - you will be surprised to see in how little space! Zone for more high-density R - it needs water, and good services (edu, health, police, fire, mass-transit), even mid- & hirise R$ requires a fairly high desirability to develop. I would imagine that if you satisfy all this R$ demand, I-D demand would return, and Corina verified this too.

Again, you have positive (and high) C demand, for all types. Why don't you develop more C instead of I-D? You know, they too create jobs! This will further increase R demand, allowing you to attract even more residents! And as said in my previous post, even CS$ is preferable to I-D. Sorry, I don't understand what you want to make here! Check the pics in this post, to see how dense CS$ and CS$$ development can be!

The reason I always wanted to start with I-D was since I didn't know the reason behind it never being in demand, I always only had a chance to ever start with it, all my cities in all my regions were because of this not being known, all neighbourless and thus all were capable of starting with I-D. Before the help I have received here, I simply have had zero experience starting a city any other way, now that I know that it is a feature in the game and actually nothing out of the ordinary, I will attempt to learn how to do this with commercial and/or industries other than dirty. In my first city btw, I bulldozed every single dirty industry once all the other types started wanting in, needless to say, dirty helped me get going in city 1, that I am thankful for. I am like pretty much everybody else though, if I can do without, then dirty industry will not exist in my city one way or another. Now that I know it is possible to start a city without it providing the demand exists, I have no reason to start with I-D anymore, thanks for the help as well. 

Also, I have some major high-rise offices in my first city, so I know very well just how insane the density of serious commercial buildings can be, just like in reality, the sky's the limit with these guys! I do like how you pulled that off in your screenshots though, multiple sections of just one type of building in one zone, it looks awesome!

[rsc204 21,861]

Just one point I would add, although I think it's probably been mentioned somewhere. One of the issues with the game is that it's designed to get to a point where you will have more and more higher wealth sims. However, if your sims are all well educated, have access to good health and all become R$$$ or R$$ that can actually be a problem. This is because like in the real world, the bulk of the jobs are for R$ or lower wealth sims. In order for a large CO tower to have a CEO and management, it'll probably need less well off workers to work there too. Therefore be careful to try and satisfy the demand for lower wealth sims, in order to keep a balance. These sims are also working in retail (CS), Industry (I-R / I-D and I-M), without shops and industry, offices and high tech industrial will not be able to flourish.

This means planning and keeping areas that are not so nice which R$ sims can afford to move into. If you get a few large R$ towers, you can also use the Make Historical option, which prevents them from upgrading. Of course, you want as many higher wealth sims as possible, it just needs to be balanced with a healthy mix of R$. So if you have high demand for R$, that should also be satisfied too.

[twalsh102 1,601]

What you are experiencing is actually by design.  You would experience the same behavior even if you were playing with absolutely no custom content.  The designers of the game foresaw that players might want to actually create a "city/metropolis" that extended beyond a single city tile.  Once you create connections between two adjacent city tiles, you are now playing regionally, rather than just a single city.  All RCI demand is shared across a region.  If you think about it, this is what happens in real life as well.  This allows you to create a megalopolis of many separate cites, that act as one.  Think New York City.

If you can find one, the Official Strategy Guides for either the original SimCity4 or SimCity4 Rush Hour both do a good job of explaining how regional play works (took 20 pages or so to do so).

If you had started both cities at approximately the same time, both would have developed at approximately the same rate (assuming you played both cities for approximately equal periods of time).  However, since you started your second city after the first one fully developed, it started development with the same demand levels as the first had at that time, as others have suggested. 

Here's a surprise to prepare yourself for (if you haven't already run into it):  If you continue to play your second city exclusively to the point where it out develops your first city as far as RCI demand levels, and then go back and startup your first city again, your first city will automatically take on all of the RCI demand that your second city has (since all RCI demand is shared), and a burst of redevelopment might sweep across your first city to accommodate the new demand levels, possibly significantly changing the character of your first city as it currently exists (depending on how you have it zoned).