slow_city

Having just relocated to Bradford in Yorkshire, I must say I've been seriously impressed with the West Yorkshire Metro. Free buses around this city and the train costs

The Garrent City Metro. Unfortunately done on MS Paint.

I've got a gig of RAM, and a processor that's nowhere near as powerful as yours. I have no problem with cities over a million inhabitants. It slows down. But it loads nonetheless. I'd assume there is a problem with one of your mods. Try reinstalling the game and checking through each mod. But you don't have to if you don't want to...

Good public services are key here to getting demand up for commercial. If Education, Health and safety are low then your sims will not be getting the kind of jobs that will warrent the demand for commercial. Instead, Industry (especially dirty) will have more demand. In all of my cities, I can control what I zone for by deciding how well covered my city will be in terms of education and health. If I wish to create an industrial giant, then I simply have less school and health coverage. If I want lots of commercial jobs, then I usually give each neighbourhood good access to school, health and public transport.