Imbaba in Cairo sounds pretty dystopian from all the coverage I can find, and the government seems to rely heavily on totalitarian policing to suppress mass uprisings there. And we're talking about an area with, apparently, something like a quarter of the population of Magnasanti.

It's not necessarily the best way, it's just the way that consumes the lowest amount of space in the city. If there's an ideological point to be made here, it's that hospitals are larger than police stations.

...which means that sims care more about crime than they do about pollution, health, etc...

Put it that way - in SimCity as long as crime is down and some other factors are adequate, they won't leave even if they are miserable. But if crime increases, then they leave, even if they are in good health and make a nice income nonetheless.

> But if crime increases, then they leave, even if they are in good health and make a nice income nonetheless.

Doesn't seem that unreasonable, actually. High-income people leave crime-ridden areas, happens approximately everywhere

If everyone is in good health and making decent money, what is the motive for the kind of crime people move away from? The choice to model "crime" as some kind of naturally-occuring resource is already telling.

I'm not talking about motives, I don't know what they are, but I suspect that when crime happens, people prefer to move away if they can.

Also, do you claim to know exactly how and why crime happens?

> do you claim to know exactly how and why crime happens?

Yes, but since you've been snarky now I won't tell you.