[cDnStealth]

Sounds like they're trying to give you what you want CC.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/122/1221790p1.html

Groups of players are divided into regions. Players in a region directly influence the other cities around them. For instance if a neighbor's city is super industrial and, say, very focused on coal production, they will cause a lot of pollution. They might be dealing with that within their own city by focusing on keeping things like ground water clean, but the smoke overflow could drift into your town and cause citizens to get sick. Suddenly you need to take measures to clean up the air, perhaps even building more hospitals to take care of the increased healthcare needs. You could try and convince the other player to go green, you and the other players could even remove them from the region (the system for that is still being worked on), or you could come to a compromise. That other player may dig up a ton of coal and cause an abundance of pollution, but if they provide you with your energy you could then dismantle those facilities on your own land and focus on producing something else. Suddenly something that was previously an annoyance becomes a boon, allowing you to supply that other player with raw goods or maybe clean water that might not be readily accessible to them.

Cities within a region that are connected via roadways can also exchange citizens. In one situation we had a rich, largely clean and suburban town with a high level of education living next to a poorer, industrial city. The poorer, less-educated city relied on educated workers to travel to them, serving as management in their factories. Maxis acknowledged that this interchange of labor could result in situations where two players in a disagreement could withhold labor from one another if they desired, using it as a bargaining chip.