Community Meshed: SimCity's Multi-City Mode

How had it escaped my attention that best-named-developer Ocean Quigley is working on SimCity alongside challenging-for-the-title Stone Librande? You can hear the latter in the latest SimCity video, as he demonstrates multi-city play. I don't think the feature was designed for the likes of me, who would rather operate a sort of mayoral dictatorship in a Dark City isolated from the rest of the world, but will you be convinced of the possibilities offered by this online mode?

Neighbouring cities effectively leech services from one another, it would seem. Well, I like any fires in my cities to burn until I choose to provide the residents with emergency services, thank you very much, so I can't see much of this sort of thing in my future.