There is a lot of sense in what Dianne writes. I, too, am a resident of Neufreistadt (having a personal aesthetic preference for the medieval Bavarian theme over the ancient Roman theme, not that I do not love Colonia Nova as well), and would hate to see either any diminution in the unity between all the regions of the CDS, or any diminution in importance of any of them over time.
I live in one of Dianne's houses, much of my furniture is from Dianne's shop, I give out the hand version of Dianne's flags to every new visitor that I see to [i:9f0ywk2w]either[/i:9f0ywk2w] Neufriestadt [i:9f0ywk2w]or[/i:9f0ywk2w] Colonia Nova, and I wait in eager anticipation for the completion of the rewalling, which, so far, is looking good.
Colonia Nova does have some advantage, aside from novelty, in that it was designed with the lessons in urban planning learnt from Neufreistadt in mind. It is certainly true that Neufreistadt could do with some redevelopment in some places: it would be good, for example, if some more people moved into the valley to replace those who have moved out to Colonia Nova (Aliasi and Justice, we miss you, with your airships and bookshelves), and I look forward to the planned redevelopment of the Schloss and Old Altenburg being completed, and not just because I hope that we will be able to have a purpose-built, full-sized courthouse there.
There is much going for Neufreistadt, however: its theme makes it far more suited to Christmas festivities than that of Colonia Nova, and its huge and beautiful church has the potential to attract SL weddings (we should publicise that more). Even without the redevelopment, an astonishigly high number of people whom I take on a tour of Neufreistadt comment in awe and wonderment how beautiful that it is (particular favourite points are the picknick area in the valley, the Marktplatz, the view from outside the Old Altenburg gate, the fachwerks and the Rathaus).
As to local government, franchulates will undoubtedly need the possibility of local government if they are to be an attractive prospect to larger communities (as opposed to small groups or singular commercial ventures), who already come into the CDS with their own culture, but there is no point in them being part of the CDS at all unless they are ultimately subject to our government and our laws. If we end up with many sims other than franchulates, local government may also be favourable as a matter of administrative convenience, but the idea of true self-sufficiency within the CDS is pointless: if one is going to be truly self-sufficient, why be in the CDS at all, rather than, say, form one's own virtual nation from scratch and then form a commonwealth and invite the CDS to join it, and co-operate on things such as enforcement of court orders and economic development. As Gwyn pointed out so eloquently recently, the CDS is not in the business of buying other people islands to experiment with their own forms of government, although there is no reason why we should not provide some educational assistance to those who seek to do so.
As to culture and boundaries, I find myself spending almost as much time in Colonia Nova as Neufreistadt, and consider them to be different parts of the same community. I will often look at the map, and, if nobody is in Neufreistadt, go to Colonia Nova and see who is there, or go to Colonia Nova just to see what is new there. It seems to me that some people are greatly overstating the potential for cultural differences between different CDS sims based on assumptions that they will work in a very similar way to the way in which they work in real life. I rather susepect, therefore, that Dianne has less to fear than she might imagine. Keep up the good work with the walls and the buildings, Dianne: the CDS would not be the same without you.
