ok, so i checked elvenstats.
i still find it hard to believe that a 1 month old city...
...
is going to be as active as a city that's at least 18 months old and owned by the same player.
i wouldn't consider that a baseless accusation. maybe you will be an exception? but for many players, cities that are diamond farms will...
Well then, feel free to keep track of me on elvenstats. I'm already doing better than 50% of the FS in the tournament, despite having a lot of space taken up by wishing well (and know what? They are not terrible buildings even for normal cities, because when they don't give me diamond, they give me a lot of resources to cater with, the only thing I fall short of is the military side, but I make up for it via catering). I also plan to play the long game with those cities, and not only for diamonds, but also because I wanted to see the human side of things, especially fights. So yeah, it's safe to consider those baseless accusations, and if you work under the assumption that I'm an exception, well then you're also generalizing anyone who has alt towns for one reason or another.
If you're so concerned about inactive neighbourhoods you should look at people who've been inactive for months if not years, an issue Inno never took care of - some of my neighbours in the main world haven't been active for three years now - not at alt cities just because they're alt cities.
P.s. I'll take a less-active-than-average active diamond farm over an inactive player near me any time. I also think you fail to take into consideration the fact that in order to get your farm started, you need to develop your town in order to get space, and you'll still need regular buildings, as well as participate in events to get the WWs. In short, I think you vastly underestimate the amount of activity it takes to get a "diamond farm" running and to keep it running, especially if you're also doing tourneys with it, like I am. Perhaps try setting up one for the upcoming Summer Solstice event, that'll allow you to see things from my point of view and make some diamonds on the side.
P.p.s. they also have extremely high cultural value, so much so that I'm allowed to have a constant 160-170% even when asking for NH on the Main Hall, which means my life is actually easier than a normal city (which I also started, without WWs) and will be for at least one other chapter. So if anything diamond farms are "twink"(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinking) cities from my point of view.