Sadly, everything games, gaming, or boardgame related is blocked at my work, otherwise I'd try to track this down, but this reminds me of another fun case study someone did with Sim City. The guy also studied for a while, and figured out the perfect balance and/or repeating grid to effectively fill every inch of the map, and have that megalopolis be self-sustaining up to 50,000 years in game time.

FULL STOP. Found it: http://www.vice.com...-who-beat-sim-city (www.vice.com)

From the article:

Technically, no one is leaving or coming into the city. Population growth is stagnant. Sims don’t need to travel long distances, because their workplace is just within walking distance. In fact they do not even need to leave their own block. Wherever they go it’s like going to the same place. [...] There are a lot of other problems in the city hidden under the illusion of order and greatness--suffocating air pollution, high unemployment, no fire stations, schools, or hospitals, a regimented lifestyle--this is the price that these sims pay for living in the city with the highest population. It’s a sick and twisted goal to strive towards. The ironic thing about it is the sims in Magnasanti tolerate it. They don’t rebel, or cause revolutions and social chaos. No one considers challenging the system by physical means since a hyper-efficient police state keeps them in line. They have all been successfully dumbed down, sickened with poor health, enslaved and mind-controlled just enough to keep this system going for thousands of years. 50,000 years to be exact. They are all imprisoned in space and time.