Totally agreed. There needs to be something done about the residential area, Cities need to have more influence over who can reside within their territory. Rather it be outright permissions on who can settle there, taxes on use of their assets, the ability to turn on/off pvp on residential plots, or the destruction of residential plots/property when the city falls.
Otherwise...you will have ths scenerio.... a player will go to a top tier city, settle in a residential area outside, build all the stuff on their plot... and then help their "guild" to destroy the city while keeping everything.
@Prometheus statement about "not good being in enemy territory" does not work well as you can not be killed on a plot or within the city... so the player only needs to plot hop until they get close enough to the city and then "relocate" or run to the city and vice versa. Also, this means that the city would have to post a 24/7 watch just to try to keep them from doing so. Another... and this is major... their spawn point is RIGHT BACK AT THE HOUSING PLOT! so... they can place their stuff in a bank if they see opposition and return later to pick it up. Not only that, but say the city is a 30 person guild, and a 20 person guild sets up camp outside of the city... that 20 person camp is in a much stronger position than the 30, since their stuff can not be destroyed or lost.
I understand trying to cater to solo players.. but this IS a MMO. Solo players must make sacrifices to play solo. Being a citizen of a city is NOT a big sacrifice nor is having to support a city to be able to "use" what they built. Yes.. some of their maintenance "gold" goes to the city coffers.. but please...that's ridiculous... there has to be more cost to being able to live near a city and use all of its resources.
Regardless, the devs will fnd that they will need to implement measures to keep "leeching" at a minimum, or the game will die out very quickly. At the bare min, have the housing plots be destroyed if the city is destroyed.
PS. With all that being said.... I think over all the change they made to the city structure is awesome. They just need to fix a crucial problem with it is all.