Can somebody explain to me /games/, what is with the obsession with skyscrapers and uber dense populations in city building games?

It's like, the developers can't imagine anything else as the pinnacle of human architechture,but fucking gray and brown chunks of blocks. It's also impossible to keep the city you built the way you want it,(ie a small town in the middle of a dense forest,or a medium sized city sliced in half by a river) because the only way to progress is to turn literally every available surface area into skyscrapers/ugly ass factories/etc.

I'm genuinely curious whether the people who make these games have never actually seen an average European or Asian town?