I think I've probably been AWOL long enough, but I have been thinking about whats been said.
I totally agree about people having to build things properly, without just WEing a rectangle up and calling it a building, but there are a few rather large problems that occur, for city at least, if WE and item spawning are completely removed. Sadly, I can't think of any solutions at the moment, but I will give it some thought.
First up of the problems is that the land itself is still completely out of shape, with maybe a third of the land needing to be lowered: a task that I cannot see happening without WE. Alongside this, there are some builds already made, but in the wrong place that need moving- you can see the issue there with no WE.
As for the resource collection, while it is a nice idea to set up an enormous communal mine, which may well work for smaller themes, the amount of stone alone required to make city would take an obscene amount of time to mine.
Then come other materials, such as wool and glass. Since the plan is to have an area for 'touristy' buildings, many of these will be made of wool- and there simply aren't enough sheep to meet demands. As for glass, I plan to use monumental amounts of the stuff, meaning that entire deserts would have to be dug up. Not only would this remove everyone else's supply of glass, but it would leave a horrible scar on the landscape.
I expect I've probably just caused more problems than I've solved, but I though it necessary to let you know where I stand on this.
Fair points. Let me clarify what I am willing to do.
If Theme Zones need "terra-forming" to be suitable for purpose, I am willing to do that for you. You need the land raising or lowering then fine.
For glass I am fine with giving you however many chests of sand you need to make glass. It ahs no great worth so would not be used to break the market
Wool is trickier as it is very pricey. I can see no harm in spawning sheep for you to harvest but spawning wool would be an issue.
As for it taking ages to mine enough stone to make a city - Gotta say I disagree. I have built some damned big things in SP in my time, all long before I even heard of World Edit and they did not take that long, even though I was working alone in a true survival environment. When you can just stand and mine for an hour with no concern for food or mobs, you will find you will have mined a stupid amount of materials. It is more than easily doable.