I don't suppose anyone could do an encode of the sample posted just above, could they? I'd love to give it a look.
This was one of my favorite games as a kid so I'm curious to know what a TAS might do with it. On the other hand, part of me wonders at just how much fun it would be watching a city sit there, "developing" minute by minute, regardless of how ridiculous plan might be.
Personally, I'd recommend doing the $999,999 trick; it' a legitimately exploitable bug, it's one most unassisted players probably use anyway, and it would probably make the run several minutes faster and less boring. If you're going to be glitching yourself into the black border to build on water anyway it makes no sense at all to ignore THE glitch that made this game the experience that it is.
I'm in agreement that this run's only goal ought to be reaching Megalopolis status as quickly as possible, but a few seconds to pan around the city while waiting for the end of the first year is a perfectly sensible speed-entertainment trade-off.