Coincidentally I was just looking back into the state of city simulation games the other day. On my list of "Games I have played beyond any reasonable number of hours" is Sim City 4 with the various mods available. I was, like most, disappointed with the 2013 offering. Cities XL never really piqued my interest, and I've also switched entirely to Linux for my desktop needs.
Then the other day I heard about an upcoming title called "Cities: Skylines", which seems like it has promise from a gameplay standpoint. Even better, it's cross-platform to both Linux and Mac.
Edit: It's interesting that the recommended hardware for Linux is a lower bar than on Windows (see bottom of https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines). Can anyone with a game dev or graphics background speculate on that?