I dont think its just solely because of the auto demolish retaining subbed players. If you havent noticed, they've turned that off for almost a year now (and still is I think? Could somebody fact check me this please?)
Its simply because I think the dev team finds the player created neighborhood system on a server where anyone can visit far more appealing.

However no amount of band-aid fixes can truly help the situation because of the limited server space for each one trying to accommodate every single player. Its a very unfair system and of course we all know that by now.

I just think they really either need to introduce personal housing while still retaining the limited ward space as a "premium" thing or even just allowing players to expand their apartments to accommodate more rooms and allow gardening.