Player Cities only make sense if a galaxy carries hundreds of players. And players will only join if the actual game (chat, combat, spawns, quests, ...) is completely working. See what I mean?
The most important thing is the gameplay + npc/creature spawns (and of course a complete database) as nobody would like to play for too long if only housing/cities would work the way it should. I think the devs are doing a great job. They focus on the important (essential) features first. One of my personal rules when it comes to programming is: "Build a solid ground - complete the most important parts - add the details when everything else is working". They will eventually complete housing and cities - but this is only a detail...