So I used to love Sim City and SimEarth when I was a kid, but I haven't played either in some years. Recently I've been thinking of picking up one of the Sim City games or something similar, but I don't really know what's out there. So, I have two questions:
1) Which of the Sim City games do fans generally consider the best?
2) Are there any other solid games besides Sim City that have similar gameplay?
I thought about picking up Constructor this weekend, but the somewhat flustered user reviews make it sound like playing Sim City with one hand and Lemmings with the other, and I don't really want that sort of aggravation.

I'd say Caesar 3 (also its sister games: Zeus, Emperor, and Pharaoh) is a bit similar. They're not sandboxes as they are built around missions, but I would recommend you try them.
As for the CimCities, the only one I've played a lot is SimCity2000 on my old Mac. I did try 3000 and 4 as well, but didn't play them very much.

Sim City 3000 was my favorite - I have not played Sim City 4 yet. I see you are USA - You can pick up a Sim City 4 pack at WalMart for $14.95 or something that has the main game and 4 or five additional titles. I have been tempted but not enough to buy it yet. D2D has Sim City Societies on sale for $9.95 which also looks good but I have not tried it either. Hope this has been somewhat helpful.

I just bought Constructor, and I have to say so far I'm having a good time. It's more micro-managerial than Simcity though, from what I've played so far.

I just started playing Emperor-Rise Of The Middle Kingdom and its a really enjoyable game. RollerCoaster Tycoon is also a really good constructor game but perhaps not what you have in mind. Check out Amazon, they have some of the old Sierra titles dirt cheap.

Sim City Societies is an abominable piece of diaerrha dog shit.
Constructor is nothing like Sim City.
Cities:XL is piss.
Sim City 2000 is still, in my opinion, the best. Although Sim City 4 does come close.

Sim City 4 is the best I've played. That is if we're talking about the Deluxe Edition. That fixes so many shortcomings with the standard edition that it's not even funny.
As I've mentioned before, Constructor is a very different game. You can however play it without competition and that cuts down the amount of potential aggravation considerably.

Oops, have to edit my post above. Constructor is more micro-managerial. Always get macro and micro confused.

1) Simcity 4 with BATs(custom made buildings/content) is by far the best ever. 2nd would be SC2000 with SCURKs(custom made buildings). Simtropolis STEX exchange has a whole library of them, custom buildings, trees, ports, busstops, subways, etc etc. I've contributed 3 Singaporean buildings as well. You can come out with whatever city you want too with BATs, the possiblities are limitless. That's the beauty of Simcity. Now ALMOST everyone who plays or replays Simcity 4 uses custom content.
Top Rated BATS:
[url=]http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?p=files&display=popular&type=BAT&page=1[/url]
Look at this city journal of the re-creation of Hk's downtown:
http://www.simtropolis.com/cityjournals/?p=view&id=1408&page=2
Pure awesomeness.
2) CitiesXL, wait till they remove the MMO side of it first and re-release it as a pure single player game in 2011.
Simcity is by far my top game ever.
Hahaha, yeah Societies is donkey's regurgitated diarrhea. When SCS was announced I raged more than when I heard about FO3 and the new XCOM combined.