I've tried an attempt today on the free land scenario and reached a megalopolis within 3 years (Think of this in reallife*lol*)! I've to say that there is absolutly no water on this map(pro) but you also don't get any special gifts(contra) to demand and increase the population faster. I've used the money-trick, so I don't care about the first year and also paused the game during build-time... .
Here are some stats-pics that may interest some of you:
http://www.superplayers.de/danielviebrock/simcity/population.jpg
http://www.superplayers.de/danielviebrock/simcity/history.jpg
http://www.superplayers.de/danielviebrock/simcity/total.jpg
For everyone who hasn't mentioned our IRC-discussion about speed-running this game, here is a very nice pic of a megalopolis on map #061:
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/3439/stuff/megacity.html
...And this 951,680 citizens guy in the gamefaq-forum seems to be a faker, he gives lots of nice infos and strategies and also provides pictures (which are in such a bad quality you can only guess...). But I checked his stats from his totals he posted, and they don't fit together. For example (check my screen and you'll see it can't be possible like this):
Developed - 1,461
Undeveloped - 7 (why!?)
Rails - 192.1km
Park Area - 1,026
Last thing... I really don't know how you could make a run entertaining without slowing down or stop the game time. A good solution would be build up a megalopolis as fast as possible which will be reached in the current record time of exactly 3 years (I am just one roll over close to 2y11m !) and stop the movie so the viewer could control the camera or look into stats for himself whenever he wants! As long as he don't change anything on the map the megalopolis will be reached at the same time, everytime.[/url]