Just did my first project since Beta. I LOVE projects. My 1st phase was compounds, which I had just gotten the skill for. However, they still have huge problems. The lag with that many people on a street makes it really terrible to try and get anything done. My browser crashed when I tried to LEAVE the street to reduce traffic. We need a way to encourage cooperation without completely overloading the application. I'm not sure if contributing from multiple nearby streets is the best plan; that didn't help much with lag in Rook attacks. Maybe you could contribute from any community work room in any region to any open project?
I order to get a mix of contributors to the project, perhaps the levels could be restricted for different work. I'm used to seeing "you don't have mining 4 or 5, so you can't do this." It would be fair play if there was work for people with mining 1 or 2 that you can't contribute to if you have mining 3 or more. This would bring in more lower-level players to have fun with these projects.