i believe that northen towns should look like BHH more or less, thats the ideal i believe, but with diffrent factions. I think that game engine should encourange such things as much as possible like i stated in another thread (
http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=10853.0 ). Otherwise the cities will just be points to take, an empty points practically, just some NPCs changing the name of the ownership now and then, only name, nothing else.
What game has set up right now though the game system, is a capture the flag pvp game. Thats what the game is set up for currently. There is little set up/fixes for RP in towns. The Raider roleplaying factions are the ones in control of the towns, when raiding factions (often the ones that only are in for the cash) dont care about the towns themselves (makes sense, Raider is a raider). Factions cant really do anything with the towns, they cant adjust militia, they cant manipulate things like taxes. And overally the whole thing is a mess, many things are not regulated ingame aswell, without ingame regulations there is little control and so, it looks like it currently does, Ghost towns.
Another ideas Devs could make use of would be if controlling faction had one vendor whom they could control 100%. They give him stuff for sale and maybe even adjust the prices. The Vendor would also have to clearly say to the wastelander he's dealing with that he represent this or that faction, so new players wont be confused by strange prices this might produce.
Either way, the less things are set up outside the game, the less the game have values to use and devs to manipulate towards a goal they decide themselves.