I hope this is fixed. My Springfield isn't as big as others and I still have all the new buildings to go, yet I'm seeing many crashes.
I thought about the game off-line option, but given that friends come in and out throughout the day, that would be tough to do. And if people save the game on their phone or iPad, that means friends would have to access those devices to get to the game. That creates opportunities for thieves to steal valuable information that we store on our phones or tablets.
Therefore, the best thing is to get larger servers that are more stable. While that addresses the hardware side, clearly there's some software glitches occurring too. I hope EA can fix that aspect soon. Because the fun part of the game is creating a little city with the trees, roads, water, fences, benches, etc. If there is an upper limit on all of that, then that detracts from the enjoyment of the game considerably.