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I always recommend people start with The Wind's Twelve Quarters. It's a great introduction to Le Guin's voice, and the stories are almost all pretty approachable.
Some of my Le Guin favorites (especially Always Coming Home) can be difficult to get into for people who aren't familiar with her stuff.
Everybody play my thrilling game where you persuade the townsfolk to pass an income tax to pay for maintenance workers.
Is there an analogue to Stardew's choice between the community center and the corporate franchise? You bet! You see, at a certain point the maintenance workers decide they want to unionize, and you have to decide which side you're on.
Fair point, but I'd want to keep more of the social element of infrastructure.
I like the way Stardew gives you a cast of characters whose wants and needs are part of the story, and I'd like an infrastructure game that leans into that even more.
Now I'm imagining an "Ooops, all infrastructure" version of Stardew. You move into a crumbling town, and instead of farming, you spend all your time fixing issues with transit, water, power, and the library.
You could even follow the classic farm arc, where you start out repairing everything by hand and gradually move up layers of abstraction, maybe through organizing fellow townsfolk to pitch in.
Mid-game you think everything is going great, and then someone tells you about the state of the sewer system.
