I never quite understand why it's always this question that gets asked when this "localisation" phenomenon draws this question out. Why do we never discuss why Sheikh Mansour or Francis Lee weren't hounded for not being from Manchester (Lee is from Bolton, not the city itself), why one of the girls behind the serving counters at the stadium sounds distinctly like she's from Sheffield but isn't working at Sheffields United or Wednesday (I'm making this up but I'm sure the sentiment goes for at least one bar staff), or why our local schools don't insist on only accepting Manchester-born students. Why do we not insist on taking holidays within the city of Manchester every year?
I'm not even sure what the advantage to only playing (or even, having only half a team of) Manchester-born players would be. The idea is that you have players who only care for the team and never want to move to another club in their whole career, yes? Well if you had a squad of Mancs, several of them would support the rags, Chelsea or Liverpool anyway, most likely, so wouldn't that be counter-productive? On the other hand, by this point in time most likely more than half our UK-support live outside Manchester anyway - I've lived in Hertfordshire my whole life since my mum moved from just outside Stockport before I was born, and if I were a talented footballer (I'm horrendous) I'd give my right arm to stay at the club my whole life, even if I were just warming the bench. Surely a better question is "will we ever have 5 born City fans in the first team again?" and drop the whole Manchester thing entirely?
I understand the tradition and I know you need to ground yourself to an extent - you could push my argument to its logical extent and argue that we shouldn't even have a stadium in Manchester but should roam around, and I think that's stupid. But come on. City were the second team in England (and possibly the world) to play a foreign national in their team, all the way back in 1893, so why the sudden belief that City should only play local kids?
People just need to accept that the world has globalised now and it makes no sense to think geographically anymore - not unless you are happy with your club only ever enjoying success at the local level, anyway.
