So I hit the 2300 wall/graveyard, and after a week grow bored of the game. See this comment about a file editor, use it, add like a billion zeroes to my cash amount, take my newspapers from 2300 to 2400, 2500, 2559... that's it... that's what a gazillion amount of cheated extra zeroes got me. 200 newspaper stands. Talk about difficulty curves...
If anyone cares, I got to the point where buildings spawn a couple souls every day, got a phonecall and forgot about the game. When I came back I had the medium badge :P