Quote Originally Posted by therother
You see, I think that it's this viewpoint that is, to some extents, backwards. Population causes squalor, not farms. Farms increase growth rate by 0.5% per level and farming income by around 80 denarii. It's backwards as you can't get that extra population to have a lot of squalor without farms and health buildings. You simply will not get the people (or if you enslave them, they'll either die or go back to the countryside). Squalor is an effect of population, but only a side effect of increased farming. Yes, it isn't perfect, but this is not a full population simulator!
We agree on several things, but I disagree with the above for several reasons:

1. I do not believe that population alone in real life is responsible for squalor. In real life, squalor can be found in small towns just as in larger towns (for a modern US equivalent try visiting portions of the rural South.) Large populations of very poor folks with poor infrastructure cause increased squalor, true. But large populations can also have low levels of squalor if infrastructure is good and employment is strong. Of course, it often requires some laws to regulate the industries that bring population to the cities as well...or else you get tenements and shanty towns.
2. Farms should make the settlements themselves less squalor prone because lack of food = squalor. Farms could increase population, yes, but they seem to be missing inhibiting effects on squalor that they deserve. It is one-sided at the moment, that is where I see the rub. I doubt CA intended us not to upgrade farms (or public health buildings) as a way of reducing squalor.
3. The game is by nature trying to be a simple population simulator. If you make farming a workable enterprise, there should be population shift out of the settlement to the countryside. (If you've ever played the old Lords of the Realm series you will recall how populations moved around the map based on "happiness levels" effected by a few different factors--it was a simple but effective population simulator.)