Quote Originally Posted by Thaatu
There's a colony building which gives -1% to growth and bonus to happiness, but it takes ages to build and most of the time my settlements explode before I manage to build it.

I agree the growth is out of hand, but we'll see in 0.8
The colony building is useful, and I always build it as soon as I can, but it cant really counteract the half dozen or more buildings which give population bonuses.
In reality, I would imagine that population would have been kept in check by the logistics of feeding everyone long before squalor would impose a cap on the population. Population should stop expanding as the food supply reaches its limit, as people wont have more children if they cant feed their families. Self limitation like this also shouldnt really affect morale, unlike everyone living in piles of their own excrement...
Im not sure how that can be incorporated into the game though. Perhaps farm levels should have a direct effect on the population limit, ie if you have level one farms, you can support 1000 people, level 2 supports 5000 etc. Above that number, and there should be massive population growth penalties, until you can upgrade your farms (along with the rest of the infrastructure).