I like these ideas. Nice post.

I especially like this. I've been suggesting population as a local resource since the system was implemented, but there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for it- I'm not sure why. Only thing I disagree with is having specialists count as more people than normal people.

Well, yes, the idea is that specialist pops would staff buildings that regular pops cannot staff. And these buildings provide benefits far greater than the benefits provided by your average every day buildings like studies and such. Or they provide benefits that are unique, such as the ability to recruit trained soldiers or groups of soldiers. Regular population can still be global, but specialists should be local so that squares are a bigger constraint on players ability to maximize their returns. 

As an example:

The regular population can work the workshops. They come from huts etc and are global. Outputs from the workshops stay as current.

Merchants come from townhouses. You can only get five in a townhouse, and they're too lazy to go to a different town to work -- in other words, they have to be used where they are. They can staff the following:

Exchange: adds an additional caravan to the city

Market Fair: provides a percentage bonus to gildar production

Bazaar: provides a percentage bonus to materials production 

I still think specialists should count for extra for city leveling purposes only. It seems silly that your metropolitan entrepot would be a lower level than your plebian wasteland. On the other hand, it'd significantly cut down on the number of high level cities a player could build.

Elite soldiers! Etc.