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After a lot of back and forth, (and not a little searching through these forums for pre-made answers) I thought I wold share my ideas for figuring out city populations using the kingmaker rules that made sense to me. Of course, actual numbers doesn't mean anything as far as population is concerned, but the standard 250 per city block didn't seem to work for my campaign. In addition, I wanted a way to have the cities in the PC's burgeoning kingdom grow a little more naturally in size.
During the preparing phase a new city starts with a population based on what kind of hex it is started in. Cities started in Plains hexes begin as Villages with 75 residents. Forest and Hill hexes start as Hamlets with a population of 30 people. Mountain and Swamp settlements start as a Thorpe with 15 people. Each month new people are added to a settlements population based on the city improvements that are built, (After all, a settlement with a castle and city walls will draw more people to live there for the increased protection those structures offer). Different city structures provide a different bonus to the 'Population Growth Modifier' which is then modified by the Kingdom's Promotion level and then still further by city special Qualities (for example, a city with the 'Insular' Quality has a severe reduction in growth rate, and a city with the 'Plagued' disadvantage would be hard pressed to grow at all.)
This Population growth modifier is then translated into a 'd6 +' variable which is rolled every month and added to the city's total population. At the same time, a cities total population is defined by what kind of housing it has. Houses, castles, shops, tenements, etc all have a 'Maximum Population modifier' which defines how large a population can grow without issues. If a city reaches this maximum number then the PC's can either build more housing, or their kingdom will gain unrest due to over-crowding.
The system seems to be working very well so far, although I am still tinkering a bit. I may add taxation level and unrest as negative modifiers to the Population Growth Mod (which makes sense) and perhaps tweak the actual numbers a bit. I would appreciate any thoughts or Questions though.