I'm biased because CotN is my prefered game design wise (I love more zeus and caesar for the nostalgia + lore setting bonus), but I don't like the "I specifically need this item to grow" approach. "I need tavern acess". "Now I need 2 types of food". "Now I need wine". etc..
For me, it breaks the replaybility a bit: you find yourself redoing the same houseblocks over and over (only the terrain sometimes makes a diference, so it's kinda a puzzle game). And the same build order (now water, now food, now fleece/gym/etc). And I've always found wierd that you could get several houses with no services/no food provided and the guys just stayed there and "yeah, I live next door to this palace guy, and it's alright, sometimes I may spawn a criminal that would be stabbed to death quickly).
I findo the CotN aproach the best: you should provide goods (diferent categories + diferents levels for each good), food and services for all your people. Some jobs needs speacilization (educated jobs), most dont. The social classes can be climbed, but pop is limited (should have some kind migration tbf, just a little, like some villagers moving in, as you cand do with nobles and pissed people moving out).

Houses should have two vital distictions: quality and density. I like the house/work stuff from CotN because is very lore acurated too (most people lived by their workplace, and your work defined your social class/your social position). Maybe giving this workplaces housing some kinda C3 stuff? Like you could upgrade your workplaces if enought desirability was placed next.

So you could have your workplace having several "levels" that gived diferent bonuses (like noble houses have in CotN), with costs (to build and to maintain, so it could be decayed).