popejubal said it best: "in BTS, the city governor does appear to significantly drop the number of food tiles worked when you approach the happy cap for a city".
That means that the second that the happy cap is elevated, the city govener will start working more food tiles, till a new happy cap is reached.
it's not avoid growth at all in all cities.
when u have WW unhappiness pressing "avoid growth" now doesn't/barely change the govener's tile usage. It will behave the same with autumatic avoid growth would be intoduced.
on HR, automatic avoid growth will only mean that u first need to produce/station ur unit in a city, and only then does the city begins to grow fast till the new happiness cap is reached. the current situation is horrible - when u have a 15 pop city, and u forgot to press the avoid growth and have happiness -1, that's a total waste - so if u're in HR u can easily build a unit, if u're not and no new happiness buildings are availble, u're stuck with that -1. The other option is to force ur city into starvation - but make sure it's only for 1 turn, so watch that city constantly - that's quite a bit of micromanagment that i think could and should have been avoided.
Again, i only want it to be as an option - some would use it as a default, I would use it some of the time, and some would use the current condition as a default.
No harm done.