It does support population. Whatever the initial cap is (75?) It just doesn't support expanding the city enough to reach level 2 without further food commitment.
From a meta-game sense, you would expect an outpost, even a frontier outpost just designed to be a waypoint for resources, to require some people to keep it running and protected, wouldn't you? Things don't get moved around without people to move them.
He is talking about the beta.
Only your starting city has the capacity for population without building a hut.
Each additional city you found costs 1 food when your pioneer establishes it. Your population is 0 and the population limit is 0.
You must build a hut to increase the population limit, otherwise you will have a zero population outpost.