Yup. And this is supported by the supposedly leaked piece of GUI code that appeared on Gist 2 days ago. If that code leak is authentic and reasonably up to date (there are references to an alpha version), then it means that this is happening at the GUI layer.
simcity.GetFudgedPopulation = function (a) {
a = "undefined" !== typeof a ? a : simcity.gGlobalUIHandler.mLastPopulation;
if (500 >= a)
return a;
if (40845 < a)
return Math.floor(8.25 * a);
a = Math.pow(a - 500, 1.2) + 500;
return Math.floor(a)
};