I think this is a wonderful idea.

I have a similar idea.  Instead of having one screen of building icons with output icons on top, could we get header tabs for types of output?  Housing, Food, Gildar, Research, Prestige, Resources, Military & Misc.  (Did I miss any types?)  Even better would be to have that tabbed window divided into (collapsible) sections.  The top section would be things we can build in the city (grayed out if we lack cash or materials), a second section for items that are researched but need a higher city level, and another section for researched buildings that can't be built here, such as harbors at an inland city.

I'd like to keep the city build screen as simple as possible, personally.  Too many clicks to accomplish things can get tedious after a while.

If we wanted to organize the buildings in a more direct fashion, I would organize the buildings by rows.  The  problem is that there are some subcategories right now (metal) which don't have enough buildings to justify either a row, column, or tab.

If we're worried about potential color, we could color code the menu, eg. lightly coloring the background based on the resources it produces.

Incidentally, this screenshot shows a bug, which is that it thinks I can build fisheries while, obviously, the city is land-locked...