What Makes a Viable Population

[prefectmarcus]

No: HPFGUIDX 43339

I am somewhat amused by assertions that 20,000 people do not make a 
viable population.  I spent my teenage years in a town of 7000.  We 
had a big factory, a great many smaller ones, ten blocks of a 
thriving downtown, and a thriving shopping mall.

My first 14 years were spent in a town of 1,400.  There was a 
thriving downtown of four to six blocks.  There were several hotels, 
resturants, banks, and fast food joints.  It even had one-way 
streets!  The main industry was farming and ranching.  There wasn't 
any tourist trade to speak of.  It was the county seat, so it did 
have that.

So if you figure that a small Hogwarts student body of about 250 
extrapulates into a larger wizard population of 6500, trust me, it IS 
viable.  It is very viable.  Don't let your big city experience cloud 
your judgement.

Philadelphia at the time of the revolution was the largest city in 
the American colonies, and it had a population of only 25,000. 
(http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/phil/philpopdata.html)

I think one quote in this discussion is very telling.  Ron stated in 
CoS that unless the wizards had intermarried with the muggles, the 
wizards would have died out.  Now how true that is, I do not know.  
JKR likes to have her characters state things as truth which are only 
opinions or even distortions of the truth.  But it is appropo to this 
thread, I'm sure you will agree.

Marcus