What Makes a Viable Population

[jferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 43346

Marcus:"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."

You shouldn't be. Was everything that was sold or consumed in that 
town made in that big factory? Were any of the stores in the mall 
national chains? What car did your family drive, and where did it come 
from? Your town, like all others, is one node in a vast 
economic/social network that extends far beyond the town line. If it 
had to survive all on its own, it would be a very different place and 
life would be very different, too.

Meadville, Pennsylvania, my family home, is small. The main stores 
when I was a child were J.C. Penney, Sears, Montgomery Ward, and the 
Crawford Store. Only one of them was locally owned, and the products 
sold there came from elsewhere.  Not one car in town was made in town. 
OTOH, the zipper in my pants DID come from Meadville, because the guy 
who invented the zipper settled there.

The wizard world appears to exist very much on its own, without much 
dependence on the larger Muggle world.  We don't know how and where 
their food comes from, but most of the stuff we do see doesn't appear 
to be from the factory in your town or any other town we know.


Marcus:"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."

We disagree. Your small town does not a society make.