What Makes a Viable Population

[bboy_mn]

No: HPFGUIDX 43349


MARCUS Comments:
--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "prefectmarcus" <prefectmarcus at y...> wrote:
> 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

bboy_mn adds:
I had thoughts in a similar vein as I thought about this. It's hard to
picture the wizard world when all you do is assign a population number
to it. Regardless of where you live in  the world, as long as your
community is outside a major population center, you can pick your own
personal number for wizard population and spead those people out over
your local communities, and use that as a perspective. 

There are few counties in England that have 150,000 to 300,000
population. When you look at the land mass and number of villages,
towns, and cities and consider that most of those people don't know
each other, then an equivalent population of wizards starts to look
substantial.

How big do you think Diagon Alley is?
Assuming, residences and industry, 5,000 seems reasonable. That's a
pretty substantial community.

How about Hogsmeade; how big?
Assuming, residence, shops, small industy, etc... and based on the
description of Harry and friends walking to the stile to meet Sirius,
the village seems reasonable large, so lets say 1,000 to 2,000.

Next, we know several people live in the country, so they are very
spread out. Diggory's, Weasley's and someone else all live within
walking distance of Stoat Hill. We know Diggle lives near Kent. 

So now we try to account for all the other thousands of people.

So, the purpose of this excesize is to look at the wizard community
spead over geographic area and assembled into communities. In that
case, even a relatively small number seems substantial.

While some calculations seem to indicate 20,000, that's still a pretty
substanital community. My personal estimates are much higher; I'm up
in the 6 figure range.

We also have to consider that, as meticulous, knowlegdable, and well
researched as J.K.Rowling is, she may not have calculated every single
detail down to the last decimal place. Her goal as an author is to
create a believable wizard world, one the is free enough of obvious
inconsistencies that we accept it a first glance and are absorbed into
the story rather than being distracted by some detail.

I seriously doubt that she (JKR) anticpated that we would be out here
trying to calculate the wizard world population down to the last man,
woman, and child.

Just some thoughts.

bboy_mn