What Makes a Viable Population

[prefectmarcus]

No: HPFGUIDX 43374

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "jferer" <jferer at y...> wrote:
> 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.

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

How many cars do the wizards drive?  

Look at the goods bought and sold in Diagon Alley.  How many require 
large centers of manufacture to create?  Ollivander's wands?  Since 
he makes them all, that rather points to a small population wouldn't 
you say?

Looking at Diagon Alley, I don't see the equivalent of a Sears, JC 
Penney, Target, Walmart, Krogers, Marks and Spencers, etc.  The only 
thing that comes close to a car dealership is Quality Quidditch 
Supplies with its one display broom in the window.  They are almost 
all little shops run by the same people who make the goods sold.  It 
is like a flea market.  Some shops sell what they make 
(Ollivander's).  Some shops sell on consignment from cottage 
industries (QQS). 

Magical society really looks like society from before the industrial 
revolution.  There small villages of less than a hundred made do with 
what they had.  You had a few people who travelled and traded, but 
most goods were all locally produced.

Where in the books does it show any different?

Marcus