Potter Geography - The Magic City

[Steve <bboy_mn@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 49473

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve <bboy_mn at y...>"
<bboy_mn at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jim Ferer <jferer at y...>"
> <jferer at y...> 
> 
> Jim Ferer wrote:
> > ... ... ...but just where do we think Godric's Hollow was located?"
> >  
> > ...edited...
> > 
> > What's not clear is if Godric's Hollow is a town or village or if
> > it's the name of James and Lily's house (a la The Burrow).  
> > ...edited...
> >
> > Jim Ferer
> 
> bboy_mn originally said:
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> Now Godric's Hollow; one other possibility is that Godric's Hollow
> is the equivalent of Diagon Alley in London. I suspect other major 
> cities in the UK also have small magical neighborhoods hidden within
> them, the same way London has Diagon Alley. ...edited...
> 
> Just a few thoughts.
> 
> bboy_mn

bboy_mn with some additional thoughts:

I'm off on a tangent again; sorry, that's just the way my mind works.

So, I pose to you all a new question. Is Diagon Alley a magic
neighborhood hidden inside of muggle London, or is Diagon Alley one
neighborhood of an entire Magic City hidden within London?

Knockturn Ally seems to have a substantially different personality
that Diagon Alley, so it would seem to be more of a neighborhood
defined by a central street than simple another street. Another way of
saying it, is it seems a separate neighborhood rather than an
extension of Diagon Alley.

So if we assume that's true, then there could be even more
neighborhoods, maybe enough neighborhoods to add up to an entire large
Magic City. I guess we could refer to it as Magic London and Muggle
London.

I've always pictured Malfoy Manor as being located somewhere in one of
the nicer neighborhoods of the magic city. Malfoy doesn't seem the
type to buy a house near muggles and live contently separate from
them. I think he would have a house in the magic world, and the
implicaiton seem to be that he lives in London, so based mostly on
assumption, that would place him in the posh section of the Magic
City; Magic London. 

I don't have a lot of data to back this up, but let's consider that
there are a lot of wizards, and they have to live somewhere. I seems a
lot of them are just spread around the country in single houses or
very small pockets of like-minded wizards. But that and Hogsmeade
doesn't seem to be enough to account for them all.

Again, a city like Birmingham could have a Wizard Town in the same
sense that London has a China Town. The so called 'Wizard Town' would
simple be a nice muggle neighborhood where a couple of wizard families
settled, then to be near their own kind, more wizards moved in until
they had their own little neighborhood. Still a muggle neighborhood,
but dominated by the common culture of most of the residents. One of
those quaint eccentric neighborhood that make city life so colorfull.

Now back to the Magic City. I see Diagon Alley as 'uptown' Magic City.
It's what we call here in the US 'main street'; what Brits would call
'high street'. 

The Ministry of Magic must be in the Magic City, but it doesn't seem
to be in Diagon Alley. I say that based on logic rather than any
direct text reference to the fact. But it doesn't seem logical that
the Ministry of Magic would not be in some quaint London muggle
neighborhood. Little things like this that are more implied than
stated are what make me think that the Magic City really is a pretty
substantial city within a city. 

It probably has a red-light district, an entertainment district, an
industrial/business district, a government district, poor residential
neighborhoods, rich residential neighborhoods, middle class
neighborhoods, maybe even a sea port, basically all the things that
any city has. Although, I don't think it is even remotely close to the
size of Muggle London. It's more like a large town or small city.

Although we never hear it referred to in that way, it still seems to
be a logical conclusion that Diagon Alley is not THE Magic City, but
one neighborhood of a larger Magic City.

Any thoughts on this??

bboy_mn