Population density of the seven villages

[Reignbow]

Friday's strip gave us a good estimate of the distance from Sanctuary to Freeman Downs. Hook that number up with this map and you have to start wondering why in all that land there are only seven villages. One of these, Freeman Downs, is not particularly large; and the largest, Sanctuary, was placed by Ralph somewhere around 250,000 inhabitants, if I remember correctly.

The rac cona tend to have many children and keep having them until well into old age. The land they live in is fertile and lush and they have had several centuries to populate it. There might be some rural-to-urban migration going on, which would fit well with the existence of the tumbledowns, but even so, I am surprised that there are not more villages.

To compare:
In the german city I was born in (90,000 people), you can draw a circle and expand it until it contains seven independent villages. That circle will be about 10 miles across. This is considered a "rural" region.
In Norway, where I live at the moment, you'd have to keep that circle growing until it was about 40 miles across, admittedly in one of the more densely settled regions (Trøndelag, for those who care).
In southern Ontario, such a circle could be maybe 50 miles across, depending on where you started.

Norway has such a low population density because there are mountains all over the place that you can't farm for the life of you and the winters are harsh. Southern Ontario is settled like that because it has a lot of space for everybody to spread out in (northern Ontario, of course, is virtually no-mans-land).

Why then the low density in the seven villages? I remember that there were supposed to be minor gatherings of houses all over the place (tavern + ten houses), but one would expect some of those to have grown to towns by now.

[Tom Mazanec]

Well, there was a plague that killed almost all the old Racconans and kits about 20 years back, but you have a good point. Say the population doubles every 50 years and started with a thousand individuals. There would be over a million by now. That sounds like a slow growth rate for Racconans, and the plague's description did not sound like "Captain Trips" (and would have dramatic social effects if it were). A more likely doubling time of 25 years (human populations have reached such speeds) and you would have a billion...the whole area would look like Manhatten Island.

[TMLutas]

You have to remember that Ralph is in the US and has a different scale around him. Draw a box in Europe so that on average it has 9 people in it. Now take 8 people out of the box. That's roughly the population density of the USA.

The european and US definition of villages might also be coming into play here. I grew up in a village in suburban NYC. The place was a town by any sane sense of the word but it bore the village label. European rules about how big a place gets before it becomes a town may not not apply.

Another thing to consider is the laws of the place. It's generally a "be responsible for your own actions" sort of place with charity from the churches but little in the way of a universal safety net and something of a resource shortage. The death toll is going to be higher than you're used to thinking about, much more medieval. Because it's normal to the place, it's not something that's likely to come up very often, just a background fact. The swamp chieftain's wife had a 60% mortality rate in her children (3 out of 5) and not a lot of clucking about how unusual that was, just that it was sad.

[RHJunior]

One: the reason the swamp mother's mortality rate was so high is because they live in a bloody dangerous swamp. You've only gotten a peek or two in there, but take my word for it, that place is teeming with nasties. The freedom of life in the swamp comes with a terrible price in safety.

Two:"Social safety nets" have little to do with reducing mortality rates. In fact they have proven to CONTRIBUTE to mortality rates, because the overall quality of the medical care drops as the system becomes more socialized. And contrary to European perception, American hospitals do not leave people to drop dead on the street. We have a networked system of mandatory emergency medical care, insurance systems, charitable financial aid and free clinics that covers every reasonable need.

When we stop hearing reports out of Canada and Great Britain about people dying in waiting lines-- then you can talk about socialized health care. Till then, those of us in the USA have seen both public health care and public toilets, and want nothing to do with either.

Before anyone starts chattering, the primary reason that America is listed as having a higher infant mortality rate than several other countries has nothing to do with its "lack of a safety net." It is because in America, <I>we have a lower threshold for listing infant mortality.</i> In a less developed country, a baby is born with a defect and dies almost immediately--- and is listed as a stillborn or an abortion. In America, that same baby is rushed to an incubator and millions of dollars' worth of medical equipment is dedicated to saving that child's life. The baby nevertheless dies two or three days later.... and is listed as part of the statistic on "infant mortality." It's easy to get a bad grade when you're judged by a completely different grading table.

The racconans have medical care that is, on average, equal to that of modern medicine. Their luxcraft abilities, along with their relatively advanced sciences, contributes to that.

Three: You're forgetting, THEY'RE ONLY ABOUT TWO FEET TALL. reduce everything--- including land consumption-- proportionally.

Four: Keep in mind, much of the kerfluffle about "running out of land" is political B.S. on the part of the Expansionists.

[Shyal_malkes]

the swamp it self does help show how there can be only seven 'villages' in the rac-cona lands. I mean the swamp peoples we saw were generally living together but didn't consider themselves a village. probably weren't large enough. perhaps a village is more then just a people living within the city limits but also the people living within the area in general.

technically I live in West Jefferson, but where do I live? in the middle of nowhere. five minute drive just into town. and less then a minute's drive (if you don't count the driveway) is a small cluster of houses (townhouses my mom calls em,) that make up the denser part of the community on our road. we don't call ourselves a different village or town. just a bunch of neighbors who share a road in the middle of nowhere.

[Reignbow]

You have to remember that Ralph is in the US and has a different scale around him. Draw a box in Europe so that on average it has 9 people in it. Now take 8 people out of the box. That's roughly the population density of the USA.

I checked: Canada 3/km², Norway 14/km², USA 30/km², Germany 231/km². I spent a year in Sarnia, Canada, so I have gotten an impression of the rough scale... however, that developed because North America is such a big place. Really, really big. Large parts of it do not lend themselves to dense settlements (tundra or the rockies). The seven villages seem to be "all nice" terrain and rather confined. Of course, in medieval times, population was much lower in general, so that could be it.

One: the reason the swamp mother's mortality rate was so high is because they live in a bloody dangerous swamp. You've only gotten a peek or two in there, but take my word for it, that place is teeming with nasties. The freedom of life in the swamp comes with a terrible price in safety.

Good to hear. Two out of five is incredibly harsh. To be honest, I hadn't considered that their mortality might be significant - I had internally translated the information "up to 250 years old" to "life expectancy around 200 years" - that is of course not the same thing at all, but if they had drastic mortality, there wouldn't be many who'd get to be that old, so there is some correlation.

Three: You're forgetting, THEY'RE ONLY ABOUT TWO FEET TALL. reduce everything--- including land consumption-- proportionally.

Wouldn't that actually allow them to have even more settlements? They do not require as much farmland to sustain themselves; in fact, with decreased body size and only moderate farming machinery, they probably cannot use as much land proportionally, or at least not with the same intensity. You can use a terrible lot of land with cattleherds, naturally. And with their lack of chemical industry, they probably don't have too much fertilizer.

Four: Keep in mind, much of the kerfluffle about "running out of land" is political B.S. on the part of the Expansionists.

My, politicians telling anything but the unslanted facts? Why, I never. But the expansionists might actually still have a point with that if you rephrase it to "running out of resources." All the farmland in the world won't help if you lack metals or coal. In that sense, it may well be true that the seven villages are threatening to exceed their available resource stocks (btw: that wouldn't happen to be a parable about oil, would it?).

On a side note: Any clues possible on why the dwarves stopped trading with the rac cona? It seems as if that is rather disadvantageous for the seven villages.

[TMLutas]

Two:"Social safety nets" have little to do with reducing mortality rates. In fact they have proven to CONTRIBUTE to mortality rates, because the overall quality of the medical care drops as the system becomes more socialized. And contrary to European perception, American hospitals do not leave people to drop dead on the street. We have a networked system of mandatory emergency medical care, insurance systems, charitable financial aid and free clinics that covers every reasonable need.

When we stop hearing reports out of Canada and Great Britain about people dying in waiting lines-- then you can talk about socialized health care. Till then, those of us in the USA have seen both public health care and public toilets, and want nothing to do with either.

Ralph, you're making a mistake here. Social safety nets do not equal government safety nets. That's a confusion that socialists love to hear because it saves their bacon time and again by planting a false idea that if you don't have at least a little socialism, you're working on a high wire without a net.

The Church's good works is a social safety net. NGOs are a social safety net, individual charity is a social safety net. Government provision of a dole can also be a social safety net but as you note it's a pretty poor one.

I drew my conclusions about social safety nets because of the tumbledowns in Sanctuary City and the lack of any do gooders in evidence trying to ameliorate the problems there.

[RHJunior]

This is true, I haven't shown much of the social infrastructure in the Seven Villages yet... generally because it hasn't come up in the plot.

One can infer the existence of social safety nets---- from the Wizard College's aid offered to Nessie and her family, and the fact that if a minister of the Sojourner church can gain support for a missionary work with the Gragum that other "mission works" are done as well.

[TMLutas]

This is true, I haven't shown much of the social infrastructure in the Seven Villages yet... generally because it hasn't come up in the plot.

One can infer the existence of social safety nets---- from the Wizard College's aid offered to Nessie and her family, and the fact that if a minister of the Sojourner church can gain support for a missionary work with the Gragum that other "mission works" are done as well.

The point that I thought was a missed opportunity was in the description of the tumbledowns at the chess board and no soup kitchen/charity shop backgrounds in the whole of Quentyn's stay in the poor side of town. The garden party could have been a charity event for Tumbledown relief too. Good works, when done right, aren't shouted from the streetcorner. They make up the nearly invisible background. But they're going to be in the background, visibly there if you care to look.

You're right that scholarships to the colleges is a form of social safety net and I should have mentioned that. I view missionary support more along the lines of venture capital funding though, not the same thing at all. You don't pull a missionary and stop a soup kitchen based on the same criteria.

[Tom Mazanec]

Ralph, if they have such good medical care, then the problem is even worse. Population grows by compound interest. Ever hear the story about the guy who invented chess? The Emperor of India offered to give him anything he wanted. The request was for 1 grain of rice on the first square, 2 grains on the second, 4 on the third, then 8 and so on. The Emperor shook his head at the foolish inventor who asked for such a paltry sum and asked his vizier to figure out the total. The vizier played with his abacus, popped his eyes, played with his abacus again, then whispered in the Emperor's ear. The Emperor said "On second thought, I'll just chop off your head." The total was enough to bury the Indian subcontinent up to the height of the Himalayas.
Either the Racconnans are having few kids, they are almost all dying early, their population is culled by a 90% plague every three generations, or they are swarming like ants.

[Straw]

Either the Racconnans are having few kids, they are almost all dying early, their population is culled by a 90% plague every three generations, or they are swarming like ants.

Well as mentioned living near the swamp takes its toll. Just think about Nessie's family and those heartstones. Besides it might be that the healthcare and general standard of living have risen to their current level only 'recently'.

[Tom Mazanec]

But what about the Seven Villages? They are not near the swamp. And the medicine must have been Medieval or worse until the last few decades to avoid this problem.
Look, they marry young (14 or 21, depending on the parents) and live over two hundred years. If they have a kit every several years, that numbers in the score...and those are having their kits before the parents are early middle aged. If they have enough to increase their population by 7% per year, they are doubling every decade. In two centuries they have grown a millionfold. That means well within most Racconans personal memory their society must have been RADICALLY different than it is now.

[RHJunior]

Actually, that "Indian Chessboard" is a highly inaccurate model for population growth.

While the authors of "the Population Bomb" popularized the image of the human population doubling every generation like bacteria, they forgot one humble little thing: <I>people are not bacteria.</i> We do not reproduce mindlessly--- nor for that matter do we mindlessly consume resources at an exponential rate. There are multiple factors, gratuitously ignored by the population doomsayers, that go into determining population rate.

Contrary to the common contention, <I>increased social prosperity tends to bring about a reduction in the birth rate.</i> This is demonstrated in both Europe and the United States--- where the birth rate has dropped below the level necessary for population replacement. The only reason America's population continues to grow is due to immigration. People put off having children for the sake of their career, due to their uncertainty about parenting, or due to the fact that modern medicine assures that childbearing is possible at later and later points in life.

In the case of the Raccona, they do have one or two forms of birth control--- primarily in the form of Storkpepper, which is chewed by the females to prevent ovulation. They also have a relatively high standard of living, and a culture that has begun encouraging pursuits outside of the traditional "build a farm and have lots of babies."

In short, their population growth isn't following any mathematical curve.

[JakeWasHere]

You have to remember that Ralph is in the US and has a different scale around him. Draw a box in Europe so that on average it has 9 people in it. Now take 8 people out of the box. That's roughly the population density of the USA.

You know what the difference between America and England is?

England thinks 100 miles is a long way, and we think 100 years is a long time.

[TMLutas]

You have to remember that Ralph is in the US and has a different scale around him. Draw a box in Europe so that on average it has 9 people in it. Now take 8 people out of the box. That's roughly the population density of the USA.

You know what the difference between America and England is?

England thinks 100 miles is a long way, and we think 100 years is a long time.

That's why I'm going to teach my children European history and American distances...

[Tom Mazanec]

I see. I was getting the impression that families were so large that the elders did not even know how many descendants they had, much less their names. So each couple has a couple kids, maybe one or three, perhaps none or four, and rare big families to compensate for an occassional early death. So the age "pyramid" is actually a tower (with a couple dents because of the recent plague). I am glad of this thread, it cleared up a misconception I am sure I was not alone in having.