[Setting/RPM] The City of Triangle

[temp]

Ok, question, have you lost some zero's? For a "New York City of Ritual Path Magic...hub of interplanar trade and travel", at TL8, a population of 110,500 seems off by a couple of orders of magnitude...

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by temp

Ok, question, have you lost some zero's? For a "New York City of Ritual Path Magic...hub of interplanar trade and travel", at TL8, a population of 110,500 seems off by a couple of orders of magnitude...

Hmmm, you do have a point, but...

"The New York City" is a bit of hype. An exaggeration. It is a hub of trade and travel, but crossing planar borders also makes it more risky than simply staying on Earth. Likewise, the market for magic has a bit of a hump - it's generally costly for magicians and those buying.

Also, I'd forgot to mention the outer planes were only discovered in the mid-80's, so the city is very old or established as it could be.

Nevertheless, how much higher should the population be, you think? Compared to real world TL8 cities of similar reputation and wealth, how much bigger?

[AlexanderHowl]

It sounds more like a college town than a real city. 100,000 is a small city by modern definitions, so I really do not see it as being that important unless it is a college town. If it possesses a major university, the university will be the primary employer of the area, as it would presumably possess a student body of 30,000 people and employ around 12,000 people, making it the equivalent of UNC Chapel Hill in the USA (which is surrounded by an urban around of 100,000, made up of the cities of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough).

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It sounds more like a college town than a real city. 100,000 is a small city by modern definitions, so I really do not see it as being that important unless it is a college town. If it possesses a major university, the university will be the primary employer of the area, as it would presumably possess a student body of 30,000 people and employ around 12,000 people, making it the equivalent of UNC Chapel Hill in the USA (which is surrounded by an urban around of 100,000, made up of the cities of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough).

I'd agree with this assessment. Boulder, Colorado, had a population of 97,000 and change within the rather tight city limits. The home of the University of Colorado, Boulder froze its town limits nearly 30 years ago, bought all of the surrounding farm land, and declared it open space in perpetuity.

That means the city's population hit a hard upper limit (given zoning restrictions) by the late '90s, and bedroom towns began to spring up outside its open space. That's because, in addition to the university, Boulder has a cluster of federal offices (including a large NOAA facility); numerous information technology firms that sprouted in the dot-com years, a large number of outdoors outfitters, and all the entertainment and shopping venues you'd expect, given its combination of affluent professionals and college students.

If you include all of Boulder County, much of which serves as (effectively) suburbs of Boulder, the population exceeds 300,000. That makes Boulder a small city with a much more diverse economy that's still heavily skewed toward STEM and knowledge industry sectors.

[temp]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

Hmmm, you do have a point, but...

"The New York City" is a bit of hype. An exaggeration. It is a hub of trade and travel, but crossing planar borders also makes it more risky than simply staying on Earth. Likewise, the market for magic has a bit of a hump - it's generally costly for magicians and those buying.

Also, I'd forgot to mention the outer planes were only discovered in the mid-80's, so the city is very old or established as it could be.

Nevertheless, how much higher should the population be, you think? Compared to real world TL8 cities of similar reputation and wealth, how much bigger?

Personally, I'd add at least 1 zero - Ballpark minimum estimate, according to your description, the driving economic employers/forces are

Big University - Harvard has 16000 employees (and 22000 students ) - round up to 20000 for this place
Corporate HQ's Plural - How many & How big? Amazon has 40000 employees in Seattle. Call it 100000 as a placeholder for multiple corporations.
"Biggest Enchanted Item Market in the Outer Planes" - Again, this is very campaign dependent - but call it at least another 20000 directly employed.

So that is 140000 people directly employed. Supported service employment (teachers, sewer-workers, house-cleaners, restaurants, whatever) at a minimum another 140000 (this is a guess, it could be a much larger number). So a minimum of 280,000 employed. Assume an employment rate of 66.6% gives another 140000 unemployed for various reasons adults, for a 420000 adults. Add a 25% for kids.

Minimum Population of 525000. Could obviously be a lot larger - it really depends how much inter-planar trade you actually have going on.

Also, a "Free City" in a TL8 culture that only discovered the "outer planes" in the last 40 years? How many major trading port free cities can you think of in the modern world (I can only think of Hong Kong and it's not independent in any real sense)? How many combat divisions do it's neighbors have on it's borders to contain potential outer-planar problems? How many does the city have to retain it's independence (note that these people would count as directly employed in the above estimate).

[AlexanderHowl]

Singapore would probably be the closest real world analogy, and it has 5.6 million people.

[Daigoro]

How long has the city been established? With substantial travel bottlenecks, it's probably not going to be able to grow its population that quickly.

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

How long has the city been established? With substantial travel bottlenecks, it's probably not going to be able to grow its population that quickly.

The city was established around 40 years ago, but didn't "hit its stride" until about 25 years ago. The "travel bottlenecks" applicable here are shifts in the area's natural planar gates - sometimes they switch off or change destination every six months, which disrupts trade. Magi can use magic to create their own gates, but this means further issues. Government oversight, sabotage, corruption, extra costs - all these explain why relying on "artificial" gates rather than existing natural gates would be less attractive until you have no choice.

Also, a "Free City" in a TL8 culture that only discovered the "outer planes" in the last 40 years? How many major trading port free cities can you think of in the modern world (I can only think of Hong Kong and it's not independent in any real sense)? How many combat divisions do it's neighbors have on it's borders to contain potential outer-planar problems? How many does the city have to retain it's independence (note that these people would count as directly employed in the above estimate).

The "Free City" thing mostly indicates that the outer planes are mostly a No-Man's Land. Earth governments prefer to offload the inherent risk of colonising the dangerous outer planes to multi-national corporations, and stick to soft power and indirect influence. Claiming outer planes settlements for a Earth nation does happen in small amounts and very rarely because it is a bit of an money sink AND it can make waves. Better to let NGOs carry the burden and responsibilities, and then take a piece of the profits by selectively opening your markets to them.

In other words, Triangle owes its political independence (if it has any below the surface) to Earth nations trying an "hands-off" approach that frees them of messy responsibilities - conquering Triangle would just make them a target, while letting it be gives them a chance to leech off the city. No doubt, the Earth nations do try to manipulate Triangle power struggles through money. If Triangle explodes, it just means a pawn is sacrificed rather than a leg cut off.

"Neighbours" and "borders" get a little blurry when interplanar gates are involved. Suffice to say, both sides of every gate are fortified checkpoints with tight security (or so we hope...criminals can make a mint off an unregistered gate). The City of Triangle itself doesn't have any outstanding outer planar problems in its area (no monsters, for instance), which is why it has prospered so. I'd imagine the city of Triangle allows certain Earth nations to station some troops and military bases to protect the city as part of their trade agreements - you deploy some men in case of monster attack and we lower some prices here or there.