[Ravensfort] The demographics of Raven's Fort

[Doug Bell]

Baron Nicholas and I had this discussion back in the early 2000s while looking at the demographic data for the barony both SCA and real world. He had the data and I had taken some demography classes in my college's Geography department.


Raven's Fort has the area of a small Principality with the population found in many large shires. Rural baronies are not common in the SCA since a barony is usually grounded in a major city. The Province of Mooneschadowe is another example of a rural barony but centered around one small town and college. Raven's Fort was founded as a rural barony with many small population clusters in small towns but scattered over a large area. This is an unusual distribution for an SCA group. This distribution is also why you can't solve the problem of driving distance with cantons. One of these population centers by itself is not large enough to support a stable auxillary group over time.


As Houston grows outward the barony begins to look like Canada with the population concentrating in the southern zip codes.

Given another 10-15 years this will get to the point where 80-90% of the members will be in the southern quarter of the barony. You will have to manage these changes as best as you can but every future officer in the barony needs to remember the issue.

Countries like Chile, Indonesia, and Russia have some of the same demographic population versus geography issues, so it is not just an SCA creation. Real world nations haven't come up with a perfect solution to population distribution trends either.

safe journeys my friends
Magnus
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