From: julie@pascal.org

On Saturday, June 28, 2014 12:22:55 PM UTC-6, Shawn Wilson wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 25, 2014 10:30:43 PM UTC-7, J.Pascal wrote:
> 
> > But I'm realizing... why *wouldn't* they have a couple big cities?  
> 
> Cites serve an economic end that defines their location and size.  If the
economic situation doesn't call for/support a large city, one won't exist.  
>  
> 
> Here, what is basically going on is mining.  For tech/information rather
than gold, but the same forces apply.  A local pharma industry is
unrealistic.  Those will always be high civilization adjacent.  Agriculture
for specific components and 
preliminary processing of those components is perfectly fine.

The pharma industry is based on the unique local biology.  Fungus, plants,
tiger gallbladders... it's the only real export the planet has other than
working holidays for archaeologists.  There will be on-site labs and a certain
amount of economic 
speculation related to figuring out if the slime on a particular toad is good
for anything. The city supports the port so it will have all of the normal
things that are required day-to-day such as a construction industry, food
production and processing, 
hospitals, transportation, and at least one repair yard for orbital shuttles. 
Port City is what it is, a transplanted center of commerce and population. 

On the other side of the world from where my story is set.
 
> 
> So, you have an amount of economic activity on the planet.  Obviously it
must be scattered.  There aren't large unified deposits of [economia] to
exploit, so no large cities to exploit them.  QED.  Think the 19th century
American frontier.  If the 
inhabitants wanted large cities they would have stayed back east.  St Louis to
San Francisco that was jack-all for large cities.

And jack-all for population.  And it lasted all of 30 years, less than a full
generation.
 

> 
> What else?  The low tech is obviously domestic, the high tech imported. 
They may have maker machines (*we* have those, forget 3d printing, an
automated milling machine can make damn near anything) to make one off items
of high tech on an as needed 
basis.  
> 
> 
> 
> As I see it, and I am an economist, I don't think your situation requires
justification.  It's fine.

Well, if no one is going to question it, then I suppose that's the definition
of "not a problem".

It's still not stopping the author from having an issue with having plopped
down a small colony in the temperate zone of a planet and then having it stay
that way for several centuries.

-Julie

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