Thursday, January 26, 2012

how many?

I have always lived close to a larger city. In idaho it was Boise, 25 miles away. In Texas it was Dallas and Fort Worth each about 35 miles away. The population of that area was about 3 1/2 million people. That was the largest population center I ever lived near.


When we talked about Idaho, Texans yawned and suggested that Idaho was a tiny backwater place, though none had been there.


This week, I wondered about the size of these three areas.


In Idaho what we call the “treasure valley” (bet there are dozens of others by that name), has a population of about 700,000. A good bit smaller than the metroplex, but hardly tiny.


Then I checked the area where we live in Washington State. Stretch the boundaries 30 miles and the population might be fudged up to 70,000.


So now we really are in a fairly isolated spot with not too many people.


No wonder there are so few stores. No wonder I sometimes can’t find what I want. I guess it is OK. We use the internet more. Buy what we need when we go to Portland or Boise.


Of course, with less population, comes a lot of good things too, and I am busy absorbing some of those!

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