City Musings: Economy
Apr. 9th, 2011 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sythyryThis is a hard question. What sort of economic foundation should a Sythyry-built city have?
Assume, arguendo, that the city is floating in the air not too far from Vheshrame --- something like a skyboat, and something like a sky-bridge city (like Oorah Thrassen). So it will have no natural resources whatever. It may have quasi-natural resources: I could, for example, build rooms in which one could grow crops, with labor.
I could also, in principle, support the whole city myself -- well, for a small city, a village perhaps. I don't much want to. A cityful of sycophants and clients and people who live by accepting gifts from me seems a bit off. Also I would probably have to spend all my mornings doing high-price enchantments -- as it is, I spend half them doing that sort and half doing ones for fun or emergency -- and that would not please me much.
A city of crafters would work fine. Oorah Thrassen is somewhat like that. I can't, however, import a pile of master-whittlers or master-clockmakers or something. I might be able to find one or two masters who want to move to a new Ketherian citylet and start a guild-chapter and craft-lineage there. It may take decades to get established, and we will need other things in the meantime.... but this seems like a good long-term approach. What crafts, though? Of course it depends somewhat on what crafters are available, but I could court, oh, a certain glassmaker, or tailor, or this or that.
I'm sure there's a lot I'm not thinking of, too.
This will be difficult, I suspect. I have appreciated your thoughts on other topics; I would appreciate them on this one, perhaps even more.
Assume, arguendo, that the city is floating in the air not too far from Vheshrame --- something like a skyboat, and something like a sky-bridge city (like Oorah Thrassen). So it will have no natural resources whatever. It may have quasi-natural resources: I could, for example, build rooms in which one could grow crops, with labor.
I could also, in principle, support the whole city myself -- well, for a small city, a village perhaps. I don't much want to. A cityful of sycophants and clients and people who live by accepting gifts from me seems a bit off. Also I would probably have to spend all my mornings doing high-price enchantments -- as it is, I spend half them doing that sort and half doing ones for fun or emergency -- and that would not please me much.
A city of crafters would work fine. Oorah Thrassen is somewhat like that. I can't, however, import a pile of master-whittlers or master-clockmakers or something. I might be able to find one or two masters who want to move to a new Ketherian citylet and start a guild-chapter and craft-lineage there. It may take decades to get established, and we will need other things in the meantime.... but this seems like a good long-term approach. What crafts, though? Of course it depends somewhat on what crafters are available, but I could court, oh, a certain glassmaker, or tailor, or this or that.
I'm sure there's a lot I'm not thinking of, too.
This will be difficult, I suspect. I have appreciated your thoughts on other topics; I would appreciate them on this one, perhaps even more.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-10 02:39 am (UTC)The things that make a city attractive to people are:
* Geography -- Orren want bodies of water to play in, farmers want arable land, etc.
* Safety -- from monsters, criminals, and corruption in government
* Desirable tax rates
* Desirable cost of living
* Tax structure
* Legal climate -- traff people want no laws against traff behavior
* Regulatory climate -- craftsman don't want legal obstacles that stop them from crafting
Since your geography is artificial, it's not going to be attractive to people who want to extract natural resources. You could possibly provide them with artificial resources: it probably doesn't make sense to give them land to farm given that farming uses lots of area and does not return much wealth per square foot. But a room that produces unlimited glass rods would be attractive to a glassblower.
If you're going to let monsters (read: Vae) hang out in your city, you're probably not going to get high marks for safety. I have no particular insight in what makes a city safe, beyond the obvious.
The cost of living is something you'll have a lot of control over, since if you're making the land you can control how much it costs and if/when additional land/housing is produced. If you don't care about being perceived as fair, you can subsidize the purchase or lease of housing for desirable citizens and increase costs (or refuse to sell/lease) to undesirable. You may or may not want to ensure that other necessities are inexpensive, depending on whether you care how easy it is for poor people to live in your city. Not that wealthy people *like* paying more for necessities, but they do not care as much, and they may actively dislike living around poor people.
Regulation is a tricky question. It's in a given crafter's best interest to ply her trade unimpaired while her competition has as many obstacles as possible. Which is why guilds flourish: established crafters like having a way to stifle and control the competition. Regulation is sometimes in the consumers' best interest as well. You probably don't want a regulatory climate radically different from your neighbors' to avoid annoying your trading partners. But you might be able to lure skilled craftsmen who are unable to get master status in their own towns due to guild problems. This may get you more people like Grinwipey, though. Fair warning.
Oh, and the natural way for your city to grow is to get people who produce goods and services that you use, like Phaniet and Grinwipey. Your city may end up attracting more enchanters if you bring in a lot of people who produce or acquire the goods that enchanters need.