There's absolutely no way to know this. What's striking is that the pre-war trend was basically a straight line; if you were to simply extend this line, then population AD 2005 would be at about 2.3 million instead of 1.8. Of course it's hard to believe that the linear trend would continue for so long; but how are we to know exactly when growth would slow down, and by how much, if the war didn't happen?
There is a way in which the graph is misleading though. Since about the early 90s, Warsaw started "swallowing" its suburbs, which made the administrative city boundaries somewhat artificial. As of 2010, Warsaw metro area has a population of about 2.8-3 million, depending on how you count.
Amazingly, it does somehow seem to jump back up to where it [seems like] would continue naturally...
ReplyDeleteThere's absolutely no way to know this. What's striking is that the pre-war trend was basically a straight line; if you were to simply extend this line, then population AD 2005 would be at about 2.3 million instead of 1.8. Of course it's hard to believe that the linear trend would continue for so long; but how are we to know exactly when growth would slow down, and by how much, if the war didn't happen?
ReplyDeleteThere is a way in which the graph is misleading though. Since about the early 90s, Warsaw started "swallowing" its suburbs, which made the administrative city boundaries somewhat artificial. As of 2010, Warsaw metro area has a population of about 2.8-3 million, depending on how you count.
Any way to count what the original geographical boundaries to compare similar sizes?
ReplyDelete