Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 7 · column 3 of 4 · from the scan, no model involved
two-iew people ena ot the scale. 5,UU0 people, for a population density of 19 people per square mile, appeared to be reasonable. Now we start to look at the "too-many” people end of the scale.
Population density seems to be a good measure of crowding, and the term is com-. monly used everywhere in the world to show how many people are competing for a fixed commodity, land.
Some have wondered whether the Shenandoah National Park is included in the population density calculation for Rappahannock County, even though no one can live in the park. The answer is yes. The park covers 31,700 acres, close to 50 square miles (there are 640 acres in a square mile). Thus, the county governs not 267 square miles, but only 217 square miles. It has lost about 19 percent of its area to the federal government. It does not matter.
The federal and state governments still use the full 267 square miles for any population density calculation.
Likewise, the Comprehensive Plan of Rappahannock County notes other areas where one could not build a dwelling. Commercial acreage covers 0.12 square miles, industrial acreage consumes 0.07 square miles, public and semi-public acreage takes up 0.16 square miles, VDOT's highways and private rights-of-way cover 3.20 square miles, and there are 10,000 acres, or 15.6 square miles, of unbuildable land on mountainsides, etc. This adds up to a little over 19 square miles, or seven percent of the county.
You cannot build a house on the 50 acres in the park and you cannot build a house on 19 acres where dwellings are not possible. Instead of 267 square miles, we are now down to 198 square miles.
With a 1999 estimated population of 7,664, a more realistic population density figure would be 39 people per square mile instead of 29 people per square mile. However, 267 square miles is the Feds story, and we re sticking with it.
Feel put upon? Check out Alpine County in California. Is has 727 square miles and a population of only 1,161 people.
Ninety-three percent of Alpine County is public land, containing parts of Tahoe National Forest, El Dorado National Forest, Stanislaus National Forest, and two other parks. Only seven percent is private land. It still has a population density of 1.59 people per square mile, not the more realistic figure of 23 people per square mile.
Back to our subject.
When it comes to determining what might be termed "too many" people in Rappahannock County, we might look at our surrounding counties.
Drive over, check them out.
Another alternative would be to check the most populous county in Virginia, Arlington County. It has a population of 174,848 people in an area of 26 square miles, for a population density of 6,725 people per square mile. That density in Rappahannock
96.9%