Anonymous asked: How long would it take to raise a city of comparable size to White Harbor and its fortifications on the river that passes through the Rills? I meant the one that leads to Torrhen’s Square, but I’m interested to know whether you think another river would be a better candidate.

Ok, now that I know what you’re getting at, I feel like I can answer that question. 

Torrhen’s Square is a good location for a city – you’re building on top of an already-existing settlement with good defenses, the lake offers quite a bit of space for docks, you’ve got direct access to the Saltspear, Blazewater Bay, and the Sunset Sea, and its location nearby to the Wolfswood gives it a natural monopoly on Northern timber exports. 

The biggest potential problem I see for Torrhen’s Square’s economic development is that it’s right by Barrowton, which is already a town with a strong economic presence (I’m pretty sure it’s a major livestock market, with sheep, cattle, and horses on offer), and has a shorter route to the Saltspear and thus foreign markets. So if the Dustins decide to make it a competition, Torrhen’s Square would be decidedly the underdog. 

As for how long…well, King’s Landing took only 25 years to go from nothing to bigger than White Harbor, so it all depends on what level of investments go into it:

• Sawmills, timber yards, carpenters, etc. – the necessary foundation for an economy, as proximity to the wolfswood is TS’ main value added. And this is going to take some significant up-front investments, because sawmills and the like are not cheap. 
• A Northern canal – would turbo-charge TS’ economic development, similar to how the Erie Canal changed upstate New York from a rural backwater into an industrial hotbed – depending on competition from other canals. Both Torrhen’s Square and White Harbor would grow significantly, with White Harbor gaining new western markets for its wool and its silver, and Torrhen’s Square gaining new eastern markets for its timber and woodcrafts, as well as the added revenue from providing commercial services to the passing trade. 
• A Stark navy-yard – given the proximity to essentially unlimited timber, if the North wants a navy on its west coast again, and it desperately needs one, putting a navy-yard and naval base on Torrhen’s Square makes a ton of sense. The raw materials are right there, the lake allows you to have a lot of ships in construction or moored up in one place, the distance from the coast makes it very hard for Ironborn to burn your fleet at anchor, etc. And it would provide a baseline of demand for a shipbuilding industry to develop, and you’re going to need one of them if you want to capture the maximum value-added from Northern exports and generate additional economic growth you’ll need to pay for all of this.