I agree. Statistically, there just aren't going to be very many PG children in a city of fewer than 100K people, and this is what we've found to be the case. The problem out in the west is that the population centers are relatively isolated from OTHER population centers. To expand outward from a town of 50K in order to reach 150K, you might have to go outward to a radius of 200 miles or more. Distances are LONG here with not a lot in between (this is something that I think people from the Northeast have no real calibration for)-- the same general thing is true in the upper midwest and in the inland southwest.
This illustrates that concept better than any words possibly can:
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/index.jspWe know
no other children like my DD in our town of 65K, though in talking with other homeschoolers and with school administrators, there are about four to six of them in town. Our public school administrators have seen "a" student like her before-- four years ago, apparently.
My DD's virtual charter school has got fairly large numbers of accelerated kids, and obviously that suggests that there is enrichment of HG+ students in that population (about 4K from K through 12?), but even so, DD has only met a couple of other students like herself in six years (that is, those who require 3+ years of acceleration along with other accommodations). Those other students are invariably just as excited to meet others like themselves as my DD is. This suggests to me that most of them lack those kinds of peer experiences just as much as our DD does.
Contrast that with my cousin's experience in the Portland area, where they have found an HG/EG/PG homeschooling group with six to ten other children much like their own. They feel like they won the lottery, I must add with some envy.
I can only compare to what I know of others' experiences in places as diverse as Houston, Minneapolis, Seattle, Chicago, central California, southern Idaho, and Northern Virginia. The larger population centers simply offer a lot better fit and more opportunities to meet others at similar LOG.
