Economics of Painter's world

[+Oltux72]

So, thinking about this a bit, do they have a rural population? And if not, what does puttting all the people into cities mean for economics? In particular, how do they do mining? Can they fish? Does the Drakness extend over the oceans?

[AltonicKeys]

What I'm guessing is that the darkness is everywhere (oceans, caves and all), with the exception of cities. They do everything in them, so if there's a city overlapping a lake or ocean, they'd fish there? Different towns for different departments is what I'm saying. Town dedicated to mining, one for wood, farming, tech, etc?
Painter said travel between cities is possible, so imports/exports would happen. Rarely, because of the fear surrounding the darkness.

[Chandlerhimself]

It thought Painter himself was from the country. I assumed they had Ion going everywhere, so there would be rural areas of just farms lit by Ion, but they might be rare. 

 

They might also have farms that people don't live on, but just work at during the day. I assume mining is fine and they make mines just like they make everything else. 

 

I'm guessing the limiting factor is the number of painters available and as such it makes more sense to live in a city. A small town with a few farms would be too much for a painter to cover by themselves, so there would need to be a lot of painters for only a few people living there. It would make more sense to make a farm and then just commute to it instead of living there. The same with mines. Just do your 9-5 job and then come back home to the city everyday. The same would apply to fishing.