World Building Issues

As I've been working on First Sight, I've discovered some issues with my original world-building.

When I first started writing the book, I really wanted to set it in a world that was quite different from the world of Alana's book. Alana's world is small and very uniform, to a point. There's not by way of ethnic or cultural diversity. It's just the nature of the story.

Knowing that, I really wanted First Sight to be different. I wanted it to be a world where lots of ethinicities mixed together in a big melting pot of a city (since most of the story is set in a city). I wanted to have characters from different ethnic background mixing freely and to see lots of different types of people. So that's what I started with.

As I kept working on and thinking about the story though, I realized something. The way the plot works is highly dependent on my characters living in a country that is fairly secluded from the rest of their world. Suddenly I had a problem. How do I have an ethnically diverse yet highly secluded setting? I realized that I don't really think it's possible to have both?

So what's a girl to do? I'm still working on the story. I think I've come up with a solution, but sometimes it's hard to let go of one's original ideas. Still, I know I'll come up with something. I just haven't quite figured it out yet. One thing is for sure. I really want something that's diverse. I just have to figure out how to achieve that and to achieve the goals of the story in a way that's actually believable.

It's things like this that make me love world building.