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This is... An interesting direction for  the game. Like Beedo said, it feels a bit like Call of Cthulhu with D&D mechanics, which is a nice thing.

I think I might create a custom class based on the Elf but with Architecture rather than Search and no Surprise bonus.

I will now try to figure out the demographics of Zabreba, our coastal town.

First, I've decided that Zabreba is actually composed of two distinct components - the walled Old Town and the ramshackle New Town.

The Old Town dates back several centuries, and is mostly medieval in construction, and also quite cramped; it has 2,000 residents, including most nobility, the old urban middle-class (i.e. craftsmen and merchants) and almost all fishermen. It follows the standard Medieval Demographics Made Easy distribution.

The New Town has sprung up in the last 25 years, following famine in the countryside and "enclosure" enacted by several rural nobles, which have, taken together, driven large numbers of peasants to the city. These disenfranchised peasants were the perfect (that is, cheap) work-force for the up-and-coming merchants who started developing manufactories around the new iron mine up-river from the Old Town and around the new shipyards. Most such incipient industrialists reside in the Old Town, in palaces sold to them by nobles who were too deep in debt, but the richest live in their own mansions a short distance from Zabreba itself. The New Town has a population of 7,000, but lacks many of the businesses expected in the "well-balanced" town according to Medieval Demographics Made Easy due to the fact that almost all residents are extremely poor.

So what do we have in the Old Town?
3 Noble Households (2 minor, 1 major)
7 Wealthy Merchants (5 minor, 2 major)
45 clergy and monks of the New Faith and one Priest
5 clergy of the Old Faith
12 City Watchmen (not including men-at-arms for the nobles)

5 Jewelers
5 Taverns
1 Inn
2 Bakers
2 Wine-Sellers
2 Hatters
2 Saddlers
1 Woodseller
1 Magic Shop (who is also the antiquarian and all-around weird guy)
1 Bookbinder/Seller/Illuminator/Printer (there are printing presses in this setting)
1 Butcher
3 Fishmongers
1 Beer-Seller
1 Spice Merchant
1 Blacksmith
1 Painter
1 Doctor (and 5 more unlicensed doctors - or midwives?)
1 Locksmith
1 Public Bath
1 Sculptor
1 Ragmaker
1 Cutler
3 Lawyers

So what do we have in the New Town?
3 Wealthy Merchant Households (major, in the countryside near the town)
150 clergymen of the New Faith and 5 priests of the New Faith
35 City Watchmen (not including factory guards and assorted thugs)

18 Taverns (mostly in horrid conditions)
8 Jewelers
7 Old Clothes
3 Weavers (and one big textile manufactory)
3 Carpenters (and two larger timber mills)
4 Bakers
2 Woodsellers (actually those are the timber mills)
1 Blacksmith (plus a very big steel mill)
1 Spice Merchant
2 Doctors (and 20 more unlicensed doctors - or midwives?)
3 Locksmiths
3 Inns (in bad condition)
4 Tanners

After some thinking, I got to the conclusion that a large city would be a bit overwhelming for my NPC-centric gaming style. I'd like to have something more personable on hand, maybe a port town, called Zabreba, with 2,500-5,000 residents. This will probably have a few nobles and merchants present, and about two inns, one small bookstore and one or two "magic" (i.e. ingredient) shops.

2,500-5,000 residents - still enough for very cool urban adventures IMHO, but much more personable than a large city.

It won't be a city-state per se. HOWEVER, the Kingdom of Zagadur would be quite weak and corrupt, so the King will rarely be able to intervene in local affairs, leaving the Mayor as the de-facto supreme authority in Zabreba.

It will still be an ice-age setting, with domesticated Mammoths used as draft and war animals, and huge beasts roaming the countryside, hardly held in check by the City watch in the lack of any real support by the King.

As part of my work on the City on the Ice-Choked Sea, I'm trying to figure out the general make-up of the city's population, and, particularly, the rarity of classed and leveled characters in the City.

Note that the City is a well-established city with early-industrial technology and an incipient industry; technology should look like something out of the Age of Sail rather the Middle Ages, with Mad Scientists getting into steampunk proper.

First, I'll have to decide how big the City is. Of course Medieval Demographics Made Easy is an excellent reference, but I'm aiming towards something more similar to the Age of Sail (circa 1600-1800) rather than the Middle Ages themselves (that article gives examples from the 1400s). What I have in mind is a population of about 100,000, of which about 70,000 are the relatively new urban working-class formed by newly (last century) disenfranchised peasants. Most new workers live in ramshackle slums around the harbor and the industrial districts, outside of the old city walls. The remainder are mostly urban craftsmen and merchants, with a small nobility (about 1,000 people split into 3-5 major families and numerous lesser houses) and a wealthy merchant class (about 2,000 people split into numerous families). There are also about 3,000 clergy and monks of the New Faith.

A good source of inspiration for the class and level breakdown of the population is this EnWorld thread. However, I feel that with the large amount of mercenaries, guards and thugs attracted by such a fractured, decaying city, there would probably be more Fighters and Specialists in the population than the 1E assumption of %1 classed characters. What I have in mind are about 5% classed characters, of whom 2% are Specialists, 2% Fighters and 1% all the rest of the classes (including level 1 or higher Changelings and Elders - i.e. Elves and Dwarves). So we're talking about circa 2,000 Specialists, 2,000 Fighters and 1,000 other classed characters (200 M-Us, 300 spellcasting Clerics, 400 Changelings and 100 Elders).

As for Changelings and Elders, they should be a minority. Changelings are 5% of the total population, Elders are 1%.

So the class breakdown I'm thinking about is:

Level 0 Normal Men/Women
5,000 Warriors (higher end of HP, usually armed with something - thugs, guards, rank-and-file soldiers and so on)
84,600 Non-Warrior Normal Humans
4,500 Level 0 Changelings
900 Level 0 Elders

Fighters
1,000 Level 1 Fighters
500 Level 2 Fighters
250 Level 3 Fighters
125 Level 4 Fighters
62 Level 5 Fighters
32 Level 6 Fighters
16 Level 7 Fighters
8 Level 8 Fighters
4 Level 9 Fighters
2 Level 10 Fighters
1 Level 11 Fighter

Specialists
1,000 Level 1 Specialists
500 Level 2 Specialists
250 Level 3 Specialists
125 Level 4 Specialists
62 Level 5 Specialists
32 Level 6 Specialists
16 Level 7 Specialists
8 Level 8 Specialists
4 Level 9 Specialists
2 Level 10 Specialists
1 Level 11 Specialist

Clerics
150 Level 1 Clerics
75 Level 2 Clerics
36 Level 3 Clerics
20 Level 4 Clerics
10 Level 5 Clerics
5 level 6 Clerics
3 Level 7 Clerics
1 Level 8 Cleric

Magic-Users
100 Level 1 Magic-Users
50 Level 2 Magic-Users
25 Level 3 Magic-Users
15 Level 4 Magic-Users
6 Level 5 Magic-Users
3 Level 6 Magic Users
1 Level 7 Magic-User

Changelings ("Elves")
200 Level 1 Changelings
100 Level 2 Changelings
50 Level 3 Changelings
25 Level 4 Changelings
15 Level 5 Changelings
6 Level 6 Changelings
3 Level 7 Changelings
1 Level 8 Changeling

Elders ("Dwarves")
50 Level 1 Elders
25 Level 2 Elders
15 Level 3 Elders
6 Level 4 Elders
3 Level 5 Elders
1 Level 6 Elder

How much would these numbers (in a 100,000-people city) fit a LotFP campaign?

Also, assuming an ice-age on one hand and higher-than-usual technology (and mammoths as draft animals) on the other hand, how many 24-mile-wide hexes would be necessary to feed a 100,000-resident city?

In a more tropical setting, I think I would've used lizard-men and serpent-men, as both of these races fit squrely into the sword & sorcery milieu. But since my setting is cold and icy, with some Norse and Slavic connotations, I think that I'll use the following races:

1) Humans. The vast majority.
2) Sea Blood (i.e. Deep One Hybrids), who belong to the big Noble Houses. I'm not sure if I'll let them be PCs, though; but they'd make great villains.
3) Changelings, who are Fey babies placed in cribs from which the Fey have abducted Human babies. They are essentially Fey, but raised by Humans, so they belong to both worlds. Use Elf stats as-is.
4) Elders/Dwergar. They are a dying race who once ruled a vast empire in the now-frozen North, evolved Neanderthals who moved deeper and deeper underground as the glaciers ate through their homeland.

Anyone not Human (except for young Sea Blood who could pass as Humans) is subject to prejudice and, for the very least, a -2 penalty to Reaction when interacting with mainstream Humanity.

I also use Changelings, though, in my case, they are actually Fey put in place of abducted Human infants and thus raised by Humans rather than escaped abducted infants. My City on the Ice-Choked Sea campaign also has no Dwarves or Halflings - only Humans and Changelings, and Changelings are partially outcast, so this setting is quite anthropocentric (which is as I like it).

EDIT: I'm actually thinking about allowing Dwarves in my City campaign as Elders - evolved Neanderthals who once ruled an empire in the now-frozen North, and now a dying race. What would you think about it?

I think I'll call this city Zagadur.

Anyway, I've been thinking about how magic interacts with the setting as a whole. In LotFP, like in most D&D-type games, there are two types of magic - D20 calls them Divine and Arcane, while LotFP calls them Lawful and Chaotic. I'll stick with that LotFP definition - and give it a meaning in the game world. No, there isn't a total war going on between Law and Chaos in this world; things are more complicated. Chaos is unnatural, unworldly, yet intertwined with the rest of creation. Law is the natural world, the mundane (and divine?) "reality".

Both the Old and the New Faiths are Lawful. The Old Faith worships a quasi-monotheistic nature/agriculture goddess (of the Maiden-Mother-Crone type); the New Faith worships the Mastersmith, a monotheistic god focused on craftsmanship. The Old Faith has a less aggressive stance towards Chaos, and merely seeks to contain it and to ward against its worst excesses; the New Faith seeks, in theory, to smite Chaos whenever it defiles our reality; in practice, certain types of chaos (such as Changelings and some M-Us) are tolerated by all but the most fanatical sects.

Fey are the most common manifestation of Chaos in the Mortal Realm. They dwell relatively "close" to reality, and thus, in many cases, resemble worldly creatures and plants - sometimes even humans - to a degree. Further away from reality lie far more alien things - the creatures summoned by the Summon spell in LotFP. Fey sometimes abduct Human babies and replace them with their own - this leads to Human-like Fey being raised by Humans (these are the Changelings), and while their standing in society is quite low (most people distrust Fey), they are usually tolerated (usually is the key word here - sometimes a more fanatical sect of the New Faith lynches them).

Low-level Magic-Users usually consort with Fey one way or another. High-level Magic-Users usually learn far more bizarre truths and consort with far more alien beings from Beyond the Veil.

I've been thinking about politics in the City, and am strongly leaning towards making it a city-state. That would make having a chaotic wilderness quite easy - the City defends itself and watches the main roads to its trade partners (as well as the farm supplying it with food), but stray from the main roads and things will be in quite a disarray.

Regarding the City's armed forces, I think that a multitude of them will serve both setting and game quite well. Noble Houses will have their own Men-at-Arms; the City Council will employ the (quite corrupt) City Guard to police the city and defend the roads; and the City Council will employ mercenaries (think the Italian Condottoeri of the 15th-16th centuries) when engaging in warfare with other city-states or nations. With order deteriorating and politics being in a state of flux, there are MANY armed factions with the City's walls. And as long as the PCs won't be marching around in field plate with cannons in tow, or start attacking by-passers in the middle of a street, I don't think that a breastplate, a rapier or even a slung musket will draw too much attention.

The City was founded approximately 700 years ago by several (3-5) bands of adventuring Vikings, the leader of each establishing a Major Noble House; later on, other people of power became Minor Houses. Today, the City is managed by a Council composed of representatives of all Noble Houses (the Major ones having more votes than the Minor ones) and the clergymen of the New Faith. There are also some upstart wealthy merchants and industrialists who would like to have a bigger say in politics - some would even prefer to get rid of the Noble Houses altogether and let the merchants and industrialists run things - and their money gives them a clout. So far the conflict between the Noble Houses and the Merchants hadn't exploded into much overt violence, though.

Thanks for the clarification