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When we look at the United States, we see certain parts of the nation that could stand alone as a country of their own. Obviously there would be endless ways of suggesting what regions could be drawn off into their own place. Nothing here involves a suggestion they should be their own nation....I am only looking at their ability to be one.
I'm going to offer the three that would for a variety of reasons suggest they could stand on their own.
The places I am considering here are ones that "by definition" actually exist as a real place with defined borders. Two of them are states: California and Texas. The only is not and does not exist in any legal sense. It is a region of the US and the only region in the nation where there is total agreement that its six states are always part of it. There is no regionally grouping of these six states...no other state could be added, none of the six could be removed. Obviously I am talking about New England.
And New England may be deceptive in that regard. Both California and Texas are jurisdictions. They are real. New England may conceptually come across as being different states so it cannot have the solidarity of the other two. Yet in its own way, New England is far more homogeneous than the either CA or TX. And, of course, its area if combined would just be an average sized state.
With the question being: which of the three areas (areas is how I will refer to them) could best stand alone as its own nation, the criteria would be...
• Secession movements are well known as part of each area's history and present
• Culturally different, having a degree of its own culture along with American culture that stems from deep historical roots
• Economy could function as a nation. (I am definitely excluding here any consideration of which one has the most robust and formidable economy. The only thing that needs to be satisfied on this score would be they possess a nation type economy. In that context globally, I might put China and Denmark as equals in their ability to economically exist as nations.
• The most commonality throughout the area. All pieces seem to fit. And to properly evaluate it this and make it a fair assessment, the fact that New England is made up for six states and the other two are single states should be irrelevant (unless there is a reason to think a particular NE state is more wrapped up in state identity. So I'm suggesting that subregions get the same treatment as in....Bay Area and the Mohave Desert, Gulf Coast and Panhandle, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
New England can’t feed itself and the outflow of wealth to pay for energy would be astounding. And if you make New York a separate country, much of the wealth in Connecticut withers. So whatever the correct answer, not New England.
Though I can’t help thinking the correct answer is the obvious one. The one defined region that actually managed to secede.
I voted for California. It has all sorts of climates and geographic landscapes. It has the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles---both of which are economic powerhouses and global cities. It has ~40,000,000 inhabitants.
New England can’t feed itself and the outflow of wealth to pay for energy would be astounding. And if you make New York a separate country, much of the wealth in Connecticut withers. So whatever the correct answer, not New England.
Don’t know if I agree with your first and third points. Plenty of crops grow in New England, and there are the fish off the coast. There’s no guarantee that New York would want a hard border with an independent New England, so Fairfield County might still be ok. Energy would be a problem.
The real reason New England is the worst poll option is the lack of a pre-existing government. There may be cultural similarities between the six states, but that doesn’t mean they work together well or agree about how their states should be run.
Another point against New England is that the people don’t want to secede, unlike Texans and Californians. The New England Secession movement predates the civil war, and a lot has changed since then.
I voted for California. It has all sorts of climates and geographic landscapes. It has the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles---both of which are economic powerhouses and global cities. It has ~40,000,000 inhabitants.
This is where I went with it. I think that between the population, the climate, the coastal economy and the interior agricultural region, it's probably the best bet for thriving on its own. The argument could also be made for Texas which has many of the same attributes - strong economic hubs, great agricultural output, large population, but it's lesser than California on all three fronts. So California gets my vote.
New England is an also ran in this race. It's not large enough, economically strong enough (as another poster said, you significantly diminish the economic output of SW CT if the region were to be independent), and is also extremely dependent on imports for food/power. New England's greatest strength from a natural standpoint would be access to plentiful clean water. Something both Texas and California have struggled with to varying degrees over time. But that's not enough to sustain it as an independent region.
Dixie (The American South)
Georgia
Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas (including extreme southern Missouri)
Kentucky (including Missouri Bootheel and excluding the Cincinnati suburbs)
Tennessee
South Carolina
North Carolina
North Florida (north of Orlando)
South Virginia (from Charlottesville southward, including most of Shenandoah Valley and southern West Virginia)
Capital: Atlanta (or Montgomery, Chattanooga, Huntsville, or Columbus-GA)
California
Present-day U.S. California (Alta California)
Baja California (in Mexico)
Nevada
Not that it matters, but you certainly have my permission.
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