Which California Counties should be split up? (Los Angeles, San Diego: tax, suburban)

[JGC97]

Originally Posted by eureka1

What would be the advantage of having more counties????

More elected officials? Just what we need. More government.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by slowlane3

Residents of the desert town of Needles, CA, want to secede and join AZ. Taxes are lower in AZ, and they also feel disconnected from the rest of their county seat / population center which is over 200 miles away, and which they feel neglects them.

We can trade for parts of AZ n of winterhaven so I'll have more duck hunting turf.

[BeauCharles]

Eastern Madera County. Sierra Nevada towns like Oakhurst, Bass Lake and Coarsegold have nothing in common with the agricultural areas in the valley like Madera and Chowchilla.

[Des-Lab]

How many times and ways is this topic going to be driven into the ground?

It's not that I wouldn't LIKE to see the state drawn and quartered, it's just that I don't [yet] see it happening anytime soon.

This question has been asked and answered more times than can be counted. And the outcome is almost always the same every time, with few minor variations:

• Los Angeles
• Inland Empire/Orange County/San Diego
• Central Valley-roughly Bakersfield to Stockton
• Central Coast
• The Bay: San Jose/Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento
• Far North
• Give Inyo, Mono, and Eastern Kern Counties back to Nevada since those are really geographically if not politically part of the Silver State anyway.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Dave Coe

Los Angeles: Santa Monica County(Santa Monica, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Calabasas, Agoura Hills)

San Bernadino: Northern half could Mojave County

Santa Barbara: Northern half Mission County

Alameda: Eastern suburban half Online County

Countra Costa: Southern Wealthier half Diablo County.

Why?

I actually see so much unnecessary redundancy that I think counties should be combined in NorCal.

Alameda and Contra Costa should be combined.

San Francisco and San Mateo should be combined.

Marin and Sonoma should be combined.

Santa Cruz and Monterey should be combined.

San Joaquin and Stansilaus should be combined.

And so forth.

We dont need most of the poorly managed county bureaucracies that exist in CA today.

[Native Transplant]

Originally Posted by Des-Lab

How many times and ways is this topic going to be driven into the ground?

It's not that I wouldn't LIKE to see the state drawn and quartered, it's just that I don't [yet] see it happening anytime soon.

This question has been asked and answered more times than can be counted. And the outcome is almost always the same every time, with few minor variations:

• Los Angeles
• Inland Empire/Orange County/San Diego
• Central Valley-roughly Bakersfield to Stockton
• Central Coast
• The Bay: San Jose/Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento
• Far North
• Give Inyo, Mono, and Eastern Kern Counties back to Nevada since those are really geographically if not politically part of the Silver State anyway.

This is a different conversation than you are talking about. You are referring to the ongoing convo about splitting CA into several states. This thread is talking about splitting counties into smaller counties.

That said, I wonder the history of San Bernardino County, and to a lesser extent, Riverside County. The former is larger than Maryland (it would be the 42nd or so largest state). The latter is larger than Connecticut. Any of you originally from those states?

Switzerland has a type of division within a couple of its cantons called demicantons. I often wonder if the larger counties in CA would ever consider splitting into "demicounties", but then that's another layer of government, and I think those in the rural desert areas would hate that.

But, yes, I would think the Coachella Valley would want to be independent from Riverside (and SB, if it flows into there) County. Maybe the Blythe and/or Needles areas would want that as well?

[DriveNotCommute]

Originally Posted by Native Transplant

This is a different conversation than you are talking about. You are referring to the ongoing convo about splitting CA into several states. This thread is talking about splitting counties into smaller counties.

That said, I wonder the history of San Bernardino County, and to a lesser extent, Riverside County. The former is larger than Maryland (it would be the 42nd or so largest state). The latter is larger than Connecticut. Any of you originally from those states?

Switzerland has a type of division within a couple of its cantons called demicantons. I often wonder if the larger counties in CA would ever consider splitting into "demicounties", but then that's another layer of government, and I think those in the rural desert areas would hate that.

But, yes, I would think the Coachella Valley would want to be independent from Riverside (and SB, if it flows into there) County. Maybe the Blythe and/or Needles areas would want that as well?

This was the first time I've heard of the concept but I would say it is a potentially good idea if there is a need for it, that the overall benefit outweigh the costs.

Personally, I think over-dividing is worse than under-dividing. In the former, you get bureaucratic entrenchment and the accompanying fiscal waste that's bound to happen while in the latter, even if you have incompatible constituencies, it is hypothetically possible for responsible parties to work out their problems and move on.

Take Kansas (or Iowa or Arkansas) for example and check out how many counties they have. Although there's something visually appealing to how neatly arranged all of those rectangles are, the sheer quantity of them is puzzling for me. I don't know much about their history but based on patterns in history I am assuming that it must have helped the state avoid conflict and power struggles in some way or another, that it was beneficial at the time. Do those problems still exist today? Do they need that many counties or could they streamline things a lot by consolidating? Aren't the demographics (in general, across the whole state) out there more uniform than it is in California?

[Packard fan]

Originally Posted by slowlane3

Residents of the desert town of Needles, CA, want to secede and join AZ. Taxes are lower in AZ, and they also feel disconnected from the rest of their county seat / population center which is over 200 miles away, and which they feel neglects them.

Needles IMHO should be handed over to Nevada since Laughlin with its Clark County police and fire depts is only a few miles away and, both places are on the same side of the river.

[pecanku]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

San Francisco city is also the entirety of San Francisco County. LA and SD have a lot of cities within the county boundaries.

That's what I already said. I was referring to Los Angeles City being the entirety of Los Angeles County, San Diego being the entirety of San Diego County, and the rest of the cities already in those counties - be their own counties.

[pecanku]

Here's something I researched just now from the Wikipedia on this topic: The 5 most populous states in the U.S. in respective order are: California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois. The number of counties in each state in that same order are: 58, 254, 67, 62 and 102. The density of each county by state population is, also in that same order: 669,008 , 106,130 , 296,915 , 318,488 and 126,280 . Those are the average number of residents in each county per each state.

What is significant about these numbers is the average number of residents per county in California. Doing the math, California needs to almost double, that's right double the number of counties to serve its residents more adequately with jobs, living and services, just to get to the level of the next state on this list of most crowded counties, which is New York, even more than double to get to the next state, Florida, Illinois is the next state of most crowded counties, then Texas. Texas with the most counties and second highest population has a good model for this, so it appears.

Would all this help for rezoning California? The posts in this forum are good starting points. Also California is pretty much the median for the number of counties in each state. Although states generally have more county divisions back east rather than here out west, I find it a better motto to follow here.