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The US clearly needs a major political overhaul. The vast majority of the US population is consistently dissatisfied with the federal government regardless of who's in power. The federal government and the Supreme Court within the federal government were never intended to be so powerful. As part of overhaul a major reworking of the states would make a lot of sense. Changing state boundaries for the sake of doing so doesn't make much sense.
If state boundaries were to be changed I would use the following criteria:
- respect cultural geography
- respect physical borders
- no major metros would be split between states
- states should have a similar population so they can have similar scope in ambitions and services
These would be my states. Each would have between 14 and 28 million inhabitants
State (descriptive name) - Capital - Major cities and cities which give an indication of borders - description
1. New England - Albany - Boston, Providence, Hartford, Buffalo, Rochester - New England and Upstate Nork York including the Hudson Valley North of Bear Mountain
2. New York - New York City - Newark, Bridgeport, Yonkers - Metro New York is populous alone to be it's own state
3. Chesapeake and Delaware - Harrisburg - Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore - The mid-Atlantic states basically. Including the NE portion of WVa and the most Eastern Ohio region along that river
4. Carolina and Virginia - Raleigh - Charlotte, Hampton Roads, Richmond, Piedmont Triad, Greenville, Columbia, Charleston SC, Augusta, Savannah - The Colonial South East of the Blue Ridge including the Eastern third of Georgia. Mostly coastal and coastal plain
5. Florida - Orlando - Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville -The "culturally Northern", heavily populated portion of peninsular Florida
6. Upland South - Knoxville - Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Huntsville, Roanoke, Tri-Cities, Charleston WVa - The Appalachian South, little plantation agriculture historically
7. Louisiana - Baton Rouge - New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock, Birmingham, Jackson, Tallahassee, Macon, Shreveport, Springfield MO - The Deep South, Gulf Coast, Ozarks, Lower Mississippi, Florida Panhandle and East Texas. Largely rural and conservative Christian. High AA population share
8. Lincoln - Indianapolis - St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus OH, Dayton, Quad Cities, Fort Wayne, Peoria - The Ohio River Valley and agricultural band North of it. St. Louis and Mid-Mississippi and downstate Illinois
9. Great Lakes - Lansing -Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Madison, Duluth, Toledo - The areas border the Great Lakes excluding Western NY
10. Great Plains - Omaha - MSP, KC, Tulsa, OKC, Wichita, Des Moines - The name says it all
11. Texas - Austin - Houston, DFW, San Antonio, Amarillo - Today's Texas minus the more culturally Southern East Texas and the Western triangle
12. Montana - Salt Lake City - Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Tucson, Colorado Springs, Reno, Spokane, Boise, Billings, Cheyanne, Pasco WA - The Mountain West. Resource based, mostly economically liberal (classic sense) and culturally libertarian
13. Southern California - Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara - Southern California and Vegas
14. Cascadia and Northern California- Sacramento - San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Portland, Fresno, Yakima - The more liberal, technological West and the rich, irrigated valleys
Obviously no major political change will happen though
You definitely put a lot of work and thought into this - rep point for you!
It's very interesting, and I can appreciate your thought process for determining this.
I'm of the mind to leave things as they are, to be honest. I could get on board with the bigger states breaking smaller so the big cities don't monopolize over the rural areas. Both sides can get what they need type of thing.
Graft and corruption is easier to do when states are smaller and with fewer people to pay off.
Texas, by example, should be 4 states. But they're run by one state government that has legislatures than only meet every other year. And things seem to work out there with 4 major cities doing surprising well in the economy.
The US clearly needs a major political overhaul. The vast majority of the US population is consistently dissatisfied with the federal government regardless of who's in power. The federal government and the Supreme Court within the federal government were never intended to be so powerful. As part of overhaul a major reworking of the states would make a lot of sense. Changing state boundaries for the sake of doing so doesn't make much sense.
If state boundaries were to be changed I would use the following criteria:
- respect cultural geography
- respect physical borders
- no major metros would be split between states
- states should have a similar population so they can have similar scope in ambitions and services
These would be my states. Each would have between 14 and 28 million inhabitants
State (descriptive name) - Capital - Major cities and cities which give an indication of borders - description
1. New England - Albany - Boston, Providence, Hartford, Buffalo, Rochester - New England and Upstate Nork York including the Hudson Valley North of Bear Mountain
2. New York - New York City - Newark, Bridgeport, Yonkers - Metro New York is populous alone to be it's own state
3. Chesapeake and Delaware - Harrisburg - Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore - The mid-Atlantic states basically. Including the NE portion of WVa and the most Eastern Ohio region along that river
4. Carolina and Virginia - Raleigh - Charlotte, Hampton Roads, Richmond, Piedmont Triad, Greenville, Columbia, Charleston SC, Augusta, Savannah - The Colonial South East of the Blue Ridge including the Eastern third of Georgia. Mostly coastal and coastal plain
5. Florida - Orlando - Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville -The "culturally Northern", heavily populated portion of peninsular Florida
6. Upland South - Knoxville - Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Huntsville, Roanoke, Tri-Cities, Charleston WVa - The Appalachian South, little plantation agriculture historically
7. Louisiana - Baton Rouge - New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock, Birmingham, Jackson, Tallahassee, Macon, Shreveport, Springfield MO - The Deep South, Gulf Coast, Ozarks, Lower Mississippi, Florida Panhandle and East Texas. Largely rural and conservative Christian. High AA population share
8. Lincoln - Indianapolis - St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus OH, Dayton, Quad Cities, Fort Wayne, Peoria - The Ohio River Valley and agricultural band North of it. St. Louis and Mid-Mississippi and downstate Illinois
9. Great Lakes - Lansing -Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Madison, Duluth, Toledo - The areas border the Great Lakes excluding Western NY
10. Great Plains - Omaha - MSP, KC, Tulsa, OKC, Wichita, Des Moines - The name says it all
11. Texas - Austin - Houston, DFW, San Antonio, Amarillo - Today's Texas minus the more culturally Southern East Texas and the Western triangle
12. Montana - Salt Lake City - Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Tucson, Colorado Springs, Reno, Spokane, Boise, Billings, Cheyanne, Pasco WA - The Mountain West. Resource based, mostly economically liberal (classic sense) and culturally libertarian
13. Southern California - Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara - Southern California and Vegas
14. Cascadia and Northern California- Sacramento - San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Portland, Fresno, Yakima - The more liberal, technological West and the rich, irrigated valleys
Obviously no major political change will happen though
I could get behind this!
Yes, I know, this whole thing is an academic exercise. At least it is right now. In the future? Who knows? Even as little as 10 years ago, who would have predicted a mass wave of statues being toppled because they were deemed to be racist? Things change, and while I'm well aware of the sovereignty of each individual state, I'm also aware of an increasing popular mindset that says that states are nothing more than internal administrative units within a larger country. (See, for example, the bruhaha over the Electoral College because it slightly favors less-populous states.) So I don't see it at all far-fetched that popular sentiment might eventually translate into Constitutional changes and reworking of state boundaries. In fact, I would say that it's probably more likely than not.
What I've quoted here seems like a fairly workable plan. My own sense of states is that they ought to be similar in geographic size to each other. I've always thought that the Midwestern Plains states were sized about right. So if we take the completely arbitrary size of 80,000 square miles per state (a size that's in-between Kansas and Nebraska), this would give us 39 states of similar geographic size within the continental U.S. Divide Alaska into two parts (each of which would still be much larger than 80K sq. miles, but they're a special case), then add Hawaii, and we've got 42 states.
But really, the post I quoted above probably makes more sense than just making all the states be a similar geographic size.
Uniformity isn’t in our DNA.
If we want this to continue to be a place where immigrants from all over the world can come and stake their claim, make a go of it with the most possible freedom, I’d be careful going for too much consolidation.
The current system allows for far more diversity of thought. Each state has something different to offer.
It’s kind of brilliant.
Since it's all hypothetical, personally, I'd be against taking down the number of states because, even as a liberal, I'll admit that would likely completely suffocate the voices of people who live in rural areas. While I don't agree with a lot of their thought processes, I live in an area (Northeast Ohio) that is currently an area that I believe is kind of drowned out due to while it makes up about 40 percent of Ohio's population, there is Columbus and Cincinnati that are major metros to compete with (and both are different enough where they kind of work against the people of Northeast Ohio). Then there is the rest of the state that is ultra rural and very conservative that when the moderate conservatives near the big metros are aligned with the rural far right, they ultimately control the entire state.
So, I think adding more states by breaking it up based on cultural identities would be a positive. I think you could double and go to 100 and it would still give the rural areas a voice, it would give more voices to people in states that have enough population where they should have more of a say and at the same time, it doesn't really make the Senate just another form of the House (100 senators now vs. 435 House reps).
I'm sure if I really wanted to take the time, I could split up the entire country into 100 states that would be more beneficial to the entire US and bring bring more diverse and differing ideas to the plate.
Since it's the area I'm most familiar with, I think something like this for Ohio (and surrounding states).
1. Lake Erie East/Lake Ontario (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Erie, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Youngstown): Basically it would be western upstate NY, far Western Pa. and then Northeast Ohio. Population would be in the neighborhood of 10 million in kind of the transition region between Northeast and Midwest. If you look at the demographics, all are pretty similar and there isn't a dominant city in the group. Cleveland (if combined with the rest of Northeast Ohio would be the largest population area), but it's still a lot smaller than say New York City (that western NY has to compete with) and Philadelphia (that Pittsburgh and Erie compete with). Plus, Cleveland is more culturally aligned with say Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse or Pittsburgh/Erie than either NYC or Philly are so there would be more middle ground in working together to help revitalize an area that as recently as 1970 had a top 10 population city (Cleveland), two more in the top 30 (Pittsburgh and Buffalo) and two more around the top 50 (Rochester and Akron). Now, its largest is No. 54 (Cleveland).
2. Lake Erie West/Lake Michigan East (Toledo, Detroit, and the rest of southern Michigan): This is still pretty similar to the first group, though Toledo is where the demographics start to change a little ... IE, the dominant Hispanic group (which is one of the few that is pretty fast growing in all these areas aforementioned changes from Puerto Rican dominated to Mexican dominated). It's also where among whites it becomes a little less Italian and more swayed toward Eastern Europe (though Cleveland is the dividing line there ... but Cleveland is still quite a bit more Italian and is way more Puerto Rican influenced where it probably would be more suited where I have it ... Though if you are looking to go with a bigger land area for a new state, could pretty easily combine both 1 and 2 into one new state.
3. Eastern Midwest/far upland south (Columbus, Cincinnati, Lexington, Louisville, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne). This is where you get more German/"American" dominated and less eastern/southern European. While its again more of a transition zone between the eastern and southern Midwest and upland South, I think there are enough similiarities and enough growing urban areas where you can get an ideologic mesh. How far west/south does it go ... all the way to St. Louis (through southern Indiana and Illinois and western Kentucky? Does it go south into say central Tennessee (Nashville)?
4. Appalachia: (Southeast/south central Ohio, West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, western Virginia, far western Maryland, eastern Tennessee, and probably central Pennsylvania and far western North Carolina). In today's political climate, this is the epicenter for Trump country. If adding to it at the federal level means that at a new state level, it could mean getting more stuff done for urban areas, I'd be for it. For presidential electorial/house purposes, being lumped in with each other (more guaranteed house seats, two guaranteed far right Senate seats and probably 10-15 or so guaranteed electoral votes) should help them more accomplish whatever it is they are trying to achieve.
Last edited by ClevelandBrown; 07-07-2020 at 12:00 AM..
1. New England - Albany - Boston, Providence, Hartford, Buffalo, Rochester - New England and Upstate Nork York including the Hudson Valley North of Bear Mountain
2. New York - New York City - Newark, Bridgeport, Yonkers - Metro New York is populous alone to be it's own state
No. Upstate New York is not, and never will be New England.
I actually argue the NY and New England are, combined, a region itself (the greater Northeast), but dividing New York itself and putting part of New York in with New England? No.
If New York were to split up, Upstate would remain autonomous and not subsidiary to another state. The last thing they want is to be a hockey puck, battered around by NYC and Boston.
~~~
Also, I feel if NY were to split, it wouldn't be NYC <-> everything north of the Bear Mountain Bridge.
I think it would be more of an <Upstate-Downstate> divide rather than a <NYC-everything else> divide.
Downstate would comprise NYC, Long Island, The Hudson Valley and the Delaware Watershed.
Upstate would start somewhere roughly south of Albany, and incorporate the Ontario, Susquehanna, Allegheny, and Mohawk watersheds.
The US clearly needs a major political overhaul. The vast majority of the US population is consistently dissatisfied with the federal government regardless of who's in power. The federal government and the Supreme Court within the federal government were never intended to be so powerful. As part of overhaul a major reworking of the states would make a lot of sense. Changing state boundaries for the sake of doing so doesn't make much sense.
If state boundaries were to be changed I would use the following criteria:
- respect cultural geography
- respect physical borders
- no major metros would be split between states
- states should have a similar population so they can have similar scope in ambitions and services
These would be my states. Each would have between 14 and 28 million inhabitants
State (descriptive name) - Capital - Major cities and cities which give an indication of borders - description
1. New England - Albany - Boston, Providence, Hartford, Buffalo, Rochester - New England and Upstate Nork York including the Hudson Valley North of Bear Mountain
2. New York - New York City - Newark, Bridgeport, Yonkers - Metro New York is populous alone to be it's own state
3. Chesapeake and Delaware - Harrisburg - Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore - The mid-Atlantic states basically. Including the NE portion of WVa and the most Eastern Ohio region along that river
4. Carolina and Virginia - Raleigh - Charlotte, Hampton Roads, Richmond, Piedmont Triad, Greenville, Columbia, Charleston SC, Augusta, Savannah - The Colonial South East of the Blue Ridge including the Eastern third of Georgia. Mostly coastal and coastal plain
5. Florida - Orlando - Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville -The "culturally Northern", heavily populated portion of peninsular Florida
6. Upland South - Knoxville - Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Huntsville, Roanoke, Tri-Cities, Charleston WVa - The Appalachian South, little plantation agriculture historically
7. Louisiana - Baton Rouge - New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock, Birmingham, Jackson, Tallahassee, Macon, Shreveport, Springfield MO - The Deep South, Gulf Coast, Ozarks, Lower Mississippi, Florida Panhandle and East Texas. Largely rural and conservative Christian. High AA population share
8. Lincoln - Indianapolis - St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus OH, Dayton, Quad Cities, Fort Wayne, Peoria - The Ohio River Valley and agricultural band North of it. St. Louis and Mid-Mississippi and downstate Illinois
9. Great Lakes - Lansing -Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Madison, Duluth, Toledo - The areas border the Great Lakes excluding Western NY
10. Great Plains - Omaha - MSP, KC, Tulsa, OKC, Wichita, Des Moines - The name says it all
11. Texas - Austin - Houston, DFW, San Antonio, Amarillo - Today's Texas minus the more culturally Southern East Texas and the Western triangle
12. Montana - Salt Lake City - Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Tucson, Colorado Springs, Reno, Spokane, Boise, Billings, Cheyanne, Pasco WA - The Mountain West. Resource based, mostly economically liberal (classic sense) and culturally libertarian
13. Southern California - Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara - Southern California and Vegas
14. Cascadia and Northern California- Sacramento - San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Portland, Fresno, Yakima - The more liberal, technological West and the rich, irrigated valleys
Obviously no major political change will happen though
Awesome, well thought out list. Where do you see Hawaii and Alaska? Would you keep them as is.
I know there will be plenty who disagree with you but no one would have the same boundaries as another person. There's just so many ways you could split these things up.
Texas I would love to see chopped.
I think east of the Atchafala River to just past the Brazos river looks and feels the same and share similar culture. I would have one State stretch from Lafayette all the way to Texas highway 77.
It's kinda hard to separate east Texas from South East Texas. They look more lush than the rest of the state, they are more southern than the rest of the state.
Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the parts north and the areas east of the Atchafalaya I would combine with the rest of the gulf coast states as you did.
But like I said people have different feels for areas. Good job again.
The US clearly needs a major political overhaul. The vast majority of the US population is consistently dissatisfied with the federal government regardless of who's in power. The federal government and the Supreme Court within the federal government were never intended to be so powerful. As part of overhaul a major reworking of the states would make a lot of sense. Changing state boundaries for the sake of doing so doesn't make much sense.
If state boundaries were to be changed I would use the following criteria:
- respect cultural geography
- respect physical borders
- no major metros would be split between states
- states should have a similar population so they can have similar scope in ambitions and services
These would be my states. Each would have between 14 and 28 million inhabitants
State (descriptive name) - Capital - Major cities and cities which give an indication of borders - description
1. New England - Albany - Boston, Providence, Hartford, Buffalo, Rochester - New England and Upstate Nork York including the Hudson Valley North of Bear Mountain
2. New York - New York City - Newark, Bridgeport, Yonkers - Metro New York is populous alone to be it's own state
3. Chesapeake and Delaware - Harrisburg - Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore - The mid-Atlantic states basically. Including the NE portion of WVa and the most Eastern Ohio region along that river
4. Carolina and Virginia - Raleigh - Charlotte, Hampton Roads, Richmond, Piedmont Triad, Greenville, Columbia, Charleston SC, Augusta, Savannah - The Colonial South East of the Blue Ridge including the Eastern third of Georgia. Mostly coastal and coastal plain
5. Florida - Orlando - Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville -The "culturally Northern", heavily populated portion of peninsular Florida
6. Upland South - Knoxville - Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Huntsville, Roanoke, Tri-Cities, Charleston WVa - The Appalachian South, little plantation agriculture historically
7. Louisiana - Baton Rouge - New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock, Birmingham, Jackson, Tallahassee, Macon, Shreveport, Springfield MO - The Deep South, Gulf Coast, Ozarks, Lower Mississippi, Florida Panhandle and East Texas. Largely rural and conservative Christian. High AA population share
8. Lincoln - Indianapolis - St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus OH, Dayton, Quad Cities, Fort Wayne, Peoria - The Ohio River Valley and agricultural band North of it. St. Louis and Mid-Mississippi and downstate Illinois
9. Great Lakes - Lansing -Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Madison, Duluth, Toledo - The areas border the Great Lakes excluding Western NY
10. Great Plains - Omaha - MSP, KC, Tulsa, OKC, Wichita, Des Moines - The name says it all
11. Texas - Austin - Houston, DFW, San Antonio, Amarillo - Today's Texas minus the more culturally Southern East Texas and the Western triangle
12. Montana - Salt Lake City - Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Tucson, Colorado Springs, Reno, Spokane, Boise, Billings, Cheyanne, Pasco WA - The Mountain West. Resource based, mostly economically liberal (classic sense) and culturally libertarian
13. Southern California - Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara - Southern California and Vegas
14. Cascadia and Northern California- Sacramento - San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Portland, Fresno, Yakima - The more liberal, technological West and the rich, irrigated valleys
Obviously no major political change will happen though
Good effort on this, however in my opinion, RVA and Hampton Roads should be Chesapeake no doubt.
Atlanta sticks out like a sore thumb in the Upland South/Appalachian South bracket. As a Piedmont city, it fits in better with The Carolina/Colonial South part.
Awesome, well thought out list. Where do you see Hawaii and Alaska? Would you keep them as is.
I know there will be plenty who disagree with you but no one would have the same boundaries as another person. There's just so many ways you could split these things up.
Texas I would love to see chopped.
I think east of the Atchafala River to just past the Brazos river looks and feels the same and share similar culture. I would have one State stretch from Lafayette all the way to Texas highway 77.
It's kinda hard to separate east Texas from South East Texas. They look more lush than the rest of the state, they are more southern than the rest of the state.
Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the parts north and the areas east of the Atchafalaya I would combine with the rest of the gulf coast states as you did.
But like I said people have different feels for areas. Good job again.
Seems wierd to split Louisiana along a north/south line rather than east/west. Keeping the coast together makes more sense culturally and economically. I'd generally combine Houston and east Texas with what is Louisiana and also include south Mississippi.
I think I'd also give Memphis to Mississippi.
Seems wierd to split Louisiana along a north/south line rather than east/west. Keeping the coast together makes more sense culturally and economically. I'd generally combine Houston and east Texas with what is Louisiana and also include south Mississippi.
I think I'd also give Memphis to Mississippi.
That works too. Just an observation that outside of the South West portion of Houston the rest of the city to me seems more in line with Louisiana and East Texas than Parts of Texas further west (SA, Austin, etc).
Even East of the Atchafalaya feels more similar to Houston than West of the Brazos. You can tell it gets drier, you see less southern magnolias and live oaks. Even the soil types are different.
The soils on the Eastern half of the country are more acid and conducive to growing plants sucks as Magnolias, Azaleas, dogwoods etc. Heading west the soil is more alkaline and none of these plants do well in that tire off soil. Azaleas are legendary in Alabama as well as Houston and East Texas.
Music too. Surprised by how popular zydeco is in Houston.
But the strongest point to your position is the food. You are right, that gulf coast flavor should not be separated.
I haven't spent enough time in the less cookie cutter areas of north Texas to judge but I would imagine it shares a lot of similarities to Shreveport. But because the metro doesn't butt up to the coast like Houston it would not feel like it belongs to one vibe like the gulf coast vibe. Houston is clearly southern on culture, DFW to me feels like everywhere. I can see why it's a testing ground for new things. Very representative of the modern US overall
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