Considering recent legal developments in Colorado, I would not object if their southern border was moved south about 140 miles and I suddenly became a Colorado resident.
Give the lower third of Minnesota to Iowa … and raise the average IQ of both states!
(We Minnesotans never tire of telling that joke …)
That’s what I was thinking. The Eastern Shore of Maryland has much more in common with Delaware than the rest of the state.
For that matter, clip off the two western-most counties (Garrett and Allegany) and give 'em to West Virginia.
I always thought Idaho was the most egregious of the arbitrarily-drawn western states. My proposal would be to give the panhandle to Washington (since it’s basically just a suburb of Spokane), the southeastern part to Utah (already full of Mormons) and the mountain-y bits in the middle where nobody lives to Montana. With the southwest part, either give it to Oregon and put the state out of its misery entirely, or give the wasteland-y parts of SE Oregon and NE Nevada for Boise to rule over as New Idaho.
A little thing, but it does make more sense ifFisher’s Island, NY, were part of Connecticut (even though I like the fact it’s in NY).
I’d fix the Granby Notch. It bugs me. I’d also probably turn the southwest peg of CT into a diagonal cut and let NY just have all the “I’m filthy rich but too too good to live in NY” towns.
There’s also a one-mile jog in one of the northern midwest states, a surveying error from the 1800s. Fix that, too.
And put the 4-corners monument on the right spot, but that’s an engineering feat not a cartographic one.
Oh, and I’d go with either the general plan to divide California by making the lower six counties their own gulag or Stan Delaplane’s idea to divide it into 50 states vertically.
My mom, who is Canadian, used to say it would have been better in the St Lawrence river was the border because the US would have built a big naval station there, so, New England states a liitle bit north.
Absolutely, at least northern New Jersey. It’s baffling the way New Yorkers mock people from Jersey because they are for all intents and purposes the same place.
The other great benefit of that union would be that the New York subway system would combine with the New Jersey commuter rails, which just makes sense. I never understood why my monthly pass would take me to the furthest reaches north, south, and east of Manhattan, but no further west than the Hudson.
Move the boundaries of Kansas and Missouri so that Kansas City is actually entirely in Kansas. Sheesh.
The State of Georgia is currently in a dispute with Tennessee over the current borders, with Georgia wanting them to move north so that GA can get at the Tennessee River.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/mar/25/georgia-senate-passes-resolution-move-state-line-c/
Working west to east:
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Divide California into North and South California. (I’ll let those more familiar with the state decide where to draw the line.)
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Take Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the eastern halves of Washington and Oregon, and turn it into one mammoth state. It will be called “Montana” because the Zappa song must continue to refer to an actual state.
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North and South Dakota get unified into “Dakota.”
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Alabama, Mississippi, and the portion of Florida panhandle due south of Alabama become one state. They can call it whatever they damn well please.
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Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and the Virginia panhandle in between upper east Tennessee and West Virginia get combined into a single state, “Appalachia.”
5a) Maryland’s two westernmost counties become part of Appalachia (see #5); the former West Virginia’s three northeastern-panhandle counties become part of Virginia.
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The portions of Virginia and Maryland on the Delmarva Peninsula get combined with Delaware to form the state of Delmarva.
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New York shall be divided as Little Nemo suggested in post #9 above.
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Portions of states on the ‘wrong’ side of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers from the rest of their state shall become part of the state they’re contiguous with. Ditto for any other state-level exclaves around the country.
- California. What a mess. OK, there are three states here.
A. Northern California
B. The Bay Area plus central valley
C. Greater LA. Except, the parts over the mountains, like Death Valley and so on? Yeah, that goes to Nevada and Arizona. - We need only one Dakota. North and South Dakotas are merged into Dakota.
- Cut Washington and Oregon in half along the mountains. The eastern halves of both states are combined into a new state called “West Idaho”.
- Oh, and we’re taking over Baja California while we’re at it. Sorry Mexico.
- Florida Panhandle gets hacked off just east of Tallahassee and glued on to Alabama.
- Texas gets haggled into two parts. Dallas and Houston and the Gulf Coast are East Texas, everything else is West Texas.
- Vermont and New Hampshire fuse into a square state of Vermontshire.
- New York City and suburbs in Jersey and exurbs up to White Plains and Lawn Guyland form a new state of New York, upstate New York is now Old York. The city and county state governments of metro New York merge into one so the Mayor is now the Governor.
- Michigan’s UP is added to Wisconsin, as God intended.
- Fuck it, we’re annexing Cuba while we’re at it.
- Forgot to add: The abomination formerly known as Delaware, along with the Virginia part of Delmarva, is now annexed by Maryland. And Maryland’s pathetic panhandle is added to West Virginia.
There are several places where rivers have meandered across the old borders. Back when gambling was illegal in Indiana, it was a big deal that the Ellis Park race track, in Kentucky, is on the Indiana side of the river.
As to getting towns where they ought to be, it would be impossible to get the Indiana towns of Mexico, Peru, Rome, Versailles, and Milan across some borders.
Let’s abolish Rhode Island and Delaware. They’re too small. We can merge them into Massachusetts and Maryland.
Here’s one that could actually happen. For some reason part of the boundary between NJ and DE is on the Jersey bank of the Delaware. The result of this is that a few acres of landfill on the Jersey side are legally part of DE. The state of DE has no interest in them. While no one lives there, it hardly matters, but if someone should and have kids, then DE would have to pay NJ to school them. Or provide a ferry for them. Usually a boundary like that would be the middle of the river and further up the Delaware it is.
I guess it happened when they were colonies, but Pennsylvania’s chimney in the NW corner of the state was bought from NY to give the state a port on Lake Erie.
Since there are 48 continental states, wouldn’t some sort of 86 or 124 grid work??
If we’re taking Cuba, we could combine it with Puerto Rico as a single state. Or not.
Landfill was what created the Ellis Island dispute. Ellis Island used to be a small uninhabited island that was mainly used for gathering oysters. There was a dispute between New Jersey and New York over which state owned the island but it was not a huge issue at the time. The issue was settled with a decision that New York owned the island and New Jersey owned the water around the island.
Move forward a few decades and the American government decided to locate a major immigration center on the island. So they started using landfill to expand the island to ten times its original size. While the immigration center is now closed for official business, it’s become a significant (and valuable) tourist destination.
So the dispute between new Jersey and New York was re-opened, with higher stakes this time. New Jersey’s argument was that New York only owned the original island - the expansion (which the immigration center is located on) was built in New Jersey waters and is therefore part of New Jersey. The court decision went in their favor and the majority of the island is now owned by New Jersey.
That’s the case in Nebraska. We have a minuscule pocket of Iowa sitting west of the Missouri, just south of Eppley Airfield in Omaha. While it’s kind of amusing to cross state lines every time I go to catch a plane (and it’s entertaining to see the surprise on visitors’ faces when they see the “Welcome to Iowa” sign as I drive them into downtown Omaha) that’s one state boundary I wouldn’t mins seeing adjusted.