It’s a lot easier to find states I’d like to delete than states I’d want to add. Puerto Rico is the favorite, but the statehood sentiment really isn’t overwhelming yet. You might see parts of states secede from the rest of the state. Every once in a while, the hotheads in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula make noise about forming the state of Superior. Sometimes they even have bake sales to raise money for it. Or you could see NYC secede from the rest of NY. Forget DC- just give the residential areas back to Maryland and limit the actual DC to the Mall and other non-residential areas.
After Yellowstone blows, I can see the US being divided between Canada and Mexico. 
You know, back in the old AOL SD days, there was a widely believed theory going around that North Dakota was a hoax. Mostly because 1) none of the Dopers then had ever lived there, B) knew someone who had lived there, or III) ever been there. Once someone posted a photo of a sign saying “Welcome to North Dakota” as proof there was such a place, but that was correctly judged to be only proof of a photograph of a sign and no as proof of the location of a sign. Hell, anyone can have a sign made and take a photo of it.
I hope you don’t think there’s any chance of Congress agreeing to lose one Republican Senator and simultaneously gain one Democratic one, because it isn’t going to happen. We won’t see a new state added unless we add two, one blue, one red.
This is my main reason for being against any more states. Hey, it took a while to get this this nice round number here. I say don’t mess it up for anything smaller than South Carolina.
I didn’t know we were shopping for one. Guess it doesn’t hurt to browse.
Canada weathered the last recession far better than the US. Chances are we’ll have a balanced budget this year and then we’ll be very slowly paying off our debt. I can’t imagine any upside to any province wanting to join the US.
This is pretty much how I feel. I don’t see it happening in the forseeable future.
DC will likely get Representatives according to its population (which at its current population would be 1) but it won’t get senators or be a state, because it’s just too damn small. A state that would be dwarfed by Rhode Island will never be taken seriously.
As for Puerto Rico, the current governor is trying his hardest to engineer a pro-statehood vote, but as others have said, Congress won’t approve (and shouldn’t approve) unless support in Puerto Rico rises far above 50%. To do otherwise would be to set ourselves up for a long-running violent seperatist movement, AKA the Basque Seperatists or the IRA. And as others have mentioned, the situation regarding statehood in Puerto Rico has been pretty stable for a long time now, so I don’t see what would happen to upset the apple cart.
All the other territories are way too small to even consider. American Samoa is probably more likely to separate from the US and join the nation of Samoa than they would be to apply for statehood. The Northern Mariana Islands are probably also more likely to seek independance than assimilation. Guam is little more than a US military base with its associated support community. The US Virgin Islands are the most reasonable option, but they’re still way too small to seriously consider.
That leaves the various uninhabited flyspeck islands. Midway should probably be made part of Hawaii, and you could ceede Palmyra to them as well if you wanted to. Navassa should be given to Haiti; I can’t imagine why we haven’t done so already, except due to pure apathy. The various other places should just stay as unorganized territories.
Some have suggested Canada breaking up. Perhaps this seemed likely in the past, but these days I can’t help feeling that the US breaking up is a more likely scenario, altho still not terribly likely. Still, if it did happen, Quebec would sure as as shit go independant. Ontario would do it’s best to hold Canada together. There’s an outside chance that one or more of the Maritime provinces would join the US, but Prince Edward Island is too small population-wise (c. 140,000 people) to be accepted as a state. The most likely to join the US would be the western provinces (Manitoba, Alberta, and Sasket… Sakatoo… er, that other one 
). British Colombia, I don’t see happening. I’m not sure what would happen to the Canadian Territories. Nunavut might try to be independent, but I don’t think they have either the population or the resources to make it on their own. Well, perhaps they have the resources, but since 99% of their land has roughly the same population as the Moon, it’s inevitable that they would end up as a territory of either Canada or the US.
The reason I posted this is just that there seems to have been a radical shift in American attitudes on this.
From Delaware (1787) to Arizona (1912), the longest gap with no new states was just shy of 15 years (between Missouri, 1821, and Arkansas, 1836). That means that for the first 150 years of the country’s history, everybody could remember a new state added in their lifetime, usually several.
Then, for almost 50 years, no new states. Blip, Alaska and Hawai’i came in in 1959.
Then, it seems, the rules changed to “no new states ever.” We still have territories, and I forgot to add “big state divides into two smaller states,” but even that seems very unlikely to me.
It wasn’t in the choices, but maybe more we’ll see a large state split in two or the merger of smaller states. The next new state may not be all that new, just changes in where lines are drawn.
ETA: well, Dr. Drake just through in the divided state thing before me.
The US more likely to break up than Canada?? No offense, but that’s crazy - Canada very nearly DID break up less than 20 years ago, and there’s still a very active and sizable Quebec separatist movement. Heck, as recently as 2012 the Parti Quebecois was elected to a minority government in the province!
I know there are groups here and there in the US that want an independent Alaska or Hawaii or whatever, but I’m not aware of any that have been anything like as popular or influential as the Quebec separatist movement is in Canada.
Somewhat sideways to the OP, but since we’re talking about Canada, there’s the interesting movement out there to make Turks and Caicos the next province.
Parti Quebecois was just soundly trounced in the Quebec elections last week. I think the breakup of Canada is an order of magnitude less likely now than it was a couple of decades ago.
Sure, but that’s still several orders of magnitude more likely to split up than the US is. There’s just no comparable separatist movement in the US.
England.
I could see a current state strongly divided along politically blue urbanites and red rural types splitting in two eventually. Not sure where though. California comes to mind, but I’ve always thought it should be along west/east lines, not north/south. I don’t see that happening, but it’s probably less unlikely than the US gaining entirely new territory.
What, like Cork?
I recall such speculation as well. I recall one Canadian politician from I think one of the Maritime Provinces being quoted as saying that if Quebec seceded their best option would be to try to join the US.
I don’t think this was a serious possibility, but if Quebec did secede it would be difficult to predict exactly how the aftermath would play out for the rest of Canada.
I don’t think attitudes have changed. It’s just that we’ve run out of new territories that could plausibly be given statehood. Puerto Rico and DC have unique political problems not seen in previous admissions, and as has been said the other territories are too small.
But by adding a state we can become the “Fifty-one-derful” states of America
I can see the ad slogan now:
Want to be the Fifty-one-derful States of America? Put a Cork in it!
I think half the people reading this thread just barfed.