Is there any place that could become a state of the United States in the next 50 years? I don’t think so.
Puerto Rico brings problems. Puerto Rico would be the first Spanish majority state.
Washington, DC has tried for statehood and always failed. I can’t imagine a scenario, barring another attack, which would allow for a state of Columbia to enter the United States.
Alaska and Hawaii gained statehood based on World War II.
What possible scenarios could allow for a new state to be admitted to the United States?
If you’re really looking 50 years from now, this may not be the case. According to The California Latino Demographic Databook of UC Berkeley, “The 7.5 million Latinos counted in the 1990 census represented a quarter of California’s residents. By 2005, more than a third of all Californians are projected to be Latino.” An extrapolation suggests that by 2054 California could well be more than 50% Latino. They’ll also almost certainly reach plurality (i.e. more Latinos than any other ethnicity, but still under 50%) well before then. Whether that would affect Puerto Rico’s candidacy for statehood is another matter.
Attack? As in Sept. 11? I find it hard to see the connection. What’ll probably have to happen is a dramatic cut in violent crime in DC (stabilizing the area enough to encourage major capital investment) as well its shift away from a source of automatic Democratic electoral votes. If the citizens of DC manage to get some wealth and it becomes clear they’d consider voting Republican[sup]*[/sup], then demands for statehood will be taken more seriously.
And for God’s sake, stop electing Marion Barry.
[sup]*[/sup]Not that the Democrats have tried to keep the DC citizens down, but if DC ever starts looking like a swing “state”, the parties will be forced to acknowledge their problems and propose solutions, including (possibly) statehood.
Doubtful, barring a major liberalization of U.S. drug laws. B.C. is heading pell-mell toward effectively legalizing marijuana (the recent closing of a Vancouver pot bar notwithstanding), and when civilization fails to collapse, I predict a great many B.C. citizens will say “Huh. Why did we bother bannning this for so long?” They’ll be resistant to absorption into the U.S. unless they can keep those freedoms, and the U.S. will be hesitant to admit a state without the ability to impose federal drug laws on it.
I’m personally hoping B.C.'s example will lead to liberalization of drugs laws across Canada, and subsequently the U.S. I don’t use illegal drugs myself, but the amount of time and effort expended in trying to ban them is ludicrous.
And, of course, there’s something called “Canada” that might object.
I would hope that sometime in the next 50 years, the U.S. will realize what a truly idiotic waste of money, resources, and people the war on drugs is.
Canada entirely depends on your province. If the B.Q. (whatever they are these days) manages to ever win a referendum, I see Ontario remaining independent, with the Maritimes as a rump portion of Ontario, B.C. becoming a U.S. state, and the prairies going one way or the other.
If we decide to implement Sea Sorbust’s Plan for Asteroid Defense, it’s quite likely that Moonbase Alpha, or whatever they’ll call it, will have a population approaching the minimal requirement for statehood (60,000) by the year 2054.
Puerto Rico will probably never become a state-commonwealth status is such a good deal for the crooked politicians who run the island. think about it…they get HUGE Federal subsidies, and pay no income tax. plus, they get to export all of their poorpeople to the US.
Of course, all of this is at the expense of the working people of puerto Rico…they swiftly find out that their labor (due to high US wage rates) is uncompetitive…which is why the isalnd (which used to export food) now imports all of their food. The corrupt clique of crooks in San Juan gets all of the benefits, the poor (and the US taxpayers) get the shaft!
Never going to happen. The separatists lost their last best chance to split in the early 90s, and as the rural, french-speaking-only population shrinks (and their kids get better educations) the chance of an independent Quebec vanishes like dew in the dawn.
As for BC-- let’s just say that it’s a schizophrenic political culture.
I was wondering where the 50 years figure came from, so I looked it up and found that it was just under 47 years between the admission of Arizona (1912) and Alaska (1959). So two years from now, the USA will have gone the longest it’s ever gone without adding a state.
Perhaps we can get both Texas and California to divide into N states each, where N is 2, 3, or even 4. This would maintain the representational balance between the Democrats and Republicans, approximately anyway, and therefore would have a much better chance of passing. Not a great chance necessarily, but a better one.
I know this balancing act was a concern during the admission of Arizona and New Mexico (one pair), and Alaska and Hawaii (another). I don’t know if it was a concern with states admitted earlier.
If any Canadian province joined the U.S., it would most likely be Alberta. And if Alberta were really serious about going, B.C. and Saskatchewan might ultimately join in.
Um, thank you, no. We’ve already got a country. It might at some point end up a divided country, but it’s ours. You don’t want us anyway. We have forest fires all summer, everything but the coast is frozen all winter and we’re WAY overdue for the big earthquake. Plus, our politicians are a bunch of certifiable loons and we have to pay for a whack of repairs before the Olympics descend on us in 2010.
"Course, if you promise to get rid of Gordon Campbell, I might re-think it.
