That’s true. And while the inland areas are growing in population, the divide isn’t much different than in many other states.
There’s a book about California splitting along north-south lines, but I can’t remember the name.
I think the Senate will never allow another state into the Union, precisely because it would ruin the nice even arrangement of 50 stars on the flag, and the even more even number of 100 senators. It makes it easy to calculate percentages of support for any given bill.
I much prefer the second one.
But the end did leave an opening for more … you didnt see him fry onscreen =)
I figured as much that that would probably happen. Someone would need to point out to all those moron extremists that one of the original US flags used the same motif.
Historically the demand for statehood only happens when the local populace demands become too hard to ignore. In the case of Alaska and Hawaii, WWII showed that they were loyal parts of the USA and either had to be states or risk an independence movement. Remember how strong de-colonization was in the late 50s up till the mid 70s.
I doubt you’ll ever see another state. It’s nearly impossible to get a new county in a state made. Or even a city breaking apart. Note how the Valley voted on whether or not to leave LA.
So any new state would be made of people wanting to break away to form a “better life” for their citizens. This means leaving the old part of the state worse off. This is very un-PC, like saying poor people don’t count.
DC wouldn’t require an amendment to the constitution necessarily, but that issue is dead in the water. DC peaked in populaton just over 800,000 and at the time was more populas than a lot of states. Now DC is only bigger than Wyoming, so it’s too small. Before you see DC as a state you’d see it retroceded to Maryland or an agreement worked out to allow Maryland to represent DC.
As for natural divisions there are only a few left. For instance the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Again the problem is population. Too few UP’ers it would be only a bit more than 308,000 people too few.
The other divisions of states really would involve more than one state. For instance, East Washington and West Idaho, or Northern California and Southern Oregon. Once you have more than one state involved it’s poltically impossible to get anything done.
So really no, the USA has stopped. There won’t be anymore states, anymore than you’ll see another state in Australia or another province in Canada, unless the territories in those countries gain population to put them on equal footing. (Yes I know the Northern Territory in Aussie was offered statehood, but the Australian feds wouldn’t give it an equal number of members in the Australian Senate thus verifying my theory on population)
That’s quite possible as once the Castro regime falls the island will drown in American investments and the powerful Cuban community in Florida.
Ain’t happening.
Nor this.
Actually all the counties surrounding LA is conservative or at least centrist: Ventura, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, and San Diego.
It won’t, for the same reason Puerto Rico will never become a state: It is not culturally or linguistically Anglo-American and it never will be.
Once Castro is gone the power of the Cuban community in Florida will also be gone. They’ll no longer be single-issue voters, and therefore no longer disproportionately influential.
So? That doesn’t contradict anything I said.
Eh, neither was Arizona, until shortly before becoming a state (and still isn’t, in a lot of ways.) I agree that they will almost surely never become states, but not for that reason. Wild, rapid demographic shifts can and do happen. I think AK and HI will remain unique as non-contiguous states, though.
Not if English is taught in Puerto Rico and Cuba followed by gradual cultural assimiliation after all Hawaii wasn’t particularly Anglo-American either originally.
They will be easily able to dominate the economy of Cuba and be responsible for much of the investment there.
You don’t get it. Most Puerto Ricans probably already know English, as a second language. But they speak Spanish at home, and in church, and in the marketplace; and they will be speaking Spanish at home, etc., a hundred years from now (unlike Latinos in most of the mainland U.S., who will eventually assimilate). Puerto Rico’s “hearth culture” is Spanish-Catholic. And so is Cuba’s (Communism notwithstanding). And neither will change in that regard, because they’re both too thickly populated for Anglo-American settlement/colonization to overwhelm the pre-existing culture the way it did everywhere else (even Alaska and Hawaii) in the historical expansion of the U.S.
The probability of the map changing in your lifetime is already 100%, bucko.
There are only a few hundred thousand people in all of Florida who self-identify as Cuban. There are 12 million people in Cuba.
American investment will surely predominate in Cuba one day, but Cuban-American investment will not.
Part of eastern Louisiana wasn’t part of the Louisiana purchase oddly enough. What are still known as the Florida Parishes once belonged to Florida in the early 19th century. They were under Spanish control and part of Florida until they merged with the existing state of Louisiana in 1810.
And there was a short-lived (for 90 days in 1810) independent republic of West Florida.
Puerto Rico just has to vote yes on a referendum and they become our 51st State.
Congress has to ratify its admission, too.
Umm, didn’t Canada just create a new territory? Yep, Nunavut. Created April 1, 1999.
And with about 10% of the population of Michigan’s UP.
But the three Canadian territories are extremely unlikely to become provinces in the foreseeable future. It’s quite unlikely that Canada will be adding a province.
