Fuck no, Navarre is already small enough! We’d just be getting more politicians! Who needs more politicians? Ugh!
Plus, how do you divide it? Along political lines, the half where the “two Navarres” are Basquist/Foralist and the one where they are Foralist/Socialist? Or along linguistic lines, by how much of the population speaks Basque? The hairpulling over who gets Pamplona would leave everybody with a centuries-long migraine. We’re still taking painkillers over territorial shuffles which took place in times of Mio Cid!
The current Spanish Constitution has several “temporary provisions”; the fourth one states that Navarre can become part of Euskadi if we want to. I’m a member and usually vote for the Foralist party, whose main target is the elimination of that provision; if it gets eliminated, the party is actually supposed to dissolve. So very much HELL NO. I don’t want to bore you with the reasons for it, but the tldr version is “for Navarre to become part of Euskadi would be akin to France becoming part of Monaco.”
[ol]
[li]Western Tennessee–large-scale agriculture. Heavily dominated by Memphis. Ultra-rural outside of that.[/li][li]Middle Tennessee–most heavily diversified part of the state. More urbanized.[/li][li]Eastern–a.k.a. The State Of Franklin: Mining, metals processing, tech & manufacturing, tourism. Run it from Chattanooga.[/li][/ol]
I think that you guys should stay united because New York State, including both NYC and upstate, shares a Dutch heritage which is very unique among U.S. States and may contribute to your success on the world stage.
Ah, the old distinctions-sans-difference. Now I’m convinced it’d be a FEROCIOUS intraprovincial argument, and Thunder Bay would be thoroughly despised.
You believe this constitutes evidence there wouldn’t be regional rivalries? Really? People in other places don’t move from town to town? Or don’t have interconnected economies?
I’m not a resident of Ontario, but I’ve spent a lot of time there. It seems to me that Port Huron-Detroit-Sarnia-Windsor-London-Toronto-Buffalo is part of a fairly cohesive socio-economic region. I think Sarnia-Windsor would want to be drawn into a new Southern Ontario province.
I’d say just get rid of states altogether. I can’t think of a thing states do that couldn’t better be handled either at a higher (Federal) or lower (city/county) level.
And states very often block localities from doing things that would benefit the localities: I grew up in northern Virginia, and every time a local city or county wanted to increase its sales tax by a penny to pay for better transit, Richmond would block it. Or more currently, a number of state governments have blocked a number of cities from setting up free or low-cost municipal wi-fi networks. (Pennsylvania and Philadelphia come to mind, IIRC.)
Obviously there’s exactly zero chance that we’ll abandon states as a unit of government, but IMHO we’d be much better off if we could.
Like the OP, I live in Missouri. From a cultural perspective I see some benefit to subdividing. But not much.
The real problem is not the too-large states out west but rather the too-small states back east. Combine ME, VT, RI, CT, & MA into a single state. Combine TN & KY. Likewise WV, VA, MD, & DE. We need one Carolina, not two. MS & AL are indistinguishable anyhow, why should they not be just one (benighted) state?
This is the sort of thing that worries me about trying to peel off certain cities. St. Louis seems to be the whipping boy of Missouri politics, but I don’t expect it’s rural Missouri that’s mostly likely to be out to get it. Rather, it’s the suburbs around it, and the influence of people who want to work in the city but not pay taxes there (see the use of a state referendum to get rid of the city’s earnings tax). Of course, if a State of St. Louis might be able to stand up to it better, that means the suburbs will block secession in the state legislature.
This kind of dynamic probably applies to a score of cases just at this time.
Wow, that thesis is a mess. Too much of a hard-borders assumption as opposed to gradient bleeds.
There’s never a good reason to draw a political border through a conurbation, especially if the political entities are sovereign. One of the worst aspects of current state borders is where they divide metro areas.
It is dated, but surprisingly little for being 30 years old and limiting itself to 9 nations. The only glaring errors I see (in Canada and the USA) as long as you limit it to 9 nations are that the I-4 corridor definitely isn’t in Dixie any more, the Foundry’s boundaries are pretty good but it needs a new name, and the increasing reliance on fossil fuels in the northern Empty Quarter are separating it further than it previously was from the tourism-reliant southern Empty Quarter.
I’d even defend to an extent the grouping of the Caribbean and Central America (I’d also add Columbia) despite their political separations. At least from my Central Floridian perspective, you see people with relatives from multiple countries throughout the region and restaurants that specialize in, say, both Columbian and Cuban food, to an extent that you don’t see between them and Mexico.
Colorado very neatly divides into three states: the Plains, the Front Range, and everything west of the Front Range. Problem is, only the middle one would have any population to speak of.
Of Colorardo’s ~5.1 million people, about 4.3 million of them live in the Front Range.
I suppose the Plains could merge with western Kansas and Nebraska, and eastern Wyoming.
Going back at the OP I’d ask: What problem(s) are we trying to solve? Or are we just polling for local grievances around the world?
e.g. are we trying to homogenize the per-capita representation in the US Senate? Create ethnically or culturally homogenous entities? Create ethnically and culturally **non-**homogenous entities? Settle old scores? Break existing political log jams with dynamite?
Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing southern Illinois allowed to flounder around on it’s own without Chicago just out of spite. But the Balkan state it would undoubtedly become would make getting to St. Louis somewhat difficult.
My solution to gerrymandering would be that no district would be allowed to have more than 4 right-angle corners.
Well, any or all of the above. Which would you want to do?
I hear people say the US states represent…something, but it’s not clear what. They’re not distinct cultures, they’re not districts of equal size, they’re not even metropolis-defined; they’re just kind of legacies. So what should they represent?
Here’s a concern you didn’t mention, LSLGuy:
Could you defend why splitting conurbations is bad?
Noooo!! Not a fourth Idaho! There are already 3 too many.
North Idaho (for some reason no one ever talks about ** northern** Idaho) - Capital: Spokane
Eastern Idaho - Capital: Salt Lake City
Southern Idaho - Capital: Boise
Actually, it would make more sense to combine the three northwest states into one (and call it Oregon, of course ) Then maybe we sensible folks from Oregon and Washington could drag those Idaho neanderthals kicking & screaming into the 21st century.
SS Raised in Idaho, domiciled in Oregon
) Then maybe we sensible folks from Oregon and Washington could drag those Idaho neanderthals kicking & screaming into the 21st century.