The Proposed Thirty-Eight States of the United States of America
Some guy came up with this map back in the 70’s. Each of the new states is centered on a city. Supposedly this would be so much more efficient, it would save the US $100/citizen.
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We rly have a city called Cumberland?
i like the US map from that episode of futurama… oyu know where kentucky is called ‘ucky and pennsylvania is penn republic…
that’d be like convincing me how do do rocket science in order to save $00.50.
Awesome example of a pipe dream.
What a retard this guy is. Look at Alaska… Thats definately not centered around Kodiak… Try Anchorage. And Seward?! Seward’s in the south as well! So glad this didnt happen…
Alamo’s a fucking city? (well, I’m sure it is somewhere in Texas). It sure as hell isn’t big enough to have a whole state centered around it.
Alamo, exas
For the record, the names don’t correspond to the cities — Kodiak is Anchorage, Seward is Fairbanks, Cumberland is Nashville, etc.
But thanks for proving that MCS commenters think Chicago is called Dearborn.
Is everyone who thinks the names are supposed to be the cities, really that stupid?
The map makes sense. Most of our state borders are drawn along rivers and such, but most of our major cities are also along those same geographical features. So there are a lot of administrative inefficiency because the population center in on an administrative boundary.
Eg, Portland is right on the border between between Washington and Oregon with major suburbs on the other side of the border. Washington has no income tax and Oregon has no sales tax. So people can work where there is no income tax and shop where there is no sales tax and BOTH communities has less money to do things like maintain the bridges that make this arrangement possible.
Taxes are just one issue. Schools, law enforcement, emergency services would all be more uniform and efficient if the state borders were center around actual peak of population density. The big problem is that you have to redraw the map every couple of decades, but that’s something that could easily be programmed into a computer.
But like Error401 said, its a pipe dream. We can’t even get non-corrupt congressional district defined.
Hear that? It’s the world laughing at the USA. You guys can’t even get along with each other.
@The Matrix: Rebooted. Check out ‘El Dorado’. It seems to be centred around what? Reno? Tahoe? Desert in any case. The agriculture for that proposed state is all up in Napa, and the obvious population centre is the Bay Area? It just seems random and arbitrary to me. And there don’t seem to be any large cities in Highhorn or Littleroot, compared to El Dorado
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This sees more like the Oblast system to me, except without the larger, overarching administrative districts. I can think of a few geographically small countries where this has worked in lieu of, say, strong municipal governments, but I don’t really see how there would be that much of a difference in a large country in the States.
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Then on the other hand, as Reboot pointed out, it would disrupt the economy a lot. Combining North Cali and Nevada would mean one would have to start gambling or one would have to stop. There’s no other way for Nevada to make money (save whores), and it would turn the quite-strong economy of the Bay Area on its feet, and probably add a lot of crime and public disorder to an area where that is a problem.
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All in all, pretty shitty idea.
I guess Cochise would be centered right around Gallup, NM. I don’t understand why anyone would want to center a state around that town, but it makes me glad that this map didn’t go through.
Oh, and most of Georgia would be tacked onto Florida, with Florida’s big city’s being significantly farther south? Northern Florida is already worlds away, in every respect, from the big cities. What is the point of this?
@AlecDalek: name me one country that gets on perfectly with itself. I’ll assume from your name that you’re British, probably English. Your imperial ventures in the neighboring isle of Ireland resulted in a vicious terrorist campaign (that ended only because of the good offices of the US!) — on your own island, Wales and Scotland are currently escaping the clutches of Queen and country.
The US isn’t perfect — not by a long shot — but at least we don’t have active and popular secessionist movements.
Erm, there is still a small amount of terrorism in Ireland. While the US did negotiate a lot during the Clinton years and helped things quite a bit, Bush didn’t give a shit. Most of the progress has been made via Blaire (the only good thing he’s done), Paisley and Gery Adams, as well as the Republic of Ireland Government, which has petitioned for disarmament, promised a limited extradition treaty and so on.
Wales and Scotland aren’t breaking away from the crown. They both now have more direct control of legislation relating to civil law. The Parliament of Scotland has only formalized the micromanagement of a separate civil law system that has existed since time immemorial. And most Welsh didn’t bother to in the referendum.
Also, Scotland was never taken in colonial ventures. The Scottish Monarch, James VI, relocated to London out of preference after he achieved personal union. The personal union went on so long with only the War of Three Kingdoms/Civil Wars to offer resistance (for the record, the King tended to side with Scotland over the Parliamentary rebels for those: There was nothing of a republican movement in Scotland, for the most part), it was formalized into the first Act of Union.
But Alec isn’t British, he’s Canadian. And before you say ‘Quebec’, that’s been a marginal issue since the 90s, and never had popular support amongst the Francophones, who want autonomy but not independence.
But I think what Alec was referring to was the US ‘Culture Wars’ which has been a media buzzword since the invasion of Iraq.
@Caio
Northern florida has Tallahassee, which happens to have Tiki
@Caio: The “Culture Wars” are largely chimerical and have actually been a media buzzword since at least 1992, with Buchanan’s speech at the Republican Convention, although it can be traced back to Schlafly’s Eagle Forum in America, and Bismarck’s Kulturkampf in Germany.
It is a mistake — a common mistake, perhaps — to assume that vocal disagreements about political issues means that the US is coming apart at the seams. Those sorts of disagreements are endemic to all democracy.
Canadian unity is a joke, at any rate. Besides Quebec, there’s western alienation, the First Nations, and the Newfies. Do the Canucks want to have a civil discussion about multiculturalism? I didn’t think so.
Well, I lived seven years in the Calgary, the Capitol of WESTERN ALIENATION, and I have to say, I never met one non-politician who actually felt alienated. It was just a phony bit of hype by the Reform Party, which no longer exists. Our current PM was a Reformer from the very riding I once lived in, and now that he actually has formed a government, he seems to have forgotten about the whole thing.
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The First Nations do feel quiet alienated, but I’ve never heard them petition for Independence, and a constant theme in First Nations rhetoric is that the Numbered Treaties (and many others), were signed directly with Queen Victoria (for the most part), which has all kinds of implications I wont get into. Point being, most Band Council would prefer to deal directly with the Federal Government and pride their increasing autonomy. Oh, yes, NWT has official native languages for government, and we underwent a significant constitutional change to establish Nunavut, another point of pride for the first nations. Ever been down to Indian Territory in Oklahoma?
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There are a few Newfies that want independence, but they voluntarily gave up their Independent status after only two years. We never asked for Newfoundland. Oh, and, of course, the vast majority of Newfies left to work, and the dudes up in Fort McMurray seem pretty content with Canada.
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A civil discussion about multiculturalism? Every party has run on a platform of multiculturalism for decades. In Calgary, capitol of Canadian conservatism, most politicians rarely bother to give speeches outside of Chinatown or the Punjabi district. Canada has the highest per-capita immigration rate in the world, and virtually any suggestion of limiting immigration from politicians raises a flurry of Godwin’s Law. We also have the Multicultural Act, meant to promote the development of foreign culture, passes by our most conservative PM in a hundred years.
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Canada = Highest immigration in the world. Legislated funding for promotion of cultural diversity. Virtually no limits on immigration. Virtually no desire to place further limits on immigration. Provincial Autonomy greater than anything you’d find in the states. Specific ministries which divide federal administration of the country based on cultural lines.
USA = Wall of shame. De facto monolingualism. Openly campaigning for restriction of immigration. Neighbourhoods which are predominantly black. “Melting pot” assimilation policies. Oh, also, “White Trees”
Yeah real multicultural there.
Yeah, USA world
Wewh, that post tired me out. I’m going down to Montana to see if there’s an ‘equal but different’ White Tree I can take a rest under.
“Specific ministries which divide federal administration of the country based on cultural lines.”
There’s your problem. The US may be contentious, but we’re committed to democracy. Each region is governed by its people, and that’s that. We don’t need federal organizations for hispanics or japanese or indians or what have you because when people choose to immigrate they choose to immerse themselves in the American experiment of a democracy of many races, many nations, and many regions.
Canada is just a grab-bag of leftover English colonies and conquests.
Wow, Alec. I used to respect your opinion, but give up on the American bashing. You’re like Diabeetus picking on Obama. It’s kind of funny at first, but eventually it just looks like you have an unnatural obsession.
@douche: You are a retard.
By separate ministries, that means the federal civil service is divided along the lines of Atlantic/Quebec/West/North. That is to say, the Regions on a federal level are managed by PMs from those areas in ways which do not cause band-aid solutions. Plus our Provinces have more power than your States.
I think that it’s very interesting how you changed your entire position as soon as you thought you had some rhetorical strongpoint. Do you even know what multiculturalism means, or do you simply not have convictions beyond blind nationalism?
Oh, and not to put to fine a point on it, but HAVE you been to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Because I didn’t see too many voluntary flag-waving patriots down there, singing that Billy Joel song.
“Check out ‘El Dorado’. It seems to be centred around what?”
SF Bay, obviously. There just no point to extending borders out over the ocean.
Nevada is an interesting example since the entire existence of its economy is based on exploiting the flaws that this type of redrawing of borders would eliminate. So if all of that money that is put into the casinos and hotels and it was instead spent in the local economy, would that be better? Honestly, I don’t know, its too complicated to determine from a back of the envelope estimate. But it is an interesting thing to consider.
BTW, I was born and raised in rural NV, so I’m not bashing the place in particular. All of that casino money indirectly paid for my college.
You don’t have to be perfect yourself to laugh at others. Especially if those others are doomed.
>>24
So I last heard, Canada was going to split up into two parts. One Quebec and the other Canadia.
Hear that? It’s the world laughing at Canada. You guys can’t even get along with each other.
I think it’s centered on Counties not cities. Either way though Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw dunno why ask the Native Americans that one if you can find any) is the northern most city/county on the lower peninsula.
Cochise is a county in Arizona as well.
I like boobs.
@... dekay46: touche
@AlecDalek: The US is doomed? I’ll keep that in mind the next time I hear about dropping birth rates up north. Good luck being replaced with Chinese.
@Caio: unless Manitoba has its own military, I doubt the provinces have more powers than the States. The States are fully sovereign, the provinces are administrative details.
@Douchelandia:
1) What are you talking about?
2) I’ve already wrote several tl;dr posts. If you really want to justify your metanarrative, Virgil, the burden of proof is on you.
3) Because this entire time you’ve been constructing this lovely mythos for your Country, involving people of all nations coming together to share a common dream and goal of democracy, I have dug up my ‘Best of Neil Diamond’ CD and played the track ‘America’ at least a couple dozen times, trying to find the answer to the question I’ve posed to you already: If you pride yourself on Canadian Meltingpot Multiculturalism as a type of shared and voluntary world-dream and a foundation for democracy, AND you condemn Canada for its treatment of the First Nations, then how do your own Natives fit into you little metanarrative, Virgil?
Er, sorry, “American Meltingpot multiculturalism. I’ll try to be more concise: If you criticize Canada for the treatment of the First Nations, why do you so strongly imply that the Natives of the US (or white Americans for that matter) share the same Democratic dreams and goals that you do?
All you’ve given me is a storybook tale, and I’m throwing information at you. Break the chains of your idealism and give me some research and ideological consistency please.