Hypothesis about New Mexico

[james_davis_nicoll]

It is not just that there's a 'mexico' in the name, it's that there are too many states to keep track of the names. How many nations have the equivalent of fifty plus provinces and territories?

Accordingly, how would you lump the states together to get a dozen or so states of roughly equal population?

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Obviously California must go hang with Hawaii.

Alaska can come too.

(I lie. California's twelve percent of the country's population, it has to be broken into pieces. Texas is probably fine as is. I'm not sure about the rest, though.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Which political party do you want to make win?

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Why would you do that? It would annoy people and not solve anything.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Because it's easier to remember twelve names than fifty?

Rather than keep some names and offend the states whose names are lost, they could be named after famous Americans: the New England states could be named after Stephen King, say, and the South after Sherman.

[timill]

It would divert attention from the impending annexation of Canuckistan?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

"Dear Mr. President, there are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am not a crackpot!"

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

That was just what I was thinking of.

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Russia has 83, Japan has 47, Nigeria has 37, India has 35, China has 33, as does Indonesia, and Mexico has 32. Iran has 30, France has 27, Brazil has 26, and Peru has 25, but I'm not sure that those count as "the equivalent of fifty". The EU has at least 27, but the gradations past that make my head hurt.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

OTOH, Oz has 6 states and ~9 territories. And there's a perennial push to get rid of the states...

[matgb]

England has 82. Given that Greater London is given equal weighting to all the others, that means the United Kingdom has 85 (and you could add the microstates if you really want to be silly).

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

France has more than 90 departments. How many counties does England have?

[montrealais.livejournal.com]

Spain has 50 provinces, but they're divided up into 17 autonomous communities (plus 2 autonomous cities).

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think Ontario and Quebec should be combined.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

What, and reverse the Constitutional Act of 1791?

[anzhalyumitethe.livejournal.com]

No, they ought to be kept. Just modified. Into states instead of provinces.

HTH.

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

It was tried in the 1840s. It lasted for about 25 years. During that period, the legislature was burned down in riots.

[mastadge.livejournal.com]

Starting in the top right, we can lump New England into one state. Let's call it New England. New York can remain unconsolidated. Then we have Delmarva. Merge New Jersey and Pennsylvania. That's four chunks of 15-20 million people or so each.

Let's see. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama. Georgia and the Carolinas. Texas remains Texas. Now I'm getting bored. But there's a start.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

California would actually have to be subdivided.

[(Anonymous)]

There are too many Californians: let's split them in two while we're lumping together the other states. (You would have to lump together an unreasonable number of NotTexas NotCaliforia western states to get 37 million plus people).

Bruce

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Won't work. If you split the Californians in two, you'll have twice as many Californians.

Or maybe you'll have zero. I'm not sure which.

[avram]

I fiddled around with this for a bit, before I decided it was too hard to (1) avoid splitting up current states, and (2) keep each new state an intact region, while also (3) gerrymandering the Confederacy the fuck out of existence.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

A dozen is excessive.

Leftcoast, Rightcoast, Snowy Theocratia and Muddy Theocratia.

[(Anonymous)]

As a New Mexican, I resent our lumping with Muddy Theocratia, although I realize for some we may be hard to sort out from Arizona.

Bruce

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The People's Almanac back in the 70s put forth two proposals for reducing the number of states, one down to 36 (I believe) and another down to 12. Even identified potential new capital cities. While fun I'm not sure what problem it was supposed to solve other than that, apparently, the prominently non-contiguous nature of Michigan would be cured. (Along with the non-prominent non-contiguous natures of Virginia and Delaware, I suppose.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Ah, there's the 38-state proposal, complete with the original map.

I don't see a link to the 16-state nation, but do find references that it was proposed by one Dr Stanley G Brunn, then associate professor of geography at Michigan State, and as of 2010 awaiting emeritus status at the University of Kentucky. This might help someone sharper than I am in finding it.

[kjn]

You realise that lowering the number of states would implicitly also reinforce the notion of states' rights?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Thus hastening the inevitable march towards state referenda on sovereignty?

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

These have come into existence during the prolonged conflict of state representation -- i.e. power balances -- in the federal government. Disturb them and you certainly get secession. Again.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Too tired to sit here and make LJ open each and every comment.

If nobody else mentioned Garreau's The Nine Nations of North America, though, I'm doing it now. The Empty Quarter rules!

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

You beat me to it. And it even includes Canada.

Ecotopia forever!