Can we do something about all those useless tiny empty counties in Texas?

[Panda Express]

I get extremely livid whenever I look at a map of Texas and see 300 small midget counties with only 50 people in them. Why do we need so many small empty counties? Why not combine them?

[Indy Texas]

A lot of them have shared services agreements with one another so that they're not paying obscene amounts of money for "fixed cost" government infrastructure.

Look at it this way, if you want to get into politics on the ground floor, move to some tiny West Texas burg and run for county judge. Convince the 114 eligible voters there to vote for you - this could be accomplished by having them all out to a shindig in your backyard or the conference room at the local Best Western.

[smoltchanov]

A lot of them have shared services agreements with one another so that they're not paying obscene amounts of money for "fixed cost" government infrastructure.

Look at it this way, if you want to get into politics on the ground floor, move to some tiny West Texas burg and run for county judge. Convince the 114 eligible voters there to vote for you - this could be accomplished by having them all out to a shindig in your backyard or the conference room at the local Best Western.

You need to be a very conservative Republican in most cases too.....

[The Free North]

I get extremely livid whenever I look at a map of Texas and see 300 small midget counties with only 50 people in them. Why do we need so many small empty counties? Why not combine them?

But by combining them you risk running into geographic problems and strained local government networks as they try to coordinate with citizens living hours away from a central town/city.

[ElectionsGuy]

The counties aren't that tiny actually, they just look tiny compared to the scale of Texas. But anyways, this runs all across the great plains.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Transform them into some new Great Lakes. Doubles as a tourism bonus, as well as solving Vox's problem with the aesthetics of the county mal..

[publicunofficial]

Counties are designed so that citizens don't have to drive for hours to the nearest courthouse whenever they get a citation. Texas is big, so it needs a lot of counties.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Counties are designed so that citizens don't have to drive for hours to the nearest courthouse whenever they get a citation. Texas is big, so it needs a lot of counties.

Not really.  Driving to the courthouse is not something that will be done every day, or even every month. I don't think any of the midget sub-1000 counties adjoin each other, and even if joined to a larger neighbor, the courthouse would still be at most an hour away at highway speeds.  Somehow the big border counties do all right.  Do anglo kids need to be coddled because they couldn't possibly survive the trauma of being a hour away from their parents when they get a traffic ticket?

[Adam Griffin]

A potential consolidation of sorts. Mainly worked on the NW and far eastern counties. TX would lose 77 counties but would still have the most counties of any state (177).

[jimrtex]

I get extremely livid whenever I look at a map of Texas and see 300 small midget counties with only 50 people in them. Why do we need so many small empty counties? Why not combine them?

I think we should bring back Buchel, Dawson I, Encinal, Foley, and Greer counties.

[muon2]

A potential consolidation of sorts. Mainly worked on the NW and far eastern counties. TX would lose 77 counties but would still have the most counties of any state (177).

If you were completely rational about it, you would make all those north and west consolidations the same and not try to isolate the populations in Amarillo or Lubbock.

[Flake]

A potential consolidation of sorts. Mainly worked on the NW and far eastern counties. TX would lose 77 counties but would still have the most counties of any state (177).

If you were completely rational about it, you would make all those north and west consolidations the same and not try to isolate the populations in Amarillo or Lubbock.

What's irrational about having them in different counties than the huge rural swaths?

[Adam Griffin]

If you were completely rational about it, you would make all those north and west consolidations the same and not try to isolate the populations in Amarillo or Lubbock.

I generally shied away from expanding county boundaries that already have relatively significant populations to the same extent as those that had relatively few people (unless they were incredibly tiny in size; see Rockwall County), since presumably, one of the main goals of consolidation would be to eliminate the prevalence of very sparse rural counties. I didn't think it would make much sense to force Lubbock, for instance, to be responsible in effect for managing an area four times its current geography. It's not too much, in my opinion, to ask the same - in a shared arrangement, of course - of multiple, smaller counties that are more equal in terms of population.

[muon2]

If you were completely rational about it, you would make all those north and west consolidations the same and not try to isolate the populations in Amarillo or Lubbock.

I generally shied away from expanding county boundaries that already have relatively significant populations to the same extent as those that had relatively few people (unless they were incredibly tiny in size; see Rockwall County), since presumably, one of the main goals of consolidation would be to eliminate the prevalence of very sparse rural counties. I didn't think it would make much sense to force Lubbock, for instance, to be responsible in effect for managing an area four times its current geography. It's not too much, in my opinion, to ask the same - in a shared arrangement, of course - of multiple, smaller counties that are more equal in terms of population.

I understood why you did it. It's just that if people were complaining about a map with so many small underpopulated counties, and that area of the state is dominated by square or mostly square rectangles, then the logical step is to combine them in such a way as to preserve their largely square shape. As the urbanized area of the large cities grows, it is going to spill outside of the existing counties anyway.

[Panda Express]

Plenty of Western states like Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico have large counties and they are fine.  

[jimrtex]

Plenty of Western states like Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico has large counties and they are fine. 

New Mexico and Arizona have some of the youngest counties.  The portion of Coconino County north of the Grand Canyon is ridiculous.  Mohave County could easily be split, as well as Maricopa.  The reservations could also be placed in separate counties.  An area more than 25 miles from a county seat should be split off unless it has less than 5,000 persons.  If it is more than 50 miles there would be no threshold.

[muon2]

Plenty of Western states like Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico has large counties and they are fine. 

New Mexico and Arizona have some of the youngest counties.  The portion of Coconino County north of the Grand Canyon is ridiculous.  Mohave County could easily be split, as well as Maricopa.  The reservations could also be placed in separate counties.  An area more than 25 miles from a county seat should be split off unless it has less than 5,000 persons.  If it is more than 50 miles there would be no threshold.

At least Coconino north of the Colorado river is connected to the rest of the county by Alt 89. Mohave north of the Colorado has no connections to the south. It would be easy to imagine a county that included all of AZ north of the Colorado. Colorado City would be the natural county seat.

[jimrtex]

Plenty of Western states like Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico has large counties and they are fine. 

New Mexico and Arizona have some of the youngest counties.  The portion of Coconino County north of the Grand Canyon is ridiculous.  Mohave County could easily be split, as well as Maricopa.  The reservations could also be placed in separate counties.  An area more than 25 miles from a county seat should be split off unless it has less than 5,000 persons.  If it is more than 50 miles there would be no threshold.

At least Coconino north of the Colorado river is connected to the rest of the county by Alt 89. Mohave north of the Colorado has no connections to the south. It would be easy to imagine a county that included all of AZ north of the Colorado. Colorado City would be the natural county seat.

Cochise:
     Douglas
     Bisbee
     Sierra Vista
     Benson-Willcox (I-10)
Santa Cruz: no change:
Pima:
      Tucson
      Tohono O'odham
      Green Valley
      Oro Valley
Graham:
Pinal:
      Casa Grande
      Florence
      Apache Junction
      Gila River Reservation
Maricopa:
      Larger cities become city and county.
      Salt River Reservation
Gila
      Globe
      Payson
San Carlos Reservation
White Mountain Reservation
Navajo Nation
Hopi Reservation
Apache:
     St.John's
Navajo:
     Holbrook
     Snowflake
     Winslow
Yavapai
     Prescott
     Sedona
Coconino:
     Flagstaff
     Colorado City
Mohave
     Colorado City
     Bullhead City
     Kingman City
     Lake Havasu City
La Paz: No Change (unless they absorb part of western Maricopa)
Yuma: No Change (unless they absorb part of western Maricopa)

That's 40 or so, which is at least respectable.

[traininthedistance]

Plenty of Western states like Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico has large counties and they are fine. 

New Mexico and Arizona have some of the youngest counties.  The portion of Coconino County north of the Grand Canyon is ridiculous.  Mohave County could easily be split, as well as Maricopa.  The reservations could also be placed in separate counties.  An area more than 25 miles from a county seat should be split off unless it has less than 5,000 persons.  If it is more than 50 miles there would be no threshold.

Well, Wiki says (though I unfortunately can't find any citation of it elsewhere):

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which seems to illustrate some of the difficulties involved in splitting these large counties.  In an age where you don't have to take the horse and buggy to the courthouse anymore, it doesn't seem to be so necessary to split them, so inertia plus economies of scale means they stay as is.

I might lop off the top of Mohave since it is completely disconnected– but having Colorado City be its own county might come with its own set of issues.

[RI]

At least Coconino north of the Colorado river is connected to the rest of the county by Alt 89. Mohave north of the Colorado has no connections to the south. It would be easy to imagine a county that included all of AZ north of the Colorado. Colorado City would be the natural county seat.

The new county north of the Colorado would have 14,122 people (by census count) and would have voted 70.0% McCain, 24.8% Obama in 2008.

[muon2]

At least Coconino north of the Colorado river is connected to the rest of the county by Alt 89. Mohave north of the Colorado has no connections to the south. It would be easy to imagine a county that included all of AZ north of the Colorado. Colorado City would be the natural county seat.

The new county north of the Colorado would have 14,122 people (by census count) and would have voted 70.0% McCain, 24.8% Obama in 2008.

It could be named Kaibab after the plateau and Paiute tribe living there.

[Adam Griffin]

Did another round of consolidation on Texas, mainly just for fun. I wanted to see where I could realistically flip a metro (Houston was the only viable candidate; it look virtually nothing to do), while accentuating some Democratic performance in other areas. I also consolidated those larger individual counties in the NW part of the state. 123 counties in this rendition, and yes, a few of them are quite lage - even in populated areas: