What state's borders should be changed?

[pbrower2a]

El Paso should have been a part of New Mexico. Memphis ought to be grafted onto Mississippi, which would be an improvement for both Tennessee and Mississippi.

[The Simpsons Cinematic Universe]

Annex southwestern CT, Pike County, and North Jersey.

Divide California into two states... Texas and Florida too, actually, so New York can once again be the most populous state in the union.

[Thomas D]

(I am basing all of this on aesthetics)

That little dingleberry hanging off of south Georgia should probably just go to Florida. It's always bothered me.

Florida should get Alabama's buck teeth- Mobile and Baldwin counties. There are already too many buck teeth in Alabama.

The Missouri bootheel should go to Tennessee

As someone else mentioned the Upper Peninsula should definitely go to Wisconsin. It's already connected to the state.

Delaware should get the entire Peninsula, including the little bit belonging to Virginia

The Maryland panhandle where the mountains are should go to West Virginia. That region is so unlike the rest of the state and I think they'd be more at home in WV...idk

But if you give Western MD to WV the gays west of Hagerstown will lose their Marriage rights.

[Frodo]

Delaware (as well as DC, and the rest of the Delmarva peninsula) should be joined with Maryland;

Western Maryland should be joined with West Virginia;

Northern Virginia should secede from Virginia;

Northern Florida should be divided between Alabama and Georgia;

Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas should all be united as one state;

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut should all be united as one state (lower New England);

New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine should all be united as one state (upper New England);

Southern Illinois should be united with Indiana;

Upstate New York should unite with Pennsylvania;

New York City (and the immediate suburbs up the Hudson River) should unite with New Jersey;

Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon should be united with Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana as one state;

Western Washington and Western Oregon should unite with California;

Alaska (as well as Greenland -yes, I know it's not a US state, but still) should join Canada, it being the Great White North and all...

[muon2]

Since posts are listing lengthy lists of changes, I thought it was worth going for broke. Some years ago I redivided the US into 50 states based on Garreau's Nine Nations of North America. I've decided to update the maps using a few criteria. The states must be whole counties and stay within Garreau's nations except to maintain current metropolitan areas. My goal is also to keep the state's population in a range such that the largest is no more than 4 times the smallest. I've taken the liberty of naming these states after native tribes from the area (hi, Lewis ).

My first nation is Ecotopia (with principal city) and population in millions:
Duwamish (Seattle) 4.7
Chinook (Portland) 3.6
Shasta (Sacramento) 3.6
Ohlone (San Francisco) 9.5

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

El Paso should have been a part of New Mexico.

Actually, El Paso should be the capital of a new State consprising Texas west of the Pecos and southern New Mexico.

[Space7]

Since posts are listing lengthy lists of changes, I thought it was worth going for broke. Some years ago I redivided the US into 50 states based on Garreau's Nine Nations of North America. I've decided to update the maps using a few criteria. The states must be whole counties and stay within Garreau's nations except to maintain current metropolitan areas. My goal is also to keep the state's population in a range such that the largest is no more than 4 times the smallest. I've taken the liberty of naming these states after native tribes from the area (hi, Lewis ).

My first nation is Ecotopia (with principal city) and population in millions:
Duwamish (Seattle) 4.7
Chinook (Portland) 3.6
Shasta (Sacramento) 3.6
Ohlone (San Francisco) 9.5

Ecotopia? I prefer the name "Cascadia".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movement%29

Even though I wouldn't actually support an independence movement, I think the name is amazing.

[muon2]

Since posts are listing lengthy lists of changes, I thought it was worth going for broke. Some years ago I redivided the US into 50 states based on Garreau's Nine Nations of North America. I've decided to update the maps using a few criteria. The states must be whole counties and stay within Garreau's nations except to maintain current metropolitan areas. My goal is also to keep the state's population in a range such that the largest is no more than 4 times the smallest. I've taken the liberty of naming these states after native tribes from the area (hi, Lewis ).

My first nation is Ecotopia (with principal city) and population in millions:
Duwamish (Seattle) 4.7
Chinook (Portland) 3.6
Shasta (Sacramento) 3.6
Ohlone (San Francisco) 9.5

Ecotopia? I prefer the name "Cascadia".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movement%29

Even though I wouldn't actually support an independence movement, I think the name is amazing.

Ecotopia is the name from Joel Garreau's 1981 book Nine Nations of North America. Since the boundaries are based on that work, I'll stick with his names. Garreau cites a 1975 novel as the basis for the name.

[muon2]

The next of the Nine Nations to tackle is Empty Quarter. I took the national boundary from Garreau's book and made adjustments to keep whole counties and metro areas together. The division into states is designed to keep them between 3 and 12 million in population with an average of 6.2 million (1/50 of the US).

In principle Empty Quarter is very close to 3 states worth of population, but the Mormon-dominated state of Ute is pretty well defined in the center of Empty Quarter. Any division of the rest into two states is very awkward. My three state division sets up Arapaho east of the Continental Divide. Paiute has three principal cities of nearly equal size that lie along an axis defined by US 95. Navajo places Clark county back with northern AZ where it originally was and links it to western CO. It's the least attractive of the four states, but the population constraints force some loop around the southern edge of Ute.

States (and principal city) with 2010 populations in millions are:

Paiute (Reno, Boise, Spokane) 4.8
Ute (Salt Lake City) 3.5
Navajo (Las Vegas) 3.4
Arapaho (Denver) 5.2

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ecotopia is the name from Joel Garreau's 1981 book Nine Nations of North America. Since the boundaries are based on that work, I'll stick with his names. Garreau cites a 1975 novel as the basis for the name.

I actually have the novel.  I got it as a paperback back in '83.  It was a bit dated even then and it certainly has not aged well.

[muon2]

The next of the Nine Nations is Breadbasket. I took the national boundary from Garreau's book and made adjustments to keep whole counties and metro areas together. The most significant deviation occurred putting Columbia, MO in Dixie which naturally led to excising all of MO's Little Dixie from Breadbasket. The division into states is designed to keep them between 3.1 and 12.4 million in population with an average of 6.2 million (1/50 of the US).

Breadbasket is between 6 and 7 states inpopulation, but the open unpopulated expanses work better with 7 states. The Dakota-Kansa line follows the state line since that marks the southern end of heavy corn production in the plains. Ojibwe covers the lake region of the upper Midwest. The Sauk-Illini line follows the North-Midland dialect line except for the St Louis Corridor. Wichita links the Metroplex to Austin, and leaves Comanche as a land of cattle and oil.

States (and principal city) with 2010 populations in millions are:

Dakota (Omaha) 4.2
Ojibwe (Minneapolis) 5.5
Sauk (Madison, Des Moines) 5.1
Illini (St Louis) 5.8
Kansa (Kansas City) 4.3
Comanche (Oklahoma City) 5.3
Wichita (Dallas) 9.6

[muon2]

The next of the Nine Nations is MexAmerica. I took the national boundary from Garreau's book and made adjustments to keep whole counties and metro areas together. Tonkawa which represents the Houston metro area is a border city in the book and could equally well go in Dixie. The trend over the 30 years since publication seems to to place it better in MexAmerica.

The division into states is designed to keep them between 3.1 and 12.4 million in population with an average of 6.2 million (1/50 of the US). That causes a problem for the Los Angeles metro area which has 12.8 million in the metro statistical area and 18.2 million in the greater metro area. This has to be split into at least two states, so Chumash takes LA county with Ventura and Santa Barbara. The rest links up with San Diego to form Cahuilla.  Apache has the opposite problem with barely the minimum population, defined on the east end by the edge of the San Antonio metro area, and the west side by the continental divide.

States (and principal city) with 2010 populations in millions are:

Yokuts (Fresno) 4.1
Chumash (Los Angeles) 11.1
Cahuilla (San Diego) 10.5
O'odham (Phoenix) 5.7
Apache (El Paso) 3.2
Xarame (San Antonio) 4.3
Tonkawa (Houston) 5.9

[tpfkaw]

California should be at least three states, North, South, and Coastal.  D.C. and Baltimore areas should be their own state, add the rest of Maryland to Virginia, Delaware or Pennsylvania.  Upstate and Western NY should have their own states.  Chicago should be separated from the rest of Illinois (my vote).

[muon2]

After a couple weeks hiatus to work on erosity and apportionment regions, it's time to return to the remaining 4 "nations". Next up is New England, in which Garreau includes the six New England states minus SW CT. Fairfield is unmistably not in New England, but New Haven and Litchfield are on the border and could be left out as they are part of the NYC CSA. I left them in this nation to give southern New England a more reasonable population. I also added the counties of the northern Adirondacks of NY here as well to fit with northern New England.

New England has the population for 2.2 states, but there's no natural way to divide it into two other than the Boston metro and everything else, but that would link Hartford, Burlington and most of Maine. It's tempting to put it all in one state, but I decided to go with the traditional north, south, and Boston split.

States (and principal city) with 2010 populations in millions are:

Abenaki (Manchester) 3.8
Wampanoag (Boston) 4.9
Pequot (Providence) 5.1

[muon2]

The largest of the "nations" is the Foundry. There is enough population for 14.7 states, but the combination of some large population centers here and the need for some smaller states in other regions drop the number of states here to 13.

Most of the big cities anchor states that generally match the corresponding metro area, and when they are smaller they combine with other areas. Combining Milwaukee with Chicago would be too large, so Milwaukee becomes part of a state the wraps around the lake to Michigan. The greater New York area is so large that it becomes three states. The Baltimore-Washington area is large enough for two states, but this region stays combined until there is another state to eliminate elsewhere.

States (and principal city) with 2010 populations in millions are:

Winnebago (Milwaukee) 4.2
Meskwaki (Chicago) 9.7
Potawatomi (Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids) 4.5
Ottawa (Detroit) 5.7
Erie (Cleveland) 4.3
Miami (Indianapolis, Columbus) 8.9
Mingo (Pittsburgh) 8.7
Iroquois (Buffalo) 5.1
Susquehannock (Washington, Baltimore) 10.8
Lenape (Philadelphia) 7.0
Raritan (Newark) 5.5
Munsee (New York) 8.4
Montauk (Brooklyn) 7.6

[muon2]

The last of my reworked states using the Nine Nations of North America are those in Dixie and the Islands. South Florida was part of the Caribbean-based Islands and not in Dixie, and I followed the division from the book. However, in the 30 years since publication one could make the case for central FL to go there, too. Even the Cajun area of south LA could move to the Islands, with a culture unlike most of Dixie as Garreau noted in the book.

Over all there is enough population for 13 states, but the need for some smaller states in other regions drop the number of states in these two nations to 12. Within Dixie the states follow the geography of the Appalachians and Coastal Plain. If there were an additional state it would likely be one that linked Charleston to Jacksonville, leaving central FL and the deep South.

States (and principal city) with 2010 populations in millions are:

Dixie
Chitimacha (New Orleans) 3.7
Caddo (Shreveport) 3.3
Osage (Little Rock) 4.7
Tunica (Memphis) 4.3
Chickasaw (Atlanta) 9.3
Shawnee (Nashville, Louisville) 6.8
Cherokee (Knoxville) 8.8
Powhatan (Virginia Beach) 7.5
Catawba (Charlotte) 7.0
Muskogee (Montgomery, Augusta) 9.1
Seminole (Jacksonville) 9.8

Islands
Colusa (Miami) 7.1

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think you paid a bit too much attention to geography there, especially with your atrocious border between Catawba and Powhatan.   Go ahead and give central Virgina to Powhatan in exchange for the Pee Dee and southeast North Carolina going to Catawba.

[muon2]

I think you paid a bit too much attention to geography there, especially with your atrocious border between Catawba and Powhatan.   Go ahead and give central Virgina to Powhatan in exchange for the Pee Dee and southeast North Carolina going to Catawba.

I appreciate the local input. Where would you place the line in NC? If I look at a dialect map it looks like Raleigh-Durham sits right near that line that separates the Richmond/Tidewater dialect from most of the Carolinas. Is that a useful division?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think you paid a bit too much attention to geography there, especially with your atrocious border between Catawba and Powhatan.   Go ahead and give central Virgina to Powhatan in exchange for the Pee Dee and southeast North Carolina going to Catawba.

I appreciate the local input. Where would you place the line in NC? If I look at a dialect map it looks like Raleigh-Durham sits right near that line that separates the Richmond/Tidewater dialect from most of the Carolinas. Is that a useful division?

Yup.  I can't say where exactly the diving line should be, but northeast North Carolina really is part of Virginia.  It was even settled from there even before the Carolina colony was legally established.

Closer to home, I'd put Orangeburg County into the Black Belt state of Muskogee.  Culturally Saluda County, SC could go in any of the three, but economically, it's part of the Aiken-Augusta CSRA that you have in Muskogee.  If it works to help balance the populations, you could move the Charleston Tricounty area from Muskogee to Catawba, tho that ain't essential.  It's more a case of Charleston being its own little world, but to small to be a state of its own.

[muon2]

I think you paid a bit too much attention to geography there, especially with your atrocious border between Catawba and Powhatan.   Go ahead and give central Virgina to Powhatan in exchange for the Pee Dee and southeast North Carolina going to Catawba.

I appreciate the local input. Where would you place the line in NC? If I look at a dialect map it looks like Raleigh-Durham sits right near that line that separates the Richmond/Tidewater dialect from most of the Carolinas. Is that a useful division?

Yup.  I can't say where exactly the diving line should be, but northeast North Carolina really is part of Virginia.  It was even settled from there even before the Carolina colony was legally established.

Closer to home, I'd put Orangeburg County into the Black Belt state of Muskogee.  Culturally Saluda County, SC could go in any of the three, but economically, it's part of the Aiken-Augusta CSRA that you have in Muskogee.  If it works to help balance the populations, you could move the Charleston Tricounty area from Muskogee to Catawba, tho that ain't essential.  It's more a case of Charleston being its own little world, but to small to be a state of its own.

So, with your advice I've modified my Dixie map above. I originally placed Orangeburg where I did since it shows up as part of the Columbia CSA, but since it is its own micropolitan area I have no problem moving it. Saluda is in the Columbia MSA, so I felt like it made the most sense to leave it there.

[jimrtex]

It's more a case of Charleston being its own little world, but to small to be a state of its own.

Where the Ashley and the Cooper meet to form the Atlantic Ocean.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

After a couple weeks hiatus to work on erosity and apportionment regions, it's time to return to the remaining 4 "nations". Next up is New England, in which Garreau includes the six New England states minus SW CT. Fairfield is unmistably not in New England, but New Haven and Litchfield are on the border and could be left out as they are part of the NYC CSA. I left them in this nation to give southern New England a more reasonable population. I also added the counties of the northern Adirondacks of NY here as well to fit with northern New England.

New England has the population for 2.2 states, but there's no natural way to divide it into two other than the Boston metro and everything else, but that would link Hartford, Burlington and most of Maine. It's tempting to put it all in one state, but I decided to go with the traditional north, south, and Boston split.

States (and principal city) with 2010 populations in millions are:

Abenaki (Manchester) 3.8
Wampanoag (Boston) 4.9
Pequot (Providence) 5.1

Culturally I think it would somewhat more sense for Hampshire County, Massachusetts to go in Abenaki, but I do understand the economic grounds for putting it in Pequot.

[Skill and Chance]

Here is another re-stating proposal that I haven't seen discussed yet:



It shrinks the total number of states to 38 based on keeping metro areas together and preserving rural states where possible.  There is obviously no attempt to maintain population equality.  Seward probably only has 200K people in total.  Going west to east:

Kilauea: Safe D
Seward: Toss up? (amazingly, this would be a McCain 2008-Obama 2012 state)
Kodiak: Safe R (Anchorage has the population)
Cascade: Safe D (More D than WA or OR is currently)
El Dorado: Safe D
San Gabriel: Likely to Safe D
Bitteroot: Safe R
Bonneville: Beyond Safe R
Cochise: Toss Up? (This is where it gets interesting- some very conservative AZ territory is gone but so are some very liberal parts of NM and eastern AZ, and of course it takes on El Paso)
San Luis: Lean R (Colorado with 1-2 CDs of blood red Plains tacked on)
Bighorn: Safe R
Dakota: Safe R (wouldn't rule out D's occasionally snatching a senate seat, though)
Shawnee: Beyond Safe R
Alamo: Likely to Safe R (this is probably a tad bluer than real world Texas but El Paso cancels some of the lost conservative territory out)
Bayou: Safe R
Ozark: Safe R (rural enough to cancel out Memphis)
Osage: Toss Up? (another interesting one- St. Louis + the IL college towns might get the job done)
Prairie: Lean D (Likely D if it has Madison, but I think it excludes Dane)
Superior: Lean D?
Dearborn: Beyond Safe D
Wabash: Safe R
Cumberland: Safe R (aaaand.. Nashville has it even worse now)
Talladego: Safe R
Biscayne: Toss Up? (Is this more R or D than the real Florida- the $64,000 question)
Piedmont: Safe R (wouldn't stay that way long term, though)
Carolina: Likely R (also wouldn't stay that way long term)
Appalachia: Safe R if not named Manchin
Erie: Lean R?
Mackinac: Likely D (more D than the real Michigan)
Allegheny: Lean D (wow, Pittsburgh and Cleveland vs. coal country)
Albemarle: Lean D (can safely say it's to the left of real NC and it has Norfolk)
Chesapeake: Safe D (and getting moreso)
Susquehana: Likely D
Hudson: Beyond Safe D
Mowhawk: Toss Up
Plymouth: Beyond Safe D
Kennebec: Safe D (epic D gerrymander of NH going on here)

I can't say anything about the EC without knowing the populations, but if we split the toss up states evenly, the new senate would be:

35D-33R

[Indy Texas]

Shouldn't this be a multiple choice poll? For instance if you move one state's borders, wouldn't you also have to another state's borders to accommodate?  Just an observation.  For me, its my native Oklahoma that should expand to include most of the Texas Panhandle north of Lubbock all the way to the New Mexico Border.  Texas is big enough as it is.  Although, that might be enough to tip Texas blue, but oh well.

The Panhandle is very Republican, but it also has hardly any people in it, so I doubt it would have much of an impact on our elections.

Giving El Paso County to New Mexico is one that has always made sense to me. The Trans-Pecos region of Texas is so far removed from the rest of the state, it has to make do with a separate time zone and it gets completely ignored by our state's political establishment. If El Paso were to join New Mexico, it would be the largest city in the Land of Enchantment, and any hopes of New Mexico going back to being a swing state would be killed.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Incidentally, the North Carolina - South Carolina border is in the middle of being clarified.  Here's a story about it.  The full story has several other problems the clarification is causing.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Here's the doctor's home.  The blue line is where South Carolina thought the border was, the orange line is where North Carolina thought the border was, and the yellow line is where the boundary commission has determined where the border is.



In other places the border is moving to put people who thought they were in South Carolina into North Carolina, including a convenience store that sells fireworks and beer that it won't be able to in North Carolina. (South Carolina has the most liberal fireworks laws in the US, and the store would be in a dry county in North Carolina.  The store is located on the border mainly to sell beer to thirsty North Carolinians and some 70% of its sales are in those two items that would be banned once the clarification is approved.