A lot of rural area across the country have movements to break states into pieces, or join other states. I don’t think most are very serious but at least two of them are serious enough.
One, there are a few counties on Oregon that want to redraw the boundary so that they become part of Idaho. This, I think, is only mildly serious.
The second is the border of Indiana and Illinois, which is serious enough that the Indiana state legislature has voted to create a commission to work on it. It was a bipartisan vote, too. Because there are a number of rural counties in Illinois that would like to join Indiana, and two urban counties in Indiana that say if the option is on the table they’d rather be part of Illinois. Such a thing would need both states to agree and then send it on to Congress, but ultimately I don’t think anything will come of it.
When you look at state funding, these urban counties are sending more tax dollars to their respective state capitols than the states are spending in their counties. In the case of these rural Illinois counties, the state is spending between $5 and $6 per tax dollar collected. Does Indiana really want to take on such welfare queens? And give up some of their few donor counties in exchange? It seems hardly likely!
That’s the rub all across the US. The urbanized areas are subsidizing the rural areas. Are the rural areas prepared to do without such subsidies? They can say “the cities can’t live without the food we grow”, but the entirety of human history shows that the cities always come out ahead in these transactions.
The Jefferson area of CA seems about as serious as Oregon.
With out current structure of governments, as we get around/over 80% urbanization, the rural areas will just get steamrolled and want to break away due to a lack of agency. If you study people in the "western Idaho" area and on the Oregon coast, it would be easy to see that they are two different nations.
Also,do you have e a source for the 5x tax collected number? The 5x seems really high. I couldn't find one for Indiana, but Illinois shows it's <2x.
Right. So anyway, if various states (or the whole country) breaks apart based on urban/rural divides, the urban areas have very little incentive to try to reunite. It’s a losing proposition for the rural areas.
My personal opinion is that our state and nation legislatures have way too few members given our current populations. For example, the US House should have some sort of dynamic membership count: the smallest odd number such that when you run the apportionment algorithm the smallest state has 3 members. That’s probably somewhere around 1100 members (just spitballing).
Economics aren't the only factor, so the rural areas may not care so long as they are free. That also assumes the rural areas keep the same service levels and regulations. It's possible they could create conditions to lure some industries to them. They would also have to raise food prices to deal without subsidies. It's likely many services would see reductions, such as road maintenance, anything heavily relying on grants, and possibly schools. Certainly the colleges in the article would be closed.
Decreasing the ratio of constituents to representatives won't really work. It may work at the margins, but you will still have the mismatch in proportions between urban/rural.
California has multiple times brought up splitting out into multiple states, its made it as a prop a few times too. I think most people want it to happen, its just tough to figure out what the best split would be
One, there are a few counties on Oregon that want to redraw the boundary so that they become part of Idaho. This, I think, is only mildly serious.
The second is the border of Indiana and Illinois, which is serious enough that the Indiana state legislature has voted to create a commission to work on it. It was a bipartisan vote, too. Because there are a number of rural counties in Illinois that would like to join Indiana, and two urban counties in Indiana that say if the option is on the table they’d rather be part of Illinois. Such a thing would need both states to agree and then send it on to Congress, but ultimately I don’t think anything will come of it.
When you look at state funding, these urban counties are sending more tax dollars to their respective state capitols than the states are spending in their counties. In the case of these rural Illinois counties, the state is spending between $5 and $6 per tax dollar collected. Does Indiana really want to take on such welfare queens? And give up some of their few donor counties in exchange? It seems hardly likely!
That’s the rub all across the US. The urbanized areas are subsidizing the rural areas. Are the rural areas prepared to do without such subsidies? They can say “the cities can’t live without the food we grow”, but the entirety of human history shows that the cities always come out ahead in these transactions.