Redraw the States

      For a long time I've had this fun, if only very unrealistic, idea. I've felt that the current makeup of states is not really built for the modern nation and that it would be better to "update" that composition. Times have changed since the 1820s and populations are different, and I feel like its high time we start defining our administrative regions by geography and culture like every other country, instead of some random lines drawn by Henry Clay so slavery could hang on another decade - so heres a map.
      The fun part about this idea are the city states. I dont have a really serious reason for including those, I just feel like it would be nice. Urban and rural regions are vastly different and like to unnecessarily antagonize eachother so I feel like the system would honestly just work better if theyre seperate. The city states are rought "metro area" regions, and I think defining them as seperate would let them focus on themselves - Chicago can reinvest in Chicago and downstate can reinvest in downstate, instead of bickering every 4 minutes on where all of the money goes.
      You may notice some of the regions with the denotion "city state government" are quite large, New England, Ohio, Cascadia, Texas, those areas are not all one city and wouldnt operate the same way that Detroit, San Francisco, and Kansas City would. Those are what I will call here "Leagues". They are a merger of, typically two, similar and close metro areas - such as Cincinnati and Louisville, or Portland and Seattle. So to explain how this whole mess would work I first need to explain how city states would work because its not just normal state governments.

      City State Government: Ok so the idea behind this, and the map above makes the city state a little big, but my idea is that it would mimic New York. City States would be comprised of Boroughs, their county equivalent, and those comprised of Neighborhoods, their township equivalent. They would still keep the Legislature Executive and Judicial branches of state government, with the change of title for Governor equivalent, maybe Duke, Consul, Burgermeister, I dont know. Federally they would get the same in representation as a normal state but would only get 1 senator, and for fun their abbreviation gets 3 letters instead of 2. Kind of simple, tdlr; same as normal states but they get 1 senator and their leaders arent called governors.
      So how multi-city states would work is their respective juridiction would really be cult down the middle, they would get two executives and two senators, voted for in their respective districts either city A or city B. It really is just sewing two states together at the hip and telling them they are one guy now. So for example Cascadia would divide their state into a Portland District and a Seattle District and both districts would vote for their own senator and executive. This wouldnt apply to representatives or state government officals; representatives, state representatives, and state senators can ignore district borders.

      Now I didnt combine Chicagoland and Milwaukee because Chicago is a lot bigger, and would obviously dominate the entire government if they were placed in a dual state with another city. Same thing goes with NYC and their two neighbors, and Florida.
      Half the reason to make this is to split up the larger states and merge the smaller ones, and Florida is just filled with major metro areas I feel like if I combined them into a mega 4-way city state (just a state at that point) I would have just roundabout remade Florida. I split Texas up for a reason.


      This map isnt perfect, I would change some things. Normal US county lines are not ideal sometimes, I would smooth some borders out, follow more rivers and natural lines, tweak some borders in Texas, combine some states in Minnesota. But I think this isnt a bad representation of what I'm imagining. The Texas City State should be the Texas-T, Vegas should include more than just that county, I'd lose some land for the midwestern city states, rename Hudsonia to like Hiawatha, I'm never going to be satisfied. I do like my naming though, Columbia for DC Baltimore Philly area, Cherokee and Comancheria, Franklin Lincoln and Jefferson, I like the change I did for Indiana and Oklahoma, I think calling the norther, more wooded area of New England "New Ireland" works well. Of course I always knew I was good at naming things.


      Above is an older model, same idea though. That is about as big as I would want the City States to be irl, but as you can see I combined a lot of them in the later version. A point I made here a lot more clear is providing "ethnostates" and by that I mean majority black, indian, etc. states, like Lakota, Rio Grande, and Mississippi. This along with the city and culture thing are one of the priorities.

      I dont have much else to say other than I think this would be cool, and that ideally this would coincide with reforms to uncap the Federal Congress, make normal state apparati have more fun names like "House of Burgesses", and the strengthening of Congress at the expense of the Presidency - which is something I dream for every day and night. It could be cool.



Dont forget to bookmark so you dont lose me, thanks for reading! Stay golden.