US city-states

[AberranTux]

http://fakeisthenewreal.org/statesmetros/

"The fifty largest metro areas (in blue), disaggregated from their states (in orange). Each has been scaled and sorted according to population. The metro areas are US-Census defined CBSAs and MSAs."

It includes the seven MSAs specified on p.61 of Fifth Wave as having become independent of the surrounding states. For those of you who don't have FW handy, those are Atlanta, Chicago, Greater San Francisco (including San Jose, which Freeman shows separately), Miami, New York City, San Diego and Seattle.

Now all we need to produce a complete map of the 2100 US is an official definition of the borders of Cibola.

[ericthered]

Its a nice concept, but the implementation (the linked map) appears to be sloppy. He takes the entire county if any part of it is in the metropolitan area. The salt lake city area according to him crosses the state east to west, including miles of mountainous national forest and empty salt flats. For those of you who don't know, the area runs north-south, not east-west. The actual area is that little blob in the middle.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AberranTux

http://fakeisthenewreal.org/statesmetros/

"The fifty largest metro areas (in blue), disaggregated from their states (in orange). Each has been scaled and sorted according to population. The metro areas are US-Census defined CBSAs and MSAs."

It includes the seven MSAs specified on p.61 of Fifth Wave as having become independent of the surrounding states. For those of you who don't have FW handy, those are Atlanta, Chicago, Greater San Francisco (including San Jose, which Freeman shows separately), Miami, New York City, San Diego and Seattle.

Now all we need to produce a complete map of the 2100 US is an official definition of the borders of Cibola.

This would make an interesting model for a one hundred state USA. As the G.O.P. has little real pull in cities and the Democrats are weak in rural areas, it would be a sharply divided USA. The balance would slightly favor the Democrats.

[AberranTux]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Its a nice concept, but the implementation (the linked map) appears to be sloppy. He takes the entire county if any part of it is in the metropolitan area. The salt lake city area according to him crosses the state east to west, including miles of mountainous national forest and empty salt flats.

It's my understanding, admittedly based on Wikipedia, that that's how they calculate metropolitan areas IRL. I'm more concerned with the way it basically cuts New Jersey to ribbons, since Salt Lake City is still part of the Utah of 2100.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

This would make an interesting model for a one hundred state USA.

I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

As the G.O.P. has little real pull in cities and the Democrats are weak in rural areas, it would be a sharply divided USA.

(Insert obvious joke here.)

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AberranTux

I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I don't say this would make a better USA, only an interesting one. As in May you live in interesting times.

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

This would make an interesting model for a one hundred state USA. As the G.O.P. has little real pull in cities and the Democrats are weak in rural areas, it would be a sharply divided USA. The balance would slightly favor the Democrats.

"Slightly" may be an understatement. The Senate might be closer to evenly divided (if each city-state got two Senators, doubling the size of the Senate), but the House of Representatives would be heavily skewed toward city-state representation.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Randyman

"Slightly" may be an understatement. The Senate might be closer to evenly divided (if each city-state got two Senators, doubling the size of the Senate), but the House of Representatives would be heavily skewed toward city-state representation.

Almost all of the City-States would have Democrats in the senate, some rural areas like Vermont or New Mexico, and small well mixed states like Rhode Island, would also be Democratic.

[ericthered]

Please note that would only be an initial set up: if one side find it has an advantage, the center tends to drift so that it doesn't. the roughly 50/50 split in american politics is a consequence of the political system, not american political beliefs.

Some metros will vote conservative. Salt Lake City, for example. And a lot of metros leaving will stick a state back in the conservative side -- perhaps even places like California.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Please note that would only be an initial set up: if one side find it has an advantage, the center tends to drift so that it doesn't. the roughly 50/50 split in american politics is a consequence of the political system, not american political beliefs.

You should see in any competitive system where you have a majority wins outright really. This represents the minimum possible compromise you need to win the rest of your platform.

It's also why the successful political parties in one of these systems always evolve to be hard to tell apart. They are dragged toward the mid-point by the minimum compromise they need to make in order to win. In the limit, if they differ by more than whatever change in policy will cause the one voter in exactly the middle to just switch sides there's still room for one of them to move just a little closer to the center, convince him to switch, and change the winner.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

Similar issue here in the UK. Right now the Scottish National Party almost completely dominates scottish politics ("first past the post" translates 55% support into 95% ish seats). They seem to think this will persist indefinitely, even if Scotland votes for independence in some hypothetical future referendum. They don't realise that once the issue that defines them is won, either they will splinter into two or more parties or another party (existing or new) will take a big chunk of support. And they've only had this huge level of support since the referendum (that they lost) a couple of years ago, so in fact the current situation is probably a brief blip in historical terms.

According to at least one Scot I've communicated with, the only reason they have as much support as they do (outside the advantage of FPTP) is that they aren't the Conservatives, Liberals, or Labour. Make of that what you will.