autonomy, democracy, and freedom 3: by the numbers

[twoeleven]

#	State Mame	Pop (M)	∑Pop (M)	Percent of US	∑Percent	Megalopolis name	Pop (M)	∑Pop (M)	Percent of US	∑percent
1	California	37.3	37.3	12.07	12.07	New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA	22.2	22.2	7.20	7.20
2	Texas	25.1	62.4	8.14	20.21	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA	17.8	40.1	5.77	12.97
3	New York	19.4	81.8	6.28	26.49	Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI	9.8	49.9	3.18	16.15
4	Florida	18.8	100.6	6.09	32.58	Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV	8.4	58.3	2.73	18.88
5	Illinois	12.8	113.4	4.16	36.73	Boston-Worcester-Manchester, MA-RI-NH	7.6	65.9	2.46	21.35
6	Pennsylvania	12.7	126.1	4.11	40.85	San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA	7.4	73.3	2.41	23.75
7	Ohio	11.5	137.6	3.74	44.58	Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	6.8	80.1	2.20	25.96
8	Michigan	9.9	147.5	3.20	47.78	Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD	6.5	86.7	2.12	28.07
9	Georgia	9.7	157.2	3.14	50.92	Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX	6.0	92.6	1.93	30.01
10	North Carolina	9.5	166.8	3.09	54.01	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, GA-AL	5.8	98.5	1.89	31.90
...
29	Connecticut	3.6	273.3	1.16	88.51	Columbus-Marion-Chillicothe, OH	2.0	154.6	0.66	50.07
...
36	New Mexico	2.1	292.6	0.67	94.76	Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Columbia, TN	1.7	166.8	0.54	54.03

random thoughts:

* as a way of increasing control over government by reducing the number of people per jurisdiction, megalopoli are the expected success. states tend to be somewhere from 50% to 100% larger than their equal-ranked megalopolitan counterparts.

* to get to half the country's population, we need only the top nine states, but the 29 top metropoli, and to get the population of the top ten states, we need 36 megalopoli. in fact, if we go all the way to the bottom of the list of 305 megalopoli¹ we've got only 84% of the population. i think this is an excellent dispersal of power.

1: the list merges the census's 124 combined statistical areas with their 181 other metropolitan areas. the smallest one on the list is carson city, nevada, with all of 55,176 people. the census conveniently uses the same 50k citizen cut-off for both types of big cities as the constitution uses for states, so at least in principle, these are comparable polities. (source data files)

* are these more useful polities? while this is an open question -- and i would like your opinion -- i think so, for two reasons:
  1) the census made their lists by grouping people by where they work, and then pushing the boundaries of that area out to the nearest county line. so, all the people in an area have at least vaguely-related economic interests. since i grew up in the capital sprawl, i can say it's certainly true that even folks who don't work for the federal government directly have an unusual interest in what it's doing, since it's by far the largest employer in the area.

  2) most of the physically large states seem to have multiple groups of people with not merely distinct but often competing interests. chicagoland vs. downstate was -- and i assume still is -- a major political struggle in illinois. even delaware, which would fit inside chicagoland, has the same division. i think the reasons are the same: urban core vs rural area. add interurban struggles -- northern california vs socal, the hobbesian struggle of greater nyc and all the other new york cities, philly sprawl (a huge commercial hub with significant heavy industry to boot) vs pittsburgh (an ex-rust-belt city that's mostly reinvented itself in services and technology) -- to urban vs rural, and i think the states are actually impediments to good governance.

since the interurban differences combine economic disparity with geographic distance, i don't the peoples' differences are resolvable, and elaborate and often dysfunctional compromise is substituted for resolution. the bicameral solution to urban-rural population differences has, IM studied O, failed completely. state politics around here are warped by the large number of senate votes held by downstate districts, resulting in paralysis and illinois-style corruption problems. the only reason we haven't had politicians indicted is the state laws are simply too weak. but move new castle county into the philly sprawl, and group the rest of the delmarva peninsula with dover, de -- not ideal, but...² -- and you've ended the left-of-center vs increasingly right poo-flinging match in the senate that keeps people voting for their party's bastards even though all the bastards need to go. and likewise in california.³

2: dover, de and salisbury, md should be their own urban areas. having done that, the rest of the area is nearly all farm country, with tourist communities along the coasts.

3: with existing states reorganized, would the tea party wither for want of sufficient local issues to make people care about magical-thinking small government?

* the size of the largest megalopoli means that they'll still need to retain internal jurisdictions, like the current counties. while they seem like they'll be good loci of policy-making, i think there will be local issues within them needing local solution. they may even benefit from even smaller subdivisions, "micropoli" or "townships", to handle "neighborhood" issues.

* i can post the full list of megalopoli if anybody wants.

grumble: the plural of *polis is *poli, not *polisesses. embrace english's wide and deep roots.