I've long thought all the state borders should be redrawn, because the current borders are horribly inefficient and not serving constituents well. New York Cit

I've long thought all the state borders should be redrawn, because the current borders are horribly inefficient and not serving constituents well. New York City should absolutely be removed from the rest of the state. The "upstaters" resent NYC's large presence in state politics, and NYCers resent the upstaters for not being more concerned about NYC. However, it's worse: there's huge parts of the metro area of NYC which aren't even in the state! Tons of people commute every day from Connecticut or New Jersey. This is just a mess. New Jersey, as a state, should simply be eliminated. Instead, it should be cut in half, as should Connecticut. Northern NJ and western CT should be combined with NYC, and also Long Island and a good chunk of NY state immediately north of NYC (White Plains, etc.) which is still part of the metro area. This should be formed into a new state (let's call it "New York"...). The rest of NYS, which has a large population base by itself with Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, etc., can then be a separate state whose population is more in-line with the average-sized US state, and in fact would still be one of the larger ones. Now, for the rest of New Jersey: the south part should be combined with Philadelphia and a good chunk of PA which is Philly's metro area, and probably also a little bit of northern Delaware (Newark), and this should be made into a new state, just like we did with NYC above. The rest of PA still has plenty of population, not to mention land, by itself to be a viable state. It'll need a new name though. The other half of CT should be combined with Rhode Island, and maybe even Massachusetts. This would give us either 49 or 50 states (depending on whether CT/RI combined with MA or just stayed a separate state), but would serve the residents of this part of the northeast corridor much better. Just imagine how much better rapid transit would be in NYC for people living in northern NJ without a bunch of interstate politics getting in the way; the same agency could run the MTA subways, the LIRR, and also NJ Transit and PATH. The same treatment also is needed for DC: make a new state that combines DC, northern VA, Baltimore, and most of Maryland around there. Give the western part of MD to WV, and give the entire "eastern shore" peninsula (which has all of DE and little bits of VA and MD on it) to Delaware. The people of southern and southwest VA will probably be happy to get the NoVAers out of their politics, and the NoVAers will feel the same. And finally, the people of DC will actually have representation in Congress.