17 ms·

Coming form the mid-Atlantic region, I'm continuously surprised at what a non-entity Baltimore has turned out to be. It seems to have been entirely subsumed by

• bluejekyll 10y ago
  > If the U.S. had a method to redraw state boundaries every 20-30 years, these regions would be just about the right size to be states, and this would greatly simplify the planning and coordination of everything from transit to education delivery. This is a really interesting idea. While it is extremely logical, it would never happen. People are surprisingly attached to their identities associated with their state and countries. See the amazing news surrounding the land swap in Belgium and the Netherlands recently... it made news because so few people think of borders as arbitrary lines on maps.
  • mc32 10y ago
    In the UK there was a redrawing of county lines back in the mid 70s. States do have the mechanism to self-divide. So far this hasn't happened but there have been proposals "State of Jefferson" in Norcal South Oregon. When people think Cal has too few senators for it's pop., one solution is to divide.
    • uiri 10y ago
      > When people think Cal has too few senators for it's pop., one solution is to divide. Isn't the whole point of the US Senate to prevent the more populous states from passing stuff against the interests of the less populous states? There is no such thing as too few senators for a state's population.
      • bluejekyll 10y ago
        If CA were to divide, this would imply that two more Senators would be added to Congress, and coming from this region, it would imply more representation of the west coast ideas in congress.
        • mc32 10y ago
          Yes, exactly. I'm not saying I either want or don't want more west coast ideas in congress, I'm saying if people say we have too few senators for the pop. a solution is divide. Also, I'm not certain a "Jefferson" would be the same politically as So. Cal and Bay area.
        • nostrademons 10y ago
          Jefferson would likely be more conservative than either CA or OR. If you've ever visited the North Coast of California, it's very rural in character, and in culture is much closer to Montana or Wyoming than the Bay Area.
      • dcosson 10y ago
        By that logic there's also no such thing as too many senators for a given number of square miles if you cram enough states into it, so California could split into 100 states and that would be just as fair.
      • kerbalspacepro 10y ago
        The point of the Senate is to protect slavery.
    • umanwizard 10y ago
      Counties are different in character from States. Any State government can decide completely of its own accord (i.e., without the consent of the counties) to change county boundaries however it wants, because States are sovereign entities, whereas counties are not.
      • sverige 10y ago
        That is not true in every state. Colorado requires a vote of the residents of an area to form counties, most recently exercised when Broomfield County was carved out of three other counties.
        • Zach_the_Lizard 10y ago
          That is how the state government chooses to handle this situation, but the Feds are not involved, which was the original point. Colorado could wake up tomorrow and change its laws or initiate the change process and Uncle Sam wouldn't care.
    • CurtMonash 10y ago
      I don't think that's accurate, with one special exception: When the Republic of Texas was admitted as a state, it was given the right to subdivide into up to 5 total states, should it choose to. Otherwise, it's up to Congress to decide whether or not to accept new states to the Union.
• massysett 10y ago
  US federalism isn't about efficiency. If anything, federalism is intentionally inefficient.
  • xapata 10y ago
    Depends on what timeframe you're thinking about. Some things are inefficient short term, because of redundancies, but that makes them more robust and therefore more efficient in the long run.
    • int_19h 10y ago
      Even short term, it could be argued that federalism was the most efficient option available, because the states wouldn't unite under any other conditions... and the union was definitely more efficient than they were separately.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• bkeroack 10y ago
  US states are not merely administrative divisions (like provinces in other nations) but are literal independently-governed states. Would you also propose re-drawing the borders of every EU nation every 30 years to reflect population movement? This misunderstanding (provinces vs states) leads to much misunderstanding of the US federal system in general, the electoral college, role of the federal government, etc.
  • kakarot 10y ago
    How does the electoral college play into this?
    • Spooky23 10y ago
      The United States is a union of nominally sovereign states. You see this in crisis situations -- States cannot declare bankruptcy, for example. The electoral college is a mechanism used for these states to select a president (the only nationally elected office) in a representative manner.
      • bkeroack 10y ago
        Not just nominal! The Constitution ensures the sovereignty of the states by restricting the federal government to a limited set of enumerated powers (among them: foreign policy, national defense, regulation of interstate commerce) with all other powers retained by the states (10th Amendment).
        • repsilat 10y ago
          > a limited set of enumerated powers (among them: foreign policy, national defense, regulation of interstate commerce) Unfortunately, the modern interpretation of "interstate commerce" is roughly "any other powers they might care to have". The Tenth Amendment has essentially been superseded by the Commerce Clause since the New Deal.
          • 10y ago
• madengr 10y ago
  Sounds like the Kansas City region that is bisected into KS and MO, with both states offering tax incentives for business to move. Some business flip flop locations every few years. It's the border war all over again. I live in KS and work in MO. http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476844402/jobs-tug-of-war-kansas-city-businesses-poached-by-kansas-missouri http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476844402/jobs-tug-of-war-kans...
  • shawn-butler 10y ago
    What is the tax situation like there? Some bordering states have given up on reciprocity requiring residents to file two state returns. Such a pain.
    • madengr 10y ago
      I have to file both MO and KS returns, and also pay KC, MO 1% city earnings tax. I have to over withhold on MO, then (normally) with that refund turn around and pay KS. Though with Brownbacks tax cuts I am now getting couple $100 returned. File ASAP with MO as those last to file are last in line for refunds. If the state is out of money, like it was a few years ago, I didn't get my refund until August. One of the only pluses is being able to get in-state tuition for some MO schools; not that I will send my kids there. They have two choices, and they both start with a K.
  • int_19h 10y ago
    Another weird example is the border between Washington and Oregon. Washington has sales tax, but no income tax; Oregon has income tax, but no sales tax. So if you live and work in Vancouver, WA, but shop across the river in Portland, OR (it's literally just the river separating these two), you can dodge either tax. (Technically, if you go shopping to Portland from Vancouver, you're supposed to pay a use tax on those goods. But there's no practical way to enforce it, and few people are even aware of it.)
  • kerbalspacepro 10y ago
    One of the biggest drivers of economic inequality between the states is their business strategy. New York, California? They build new businesses. Kentucky and Louisiana and Kansas? Try to lure old businesses to move. The former strategy is obviously superior, hence the resentment the latter states hold.
• rm999 10y ago
  Normally, proximity to a bigger city like DC should be a good thing - you can get a nicer place for cheap and use public transportation (MARC train) to commute. But something has prevented Baltimore from growing and gentrifying. I think the biggest problem, the obvious one, is crime. There are some small pockets of intense gentrification, and even these areas aren't particularly safe. The rest of the city is a no-man's land. Literally within a few blocks of crowded, active areas (e.g. Fells Point) there are extremely unsafe blocks where the chances of a mugging (or worse) are unreasonably high. Then, there are huge contiguous swaths of the city where no one but residents are really advised to enter. I remember going out to a bar in West Baltimore and not a single cab was willing to drive into the neighborhood to pick us up. The patrons of the bar refused to let us walk home ("you're gonna get stabbed!"), and a kind stranger drove us home. Most people I know who live in Baltimore want out, and many either move to DC or to the suburbs.
  • cbHXBY1D 10y ago
    When I was a high school senior checking out Johns Hopkins I had the bright idea of going on a run through the city at 11pm. I was from a town that borders Oakland so I thought "this should be fine." I ended up getting chased through a neighborhood that looked like WWII had just hit. Baltimore is an interesting case in the U.S. because it's really the last dense, walk-able city that hasn't gentrified. Philadelphia is similar but it is experiencing gentrification in the core now. All over the country, millenials have been moving to older cities that were planned before cars and are possible to live in without one. I wonder why Baltimore hasn't suffered the same fate as Oakland, Brooklyn, or Philly? America seems like a tale of two countries at this point. We have cities that are burgeoning with young wealthy types trying to move there like SF, NYC, LA, Seattle, Boston, etc. Over-gentrified until they have become somewhat sterile. If only we could move some of the success of these cities to places that need it like the Rust Belt or Baltimore.
  • Edmond 10y ago
    Your comment is a very unfair and inaccurate description of Baltimore, it is also one that I hear often from people who clearly have no meaningful experience with the city. It is a city with many problems, no one can deny that, but like most urban tales told by people who don't live in these places, their understanding are much more urban legend than reality. I have lived in Baltimore for the past 6 years and I am hopeful about the future of the city. I live in Mt Vernon, one of the more "upscale" neighborhoods, in the time I have lived there, there's been a good deal of development both in the neighborhood and the city as a whole. I am actually looking at buying a house in Bolton Hill (another quite nice and safe neighborhood)...the property tax rate has given me pause but otherwise I am excited about the future of the city. I don't want to go on a rant but Baghdad type stories like yours are not helpful.
• erikpukinskis 10y ago
  One of the benefits of splitting administrative control in a population is that policy differences between the administrations become visible to that population. If every administration has a cultural moat around it, it becomes impossible to separate policy effects from culture effects. I think this is one of the key benefits to the federal system. In some sense the lines are supposed to be arbitrary.
• billforsternz 10y ago
  When I was a map and gazetteer obsessed child 40+ years ago Baltimore was my favourite US city (I am not in the US) because it was one of the ten largest U.S. cities yet most people I knew had never heard of it. I recall Buffalo was right up there too, for similar reasons.
• surfmike 10y ago
  Redrawing state boundaries has a whole host of other issues, but it definitely would be interesting to make regional governing bodies that are in charge of all federal infrastructure dollars. Even though the Bay Area is all contained in California, it's splintered into so many cities and counties that public transportation and land use policies don't adapt fast enough to the growing population.
• mikey_p 10y ago
  It sounds like what you are describing is the system of metropolitan planning organizations in the US. I'm especially spoiled after living in Portland, OR for almost 10 years as they have a very active MPO (called 'Metro') and has democratically elected representatives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_planning_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_planning_organiza...
• colanderman 10y ago
  The problem is, some of the cities that serve as centers of these economic regions do so primarily because they are state capitals. Were state lines drawn to surround them (and exclude neighboring more independently prosperous cities) I think they would greatly decrease in economic importance. Ex. New York state is the largest employer in the region surrounding Albany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_District#Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_District#Economy
• raverbashing 10y ago
  However, some people do like the current arrangement, as it allows them to work in one state and live in another
• barking 10y ago
  I'm not American and have never been to Baltimore but if its characterisation in 'The Wire' is accurate (a corrupt, drug and crime ridden ghetto) then I am not surprised.
• Mz 10y ago
  You assume that things would remain as they are, only betterer, if you redrew these divisions. That is incredibly unlikely. Some people intentionally live in one state and work in another for various reasons, or live in one city and work in another. Part of the appeal is often differences rooted in laws and regulations, etc.
• Grishnakh 10y ago
  You're exactly right, and that's why I've been advocating redrawing the state boundaries for years now. There was a project decades ago called "The 38 States" (google it) where a college class came up with a new map of the US with more optimized state borders, with the goal of having more equal populations in each state, not having metro areas cross state borders, and grouping like regional cultures together, and also reducing the total number of states to reduce overhead. I think a big project to redraw all the borders would be painful, but would create big gains before too long. I don't know that they need to be redrawn every couple of decades though; perhaps a few little tweaks here and there would be called for though. But the borders we have a completely at odds with where they should be for administrative efficiency.