The general form of this question (are people happier if they're in smaller communities) inspired this other post of mine [0]. As far as the answer: the short a

The general form of this question (are people happier if they're in smaller communities) inspired this other post of mine [0]. As far as the answer: the short answer is yes. The long answer is, "it depends" [1]. Personally, I believe the ideal community size is 100 - 1000 people. One where you know at least intimately 10% [2] of the population and have hard of 100%. I also think a small community is ideal for proper implementation of democracy. Mainly because it's easier to ensure education parity in a small population, meaning the democratic process is fairer. My tangent aside, to answer your question, I think it would be no. Any happiness increase of the people living in the new United State(s) will surely be negated by the huge pain and suffering required to create them. If you discount that, the answer to that is also probably yes. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13468508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13468508 [1] http://www.citylab.com/design/2011/10/urban-rural-happiness-debate/290/ http://www.citylab.com/design/2011/10/urban-rural-happiness-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number