17 ms·

The United States Redrawn as Fifty States with Equal Population

219 points by wdavidturner 14y ago

Whitespace 14y ago
Does anyone have a link to a larger version where the New York/LA/Chicago areas are zoomed in?
- rcavezza 14y ago
  This is the biggest I could find: http://gerrycanavan.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/electoral10-1100.jpeg http://gerrycanavan.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/electoral10-...
  - joejohnson 14y ago
    Is LA it's own state, or is it part of Temecula?
    - mixmastamyk 14y ago
      Its own, you can see an orange fringe if you zoom in.
fivre 14y ago
Why would draw any map that increases the size of Gary?
- Turing_Machine 14y ago
  I figured the artist just wanted to get in a dig at Chicago.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    Also, there is already a strong sentiment in all non-Chicago parts of Illinois that Chicago should be it's own state, because it dominates all statewide politics, gets the lion's share of resources, and has a tendency to mess up calculations for needed rural aid for the rest of the state. Calling the State "Chicago" would certainly add fuel to that fire.
    - littlegiantcap 14y ago
      I'm originally from Illinois (Non chicago) and I would agree with that sentiment. In fact, where I'm from, everyone called it the People's Republic of Chicago and the rest of the state as Kentucky proper . (As a joke of course) On a more serious note though it is frustrating from a political perspective when Chicago dominates stae politics so much. For example, the city of Chicago sued my town, because there was an obscure provision on our books that allowed a certain tract of land to be Section 8 housing. So the state jacked up our taxes to build cheap apartments and then literally bused people from Caprini Green (A project) to our sleepy little town. This was all done in the name of lowering Chicago's crime, not by fixing it, but simply moving it outside the city. I'm sure it had something to do with their failed olympic bid. (Another issue our town had to deal with)
    - freehunter 14y ago
      But there is a state of Chicago on the map, at least it appears that way. Chicago is a state nestled within the state of Gary.
rlpb 14y ago
Does this feel backwards to anyone else? States with small populations have inflated sizes. States with large populations are tiny and thus look insignificant.
- specialist 14y ago
  You're thinking of the size weighted electoral college map. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/ This map depicts how the USA might look today if the state boundaries were balanced for population. Redistricting of the states, if you will.
- eCa 14y ago
  > Keep in mind that this is an art project, not a serious proposal, so take it easy with the emails about the sacred soil of Texas. (From the original source.)
  - protomyth 14y ago
    and using the name Ogallala.......
- Swizec 14y ago
  You can look at it as a map of population density. Each state contains the same amount of people. I think it's fairly interesting and nicely shows that most of the US is practically empty.
  - Ingaz 14y ago
    Almost every (large) country is practically empty. Japan - 4/5 of territory is inhabitable. China - the same. Russia - Siberia is almost inhabited.
    - sophacles 14y ago
      Um, I think you may not be a native english speaker, so just a semantic note here: inhabit breaks the "in" prefix convention (or the "in" is not a prefix) in that the meaning of "inhabit" is "to live there". So an "inhabitable place" is on where people could live. If you mean "a place where people can't live", the correct term is "uninhabitable". Note - the word "habitable" means the same thing as "inhabitable". It is just one of those confusing English language things, where all rules are more "guidelines" than hard rules, and there are exceptions to the exceptions. Another word that follows a similar pattern: flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. Namely "easy to burn or start on fire". So I think that to support the empty statement in your first sentence, your second sentence should read: Japan - 4/5 of territory is uninhabitable. China - the same. Russia - Siberia is almost uninhabited. edit - The statement "Siberia is almost inhabited" is also a funny/sarcastic way of saying "Siberia is almost uninhabited".
deleted 14y ago
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- the_watcher 14y ago
  original HN thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217434 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217434
jbattle 14y ago
I know it's not supposed to be a functional map per se, but I find the typography really hard to interpret - which names are cities, which are states? Is Chicago the capital of Gary? Or is Chicago a state that is surrounded by Gary? What is up with Albequerque and Las Vegas? Are they square because they are large cities, or are they capitals, or what? Of course this isn't a serious proposal, but I wonder how reorganizing this way would impact government and the current political system. Redistricting would of course have even more enormous implications (would counties switch states every so often?) Would Big States be the new Red States? In this day and age would it be hard to administer an area the size of Shiprock?
- Bud 14y ago
  Seems clear to me; the state names are in all caps. So Chicago is a state, for instance, and so is New York. Also illustrating this, you can see that the city of Detroit is labeled, but the state of Detroit is also labeled in all caps, since there is room to do so in that case. Edit: You can also see that the state capitals are underlined.
- juiceandjuice 14y ago
  I grew up next to Shiprock, the actual city, in New Mexico, in addition to other places around New Mexico. The interesting thing is that the "state" of Shiprock would likely be the poorest and most nuclear capable state on this map, containing both Kirtland AFB and Nellis AFB in addition to Los Alamos National Labs and Sandia National labs.
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    I think the states of Ozark and King might rival Shiprock for being the poorest. It seems weird how many cities are at the very edge of their large states. I know that's common for real states because rivers, but it seems to contradict what they're doing here. Aren't they trying to keep regional economic patterns within the same states? Springfield MO seems to sort with Tulsa, Topeka, or Columbia MO (we're not very original with our city names are we?) far more than with Little Rock or Memphis. Lexington would be more naturally included in any of the nearby states rather than in Blue Ridge. Also it's hilarious that Toledo isn't even close to being in Maumee. Fort Wayne is the single point where that state intersects with the Maumee River's watershed. A more suitable name for that state would be Wabash or Ohio or, to go by the highway signs, Lincoln. Still it's all good fun. You could use this as background for a dystopian (or not, depending on your politics) scifi story. Much better than "District 12" or whatever.
msluyter 14y ago
Thought experiment: let's say we could implement this tomorrow. What would be the effect on our politics? My theory is that it would somewhat rectify our inherent rural bias[1]. [1] http://teachingwithdata.blogspot.com/2011/06/elections-and-rural-bias.html http://teachingwithdata.blogspot.com/2011/06/elections-and-r...
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  > States with small populations (which tend, of course, to be rural) are overrepresented in the Senate and Electoral College. That's the whole point of the Senate: to give states equal weight, not citizens. For that, we have the House, where everybody does (in principle) have equal command of a representative. This is pointing to a feature and calling it a bug.
  - wtvanhest 14y ago
    >This is pointing to a feature and calling it a bug. That depends on if you are a democrat of republican. Democrats would probably prefer to have every state have equal population and make representation equal for all. Republicans would probably prefer to keep the old system in place which gives land mass credit over individual people. I'm not arguing for either one, but saying it is definitely a feature is in the eye of the beholder. EDIT: I made a bad assumption about who would favor what system. In any event, the basic point stands that one group will think its a bug, while the other group will think it is a feature.
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      No, the old system gives the Senate and the House equal power, so it gives equal power to both conceptions.
    - bcoates 14y ago
      This doesn't jibe with the current House and Senate, where the equal-population represented House has a substantial Republican edge and the Senate has a majority of Democrats. Edit: btilly below is right, the House isn't technically proportional representation, it's equal-population districts. Still, state by state representation doesn't seem to be breaking reliably for Republicans.
tptacek 14y ago
Strong objection to any map that puts Chicago in the state of Gary.
- bhousel 14y ago
  Actually, you are lucky. It looks like Chicago is its own state nestled within Gary. More info here: http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/ http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/ I might end up living in the state of "Newark" under this proposal. Not happy.
- kibwen 14y ago
  Looks like Chicago's actually in its own eponymous state, with Gary surrounding it.
- angersock 14y ago
  Come move to Houston! :D
tokenadult 14y ago
I see another comment here has already pointed out that this submission is blogspam, and has been discussed on HN before. Blogspam is disfavored here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583307 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583307 as is mentioned in the site guidelines. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter." AFTER EDIT: The curators here have fixed the link, as pointed out in a reply to this comment.
- the_watcher 14y ago
  The link to the original and original discussion is below.
- radley 14y ago
  As far as I can tell, this is the original source. The link below (Gary Canavan) is to an article that shows the map, but the map itself came from this submitted post. Duplicate post? Yes. Blogspam? No.
  - tokenadult 14y ago
    Thank you for bringing to my attention that the curators appear to have changed the link in the submission to point to the original source.
DannoHung 14y ago
I wish there were zoom ins of the major metro areas.
- pkfrank 14y ago
  Same. Manhattan and the surrounding buroughs are sure to be effectively dots on this map. Would love to see how many states are represented in the New England cluster.
crusso 14y ago
I'm all for refactoring. Every once in a while, you just need to shake up that Etch-a-Sketch.
- NegativeK 14y ago
  Can you imagine the gerrymandering crap we'd have to put up with if state lines could be redrawn?
the_watcher 14y ago
Since this is on the front page, I'll mention it here: I'm most interested in the names and any background anyone has on their origins.
- dhosek 14y ago
  It's on the original site: http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/ http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/
  - the_watcher 14y ago
    Thanks! Don't know how I missed that. As a "Temecula" native, I didn't know it came from a song, and not from the valley.
- adolph 14y ago
  Big Thicket is a nature preserve that is almost entirely within the areas of Houston and Atchafalaya on this map and not in the area called Big Thicket. The area called Big Thicket on the map would be hard to characterize as a whole. It is primarily Llano Estacado, northern Texas Hill Country and Piney Woods.
Cushman 14y ago
Somewhat off-topic, but since people are using this to riff on the Electoral College I'll drop in a mention for the National Popular Vote: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ Basically: The states themselves can require a fair election for the Presidency without any need for a Constitutional amendment or even a Federal law— this has been robustly defended by legal scholars, and it's already half-way to completion. If your state isn't on that list, do your country a favor and call your state representative about it.
- yakiv 14y ago
  Wow. I'd heard about this, but I had no idea it had made so much headway. From the website: "The National Popular Vote law has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it." From Wikipedia, for additional explanation: "The agreement is to go into effect only when the participating states that have joined the compact together have an absolute majority in the Electoral College. . . . Until the compact is joined by states with a majority of electoral votes, all states will continue to award their electoral votes in their current manner." I initially thought that the first quote was saying that the national popular vote had gotten to 49% of the 50% of the total pool of electoral votes needed to activate it, but no, that's not what it says. It currently has about 24.5% of the total pool of electoral votes.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- gknoy 14y ago
  I'd be happier to see states allocate votes not all-to-the-same-guy, but rather in proportion to the popular vote. (Whether nationally or in your state.) So, California might have 20 votes for X, 20 for Y, 10 for Z, and 5 for Q. That would help ensure that your vote matters within your state, and preserves Some electoral votes for third party candidates. The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President, but rather to most-faithfully represent the voting preferences of the constituents. The net result should be similar -- or will be if all states were to do this. Of course I also dream on being able to vote for contingent people, so that I can vote for a 3rd party candidate, but if he's not going to win, have my vote count for a different candidate. I forget the name of this, but it's complicated yet very elegant. It allows you to vote your conscience and yet not worry about "throwing away" your vote and letting That Guy win because you didn't vote for his most-winning opponent.
yakiv 14y ago
> Advantages of this proposal > * Preserves the historic structure and function of the Electoral College. I think we may be sort of putting the cart before the horse here. The purpose of the electoral college was to get the states to agree to adopt the system (right?). Now we're supposed to preserve the thing meant to get the states to agree by destroying the states?
- just2n 14y ago
  No, the point of the electoral college was to elect a set of representatives that would make the journey to DC to cast their votes to elect the president. You have to realize when the US was formed that traveling from California to DC wasn't a quick plane flight, and we didn't have communications technology that could transmit information from one point in our country to any other point in milliseconds. The electoral college is no longer necessary, and should be abolished as it only causes problems that were acceptable in the 1800s, but are no longer acceptable today.
  - talmand 14y ago
    I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place.
    - just2n 14y ago
      > I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. They were still spread out over thousands of miles of coastline. You're not going to deliver votes efficiently even if you constrict the entire country to the size of a state like New York, because transportation was human/animal powered at the time. This is the historical justification. >I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. Education and dissemination of information makes the problems more widely understood, but it was unlikely that the decision was made by people who understood the flaws in the voting systems, as major theoretical study into voting systems didn't really take off until the mid-late 1800s, and that information wasn't publicly disseminated until the 1900s. It "just worked" and was simple, so it was justifiable. These days, we can easily educate ourselves by reading public work in voting theory and see how mathematically bad such a voting system is. As well, the justifications needed to make electors a necessity no longer exist. This leads to problems as we've already discussed here, such as EC leading to roundoff errors and enabling gerrymandering, which are well understood PROBLEMS caused by the system. So what was acceptable then is no longer acceptable. > I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place. This was in a time when the federal government hadn't expanded its role and power, so I highly doubt that argument would've held much weight. Federal systems were in place to prevent that, and it was very, very clear in the constitution that the federal government was to be extremely limited in power, while most power was reserved for states. Every state had equal representation in the senate, amending the constitution wouldn't happen just because one state has more people than another, since their voting power wouldn't influence those systems, so it's hard to see how having more people means you can "rule over" smaller, less populous states. The constitution just doesn't permit it. And they still made the electoral college proportionate to the number of people in the state, so that wouldn't have actually prevented what you mention -- the federal framework would've. Except they did the math wrong, and smaller, less populous states have more voting power, and due to problems the electoral college causes, states that are pretty evenly split along party lines, especially less populous ones, are the only important states in any given election, and receive significantly more congressional concessions to win votes. So the electoral college has created a favor imbalance (not really a power imbalance) that results in some states being pampered by congress, while others (particularly large, populous ones) are left to fester, which I'd argue is a pretty crappy outcome if the system was intended to do anything about that.
scythe 14y ago
As a resident of Atlanta, I am strongly in favor of any reform that miraculously puts me in a blue state...
- evandena 14y ago
  ...with water.
kunai 14y ago
This really looks incredible, even if it is simply fantasy. The names are far better than the states we have now... I mean, Utah? Where's the excitement in that? Ogalalla is where it's at. Texas? Really? Big Thicket sounds way better. Jokes aside, I think rather than abolishing the College completely or doing something as radical as splitting up states, the real solution is perhaps to count the popular vote for each state: for example, if California had 66% of the popular vote for the Blue, it could be counted as a Democratic victory. Likewise, if Texas got 12% blue, it would be a Republican victory. First one to 26 wins.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  Instead of Rainier, this state would probably prefer our first choice, Columbia. (There was fear Columbia would be easily confused with the District of Columbia, so our state was named Washington after the president.)
  - saraid216 14y ago
    I actually kinda like that I'd be living in Seattle, RR.
- euroclydon 14y ago
  I've read this three times, and isn't that the way the EC works now?
  - kunai 14y ago
    Nope. The electoral college assigns "points" to each state based on its population. So rather than 50 equal points, we have 270. This kind of system is woefully outdated and allows for an unfair advantage in populated states. If the states had one point each, rather than being weighted through population, the result would be much fairer and not the clusterfudge of a mess it is right now.
    - euroclydon 14y ago
      I must be missing something. Under your system, the smallest portion of the whole presidential vote a state could get is 1/50 or 0.02. Currently Wyoming accounts for 0.18% of the population and gets a 3/538 or ~0.006 portion of the vote. how is your system more fair?
stephengillie 14y ago
Almost exactly 1/2 of the US population lives east of the Mississippi, which is only about 1/3 of the continental US's land area.
3am 14y ago
So far I have to agree with David Kurtz at http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ - my favorite part is that it renames Alabama in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- talmand 14y ago
  I'm from Alabama and if we were to rename the state on a historical figure I would suggest Rosa Parks over Dr. King. But I fear the chosen name is an attempt at humor at the expense of the white people of the state. Which is unfair to them and to most especially Dr. King.
  - 3am 14y ago
    I think it's an attempt at humor at the expense of _racists_. I don't see why any non-racist white person should be concerned about it.
    - talmand 14y ago
      It's an attempt at humor that's an over-generalization. It suggests that for those of us from Alabama who would have gladly marched with Dr. King or stood with Rosa Parks, had we been alive to have done so, are to be lumped in with the racist history of the state simply because of the color of our skin. But that's my opinion, you have your opinion, and I respect that.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
isalmon 14y ago
Disclaimer: I'm not from the US. Question: Can somebody explain to me why on Earth can't they just calculate every single vote and whoever gets the most of those win the election? Why do you need this over-complicated system of states, electoral votes, blue vs. red states, etc? Why is it NOT fair if the majority elects their president?
- Steko 14y ago
  No one makes an argument for fairness that's worth taking seriously. But the reality is that the people that would lose power under direct majority vote don't want to change and the 90%+ overlap with majority vote for the winner means there's rarely sustained outrage about "unfair" results (and those are in very close contests anyway).
- tbrownaw 14y ago
  We started out as a collection of states that wanted to present a united front, and smaller states didn't want to have no say (so we get the senate and electoral college) while larger states didn't want their individual voters to have no say (so we get the house of representatives). I'd compare the early structure to the EU, but I haven't looked much at history since highschool.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Despite the overreach of the Federal Government of the last few decades, some say since the Civil War, we are still a collection of states to attempt to present a united front. But the apparent lack of that united front is bigger than just discussing the pros and cons of the Electoral College. The EU structure from what I know is a similar idea, but I'm not familiar enough with the details on the EU to comment much more than that.
- jmccree 14y ago
  Because the United States was created as a union of formerly independent self governing states (Of varying levels between colony and full nation state). Think of a stronger form of the European Union. This is referred to as the Federal Government. Each member state has it's own state government, laws, police, military etc. The federal government is elected by the states, as it's role in general is to govern the states and interstate matters. If you are not familiar with the US, you may not realize that for instance "murder" is not a federal crime. Each state has it's own laws to cover "murder", and these crimes are investigate by state police authority. Federal laws (historically at least) only govern interstate laws and laws affecting state governments. The electoral college and senate are designed to give each state fair representation in the federal government. AFAIK, there is no federal requirement that people even be allowed to vote for president. In the past the congress/legislatures of some states would decide who to vote for, but now almost every state now uses the popular vote to decide who that state will vote for in the electoral college.
rtkwe 14y ago
I don't think this would solve the electoral college problem because a candidate would go to the neo-states with the highest density and beable to work up more votes quicker due to the higher densities. I think we should just drop the EC completely or at least step away from the winner take all system.
just2n 14y ago
Even if you TRY to make votes equally powerful by adjusting state boundaries to equalize population, you still ignore the fact that the electoral college is like a MASSIVE round-off error, and thus entirely fail to succeed in your goal and in understanding the essence of the problem, in general. To massively simplify things: consider that there are only 3 states. State A is 60/40, state B is 45/55, and state C is 50/50. All 3 have identical populations. Now states A and B are marginally won before the election, so the race is tied and the decision lies in C. That means 1/3 of the population actually gets to decide who is going to be president. And a small fraction, some 2-3% of that state's population will actually be deciding voters (the loose cannons, the ones who could go either way). So you're down to 0.67-1% of the population deciding who will be the president. And that's completely ignoring how HORRIBLY BAD a simple majority vote is. It essentially guarantees a 2-party system. C.G.P. Grey has some nice videos on YouTube explaining the basics, if you're interested. You don't fix an utterly broken system by changing the inputs. You fix it by throwing it away and building a better one. As interesting as the resulting map is, this is just a pointless exercise.
- jrajav 14y ago
  > And that's completely ignoring how HORRIBLY BAD a simple majority vote is. It essentially guarantees a 2-party system. Yes, personally I think this is a much more important issue than the electoral college.
duaneb 14y ago
I'm just at a loss as to why my state has the previously unknown name of "Willimantic", a state which also contains Providence, Hartford, Springfield, the Five College area....
nikcub 14y ago
Good luck telling Montana they are now part of Utah The real issue with this is that you would have to change all the states every so often to account for population shifts. Besides, the states have long histories that you would lose. Better fixing the electoral college, which is what is really broken.
erehweb 14y ago
Problem: Redistricting states every x years would introduce unwelcome difficulties into government. E.g. what happens to state workers in towns that move from one state to another? Would states have a disincentive to invest in their border regions, knowing that they might end up becoming their neighbors' problems in a few years?
- Raphael 14y ago
  The districts don't have to be the same as the states.
cardine 14y ago
It would be really cool to see what the 2012 election would've looked like with this map.

219 points by wdavidturner 14y ago

Whitespace 14y ago

Does anyone have a link to a larger version where the New York/LA/Chicago areas are zoomed in?

rcavezza 14y ago
This is the biggest I could find: http://gerrycanavan.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/electoral10-1100.jpeg http://gerrycanavan.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/electoral10-...
- joejohnson 14y ago
  Is LA it's own state, or is it part of Temecula?
  - mixmastamyk 14y ago
    Its own, you can see an orange fringe if you zoom in.

fivre 14y ago

Why would draw any map that increases the size of Gary?

Turing_Machine 14y ago
I figured the artist just wanted to get in a dig at Chicago.
- sophacles 14y ago
  Also, there is already a strong sentiment in all non-Chicago parts of Illinois that Chicago should be it's own state, because it dominates all statewide politics, gets the lion's share of resources, and has a tendency to mess up calculations for needed rural aid for the rest of the state. Calling the State "Chicago" would certainly add fuel to that fire.
  - littlegiantcap 14y ago
    I'm originally from Illinois (Non chicago) and I would agree with that sentiment. In fact, where I'm from, everyone called it the People's Republic of Chicago and the rest of the state as Kentucky proper . (As a joke of course) On a more serious note though it is frustrating from a political perspective when Chicago dominates stae politics so much. For example, the city of Chicago sued my town, because there was an obscure provision on our books that allowed a certain tract of land to be Section 8 housing. So the state jacked up our taxes to build cheap apartments and then literally bused people from Caprini Green (A project) to our sleepy little town. This was all done in the name of lowering Chicago's crime, not by fixing it, but simply moving it outside the city. I'm sure it had something to do with their failed olympic bid. (Another issue our town had to deal with)
  - freehunter 14y ago
    But there is a state of Chicago on the map, at least it appears that way. Chicago is a state nestled within the state of Gary.

rlpb 14y ago

Does this feel backwards to anyone else? States with small populations have inflated sizes. States with large populations are tiny and thus look insignificant.

specialist 14y ago
You're thinking of the size weighted electoral college map. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/ This map depicts how the USA might look today if the state boundaries were balanced for population. Redistricting of the states, if you will.
eCa 14y ago
> Keep in mind that this is an art project, not a serious proposal, so take it easy with the emails about the sacred soil of Texas. (From the original source.)
- protomyth 14y ago
  and using the name Ogallala.......
Swizec 14y ago
You can look at it as a map of population density. Each state contains the same amount of people. I think it's fairly interesting and nicely shows that most of the US is practically empty.
- Ingaz 14y ago
  Almost every (large) country is practically empty. Japan - 4/5 of territory is inhabitable. China - the same. Russia - Siberia is almost inhabited.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    Um, I think you may not be a native english speaker, so just a semantic note here: inhabit breaks the "in" prefix convention (or the "in" is not a prefix) in that the meaning of "inhabit" is "to live there". So an "inhabitable place" is on where people could live. If you mean "a place where people can't live", the correct term is "uninhabitable". Note - the word "habitable" means the same thing as "inhabitable". It is just one of those confusing English language things, where all rules are more "guidelines" than hard rules, and there are exceptions to the exceptions. Another word that follows a similar pattern: flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. Namely "easy to burn or start on fire". So I think that to support the empty statement in your first sentence, your second sentence should read: Japan - 4/5 of territory is uninhabitable. China - the same. Russia - Siberia is almost uninhabited. edit - The statement "Siberia is almost inhabited" is also a funny/sarcastic way of saying "Siberia is almost uninhabited".

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

the_watcher 14y ago
original HN thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217434 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217434

jbattle 14y ago

I know it's not supposed to be a functional map per se, but I find the typography really hard to interpret - which names are cities, which are states? Is Chicago the capital of Gary? Or is Chicago a state that is surrounded by Gary? What is up with Albequerque and Las Vegas? Are they square because they are large cities, or are they capitals, or what? Of course this isn't a serious proposal, but I wonder how reorganizing this way would impact government and the current political system. Redistricting would of course have even more enormous implications (would counties switch states every so often?) Would Big States be the new Red States? In this day and age would it be hard to administer an area the size of Shiprock?

Bud 14y ago
Seems clear to me; the state names are in all caps. So Chicago is a state, for instance, and so is New York. Also illustrating this, you can see that the city of Detroit is labeled, but the state of Detroit is also labeled in all caps, since there is room to do so in that case. Edit: You can also see that the state capitals are underlined.
juiceandjuice 14y ago
I grew up next to Shiprock, the actual city, in New Mexico, in addition to other places around New Mexico. The interesting thing is that the "state" of Shiprock would likely be the poorest and most nuclear capable state on this map, containing both Kirtland AFB and Nellis AFB in addition to Los Alamos National Labs and Sandia National labs.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  I think the states of Ozark and King might rival Shiprock for being the poorest. It seems weird how many cities are at the very edge of their large states. I know that's common for real states because rivers, but it seems to contradict what they're doing here. Aren't they trying to keep regional economic patterns within the same states? Springfield MO seems to sort with Tulsa, Topeka, or Columbia MO (we're not very original with our city names are we?) far more than with Little Rock or Memphis. Lexington would be more naturally included in any of the nearby states rather than in Blue Ridge. Also it's hilarious that Toledo isn't even close to being in Maumee. Fort Wayne is the single point where that state intersects with the Maumee River's watershed. A more suitable name for that state would be Wabash or Ohio or, to go by the highway signs, Lincoln. Still it's all good fun. You could use this as background for a dystopian (or not, depending on your politics) scifi story. Much better than "District 12" or whatever.

msluyter 14y ago

Thought experiment: let's say we could implement this tomorrow. What would be the effect on our politics? My theory is that it would somewhat rectify our inherent rural bias[1]. [1] http://teachingwithdata.blogspot.com/2011/06/elections-and-rural-bias.html http://teachingwithdata.blogspot.com/2011/06/elections-and-r...

fusiongyro 14y ago
> States with small populations (which tend, of course, to be rural) are overrepresented in the Senate and Electoral College. That's the whole point of the Senate: to give states equal weight, not citizens. For that, we have the House, where everybody does (in principle) have equal command of a representative. This is pointing to a feature and calling it a bug.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  >This is pointing to a feature and calling it a bug. That depends on if you are a democrat of republican. Democrats would probably prefer to have every state have equal population and make representation equal for all. Republicans would probably prefer to keep the old system in place which gives land mass credit over individual people. I'm not arguing for either one, but saying it is definitely a feature is in the eye of the beholder. EDIT: I made a bad assumption about who would favor what system. In any event, the basic point stands that one group will think its a bug, while the other group will think it is a feature.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    No, the old system gives the Senate and the House equal power, so it gives equal power to both conceptions.
  - bcoates 14y ago
    This doesn't jibe with the current House and Senate, where the equal-population represented House has a substantial Republican edge and the Senate has a majority of Democrats. Edit: btilly below is right, the House isn't technically proportional representation, it's equal-population districts. Still, state by state representation doesn't seem to be breaking reliably for Republicans.

tptacek 14y ago

Strong objection to any map that puts Chicago in the state of Gary.

bhousel 14y ago
Actually, you are lucky. It looks like Chicago is its own state nestled within Gary. More info here: http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/ http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/ I might end up living in the state of "Newark" under this proposal. Not happy.
kibwen 14y ago
Looks like Chicago's actually in its own eponymous state, with Gary surrounding it.
angersock 14y ago
Come move to Houston! :D

tokenadult 14y ago

I see another comment here has already pointed out that this submission is blogspam, and has been discussed on HN before. Blogspam is disfavored here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583307 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583307 as is mentioned in the site guidelines. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter." AFTER EDIT: The curators here have fixed the link, as pointed out in a reply to this comment.

the_watcher 14y ago
The link to the original and original discussion is below.
radley 14y ago
As far as I can tell, this is the original source. The link below (Gary Canavan) is to an article that shows the map, but the map itself came from this submitted post. Duplicate post? Yes. Blogspam? No.
- tokenadult 14y ago
  Thank you for bringing to my attention that the curators appear to have changed the link in the submission to point to the original source.

DannoHung 14y ago

I wish there were zoom ins of the major metro areas.

pkfrank 14y ago
Same. Manhattan and the surrounding buroughs are sure to be effectively dots on this map. Would love to see how many states are represented in the New England cluster.

crusso 14y ago

I'm all for refactoring. Every once in a while, you just need to shake up that Etch-a-Sketch.

NegativeK 14y ago
Can you imagine the gerrymandering crap we'd have to put up with if state lines could be redrawn?

the_watcher 14y ago

Since this is on the front page, I'll mention it here: I'm most interested in the names and any background anyone has on their origins.

dhosek 14y ago
It's on the original site: http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/ http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/
- the_watcher 14y ago
  Thanks! Don't know how I missed that. As a "Temecula" native, I didn't know it came from a song, and not from the valley.
adolph 14y ago
Big Thicket is a nature preserve that is almost entirely within the areas of Houston and Atchafalaya on this map and not in the area called Big Thicket. The area called Big Thicket on the map would be hard to characterize as a whole. It is primarily Llano Estacado, northern Texas Hill Country and Piney Woods.

Cushman 14y ago

Somewhat off-topic, but since people are using this to riff on the Electoral College I'll drop in a mention for the National Popular Vote: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ Basically: The states themselves can require a fair election for the Presidency without any need for a Constitutional amendment or even a Federal law— this has been robustly defended by legal scholars, and it's already half-way to completion. If your state isn't on that list, do your country a favor and call your state representative about it.

yakiv 14y ago
Wow. I'd heard about this, but I had no idea it had made so much headway. From the website: "The National Popular Vote law has been enacted by states possessing 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it." From Wikipedia, for additional explanation: "The agreement is to go into effect only when the participating states that have joined the compact together have an absolute majority in the Electoral College. . . . Until the compact is joined by states with a majority of electoral votes, all states will continue to award their electoral votes in their current manner." I initially thought that the first quote was saying that the national popular vote had gotten to 49% of the 50% of the total pool of electoral votes needed to activate it, but no, that's not what it says. It currently has about 24.5% of the total pool of electoral votes.
- deleted 14y ago
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gknoy 14y ago
I'd be happier to see states allocate votes not all-to-the-same-guy, but rather in proportion to the popular vote. (Whether nationally or in your state.) So, California might have 20 votes for X, 20 for Y, 10 for Z, and 5 for Q. That would help ensure that your vote matters within your state, and preserves Some electoral votes for third party candidates. The goal as I see it should not be to elect the Most Popular President, but rather to most-faithfully represent the voting preferences of the constituents. The net result should be similar -- or will be if all states were to do this. Of course I also dream on being able to vote for contingent people, so that I can vote for a 3rd party candidate, but if he's not going to win, have my vote count for a different candidate. I forget the name of this, but it's complicated yet very elegant. It allows you to vote your conscience and yet not worry about "throwing away" your vote and letting That Guy win because you didn't vote for his most-winning opponent.

yakiv 14y ago

> Advantages of this proposal > * Preserves the historic structure and function of the Electoral College. I think we may be sort of putting the cart before the horse here. The purpose of the electoral college was to get the states to agree to adopt the system (right?). Now we're supposed to preserve the thing meant to get the states to agree by destroying the states?

just2n 14y ago
No, the point of the electoral college was to elect a set of representatives that would make the journey to DC to cast their votes to elect the president. You have to realize when the US was formed that traveling from California to DC wasn't a quick plane flight, and we didn't have communications technology that could transmit information from one point in our country to any other point in milliseconds. The electoral college is no longer necessary, and should be abolished as it only causes problems that were acceptable in the 1800s, but are no longer acceptable today.
- talmand 14y ago
  I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place.
  - just2n 14y ago
    > I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. They were still spread out over thousands of miles of coastline. You're not going to deliver votes efficiently even if you constrict the entire country to the size of a state like New York, because transportation was human/animal powered at the time. This is the historical justification. >I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. Education and dissemination of information makes the problems more widely understood, but it was unlikely that the decision was made by people who understood the flaws in the voting systems, as major theoretical study into voting systems didn't really take off until the mid-late 1800s, and that information wasn't publicly disseminated until the 1900s. It "just worked" and was simple, so it was justifiable. These days, we can easily educate ourselves by reading public work in voting theory and see how mathematically bad such a voting system is. As well, the justifications needed to make electors a necessity no longer exist. This leads to problems as we've already discussed here, such as EC leading to roundoff errors and enabling gerrymandering, which are well understood PROBLEMS caused by the system. So what was acceptable then is no longer acceptable. > I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place. This was in a time when the federal government hadn't expanded its role and power, so I highly doubt that argument would've held much weight. Federal systems were in place to prevent that, and it was very, very clear in the constitution that the federal government was to be extremely limited in power, while most power was reserved for states. Every state had equal representation in the senate, amending the constitution wouldn't happen just because one state has more people than another, since their voting power wouldn't influence those systems, so it's hard to see how having more people means you can "rule over" smaller, less populous states. The constitution just doesn't permit it. And they still made the electoral college proportionate to the number of people in the state, so that wouldn't have actually prevented what you mention -- the federal framework would've. Except they did the math wrong, and smaller, less populous states have more voting power, and due to problems the electoral college causes, states that are pretty evenly split along party lines, especially less populous ones, are the only important states in any given election, and receive significantly more congressional concessions to win votes. So the electoral college has created a favor imbalance (not really a power imbalance) that results in some states being pampered by congress, while others (particularly large, populous ones) are left to fester, which I'd argue is a pretty crappy outcome if the system was intended to do anything about that.

scythe 14y ago

As a resident of Atlanta, I am strongly in favor of any reform that miraculously puts me in a blue state...

evandena 14y ago
...with water.

kunai 14y ago

This really looks incredible, even if it is simply fantasy. The names are far better than the states we have now... I mean, Utah? Where's the excitement in that? Ogalalla is where it's at. Texas? Really? Big Thicket sounds way better. Jokes aside, I think rather than abolishing the College completely or doing something as radical as splitting up states, the real solution is perhaps to count the popular vote for each state: for example, if California had 66% of the popular vote for the Blue, it could be counted as a Democratic victory. Likewise, if Texas got 12% blue, it would be a Republican victory. First one to 26 wins.

stephengillie 14y ago
Instead of Rainier, this state would probably prefer our first choice, Columbia. (There was fear Columbia would be easily confused with the District of Columbia, so our state was named Washington after the president.)
- saraid216 14y ago
  I actually kinda like that I'd be living in Seattle, RR.
euroclydon 14y ago
I've read this three times, and isn't that the way the EC works now?
- kunai 14y ago
  Nope. The electoral college assigns "points" to each state based on its population. So rather than 50 equal points, we have 270. This kind of system is woefully outdated and allows for an unfair advantage in populated states. If the states had one point each, rather than being weighted through population, the result would be much fairer and not the clusterfudge of a mess it is right now.
  - euroclydon 14y ago
    I must be missing something. Under your system, the smallest portion of the whole presidential vote a state could get is 1/50 or 0.02. Currently Wyoming accounts for 0.18% of the population and gets a 3/538 or ~0.006 portion of the vote. how is your system more fair?

stephengillie 14y ago

Almost exactly 1/2 of the US population lives east of the Mississippi, which is only about 1/3 of the continental US's land area.

3am 14y ago

So far I have to agree with David Kurtz at http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ - my favorite part is that it renames Alabama in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

talmand 14y ago
I'm from Alabama and if we were to rename the state on a historical figure I would suggest Rosa Parks over Dr. King. But I fear the chosen name is an attempt at humor at the expense of the white people of the state. Which is unfair to them and to most especially Dr. King.
- 3am 14y ago
  I think it's an attempt at humor at the expense of _racists_. I don't see why any non-racist white person should be concerned about it.
  - talmand 14y ago
    It's an attempt at humor that's an over-generalization. It suggests that for those of us from Alabama who would have gladly marched with Dr. King or stood with Rosa Parks, had we been alive to have done so, are to be lumped in with the racist history of the state simply because of the color of our skin. But that's my opinion, you have your opinion, and I respect that.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

isalmon 14y ago

Disclaimer: I'm not from the US. Question: Can somebody explain to me why on Earth can't they just calculate every single vote and whoever gets the most of those win the election? Why do you need this over-complicated system of states, electoral votes, blue vs. red states, etc? Why is it NOT fair if the majority elects their president?

Steko 14y ago
No one makes an argument for fairness that's worth taking seriously. But the reality is that the people that would lose power under direct majority vote don't want to change and the 90%+ overlap with majority vote for the winner means there's rarely sustained outrage about "unfair" results (and those are in very close contests anyway).
tbrownaw 14y ago
We started out as a collection of states that wanted to present a united front, and smaller states didn't want to have no say (so we get the senate and electoral college) while larger states didn't want their individual voters to have no say (so we get the house of representatives). I'd compare the early structure to the EU, but I haven't looked much at history since highschool.
- talmand 14y ago
  Despite the overreach of the Federal Government of the last few decades, some say since the Civil War, we are still a collection of states to attempt to present a united front. But the apparent lack of that united front is bigger than just discussing the pros and cons of the Electoral College. The EU structure from what I know is a similar idea, but I'm not familiar enough with the details on the EU to comment much more than that.
jmccree 14y ago
Because the United States was created as a union of formerly independent self governing states (Of varying levels between colony and full nation state). Think of a stronger form of the European Union. This is referred to as the Federal Government. Each member state has it's own state government, laws, police, military etc. The federal government is elected by the states, as it's role in general is to govern the states and interstate matters. If you are not familiar with the US, you may not realize that for instance "murder" is not a federal crime. Each state has it's own laws to cover "murder", and these crimes are investigate by state police authority. Federal laws (historically at least) only govern interstate laws and laws affecting state governments. The electoral college and senate are designed to give each state fair representation in the federal government. AFAIK, there is no federal requirement that people even be allowed to vote for president. In the past the congress/legislatures of some states would decide who to vote for, but now almost every state now uses the popular vote to decide who that state will vote for in the electoral college.

rtkwe 14y ago

I don't think this would solve the electoral college problem because a candidate would go to the neo-states with the highest density and beable to work up more votes quicker due to the higher densities. I think we should just drop the EC completely or at least step away from the winner take all system.

just2n 14y ago

Even if you TRY to make votes equally powerful by adjusting state boundaries to equalize population, you still ignore the fact that the electoral college is like a MASSIVE round-off error, and thus entirely fail to succeed in your goal and in understanding the essence of the problem, in general. To massively simplify things: consider that there are only 3 states. State A is 60/40, state B is 45/55, and state C is 50/50. All 3 have identical populations. Now states A and B are marginally won before the election, so the race is tied and the decision lies in C. That means 1/3 of the population actually gets to decide who is going to be president. And a small fraction, some 2-3% of that state's population will actually be deciding voters (the loose cannons, the ones who could go either way). So you're down to 0.67-1% of the population deciding who will be the president. And that's completely ignoring how HORRIBLY BAD a simple majority vote is. It essentially guarantees a 2-party system. C.G.P. Grey has some nice videos on YouTube explaining the basics, if you're interested. You don't fix an utterly broken system by changing the inputs. You fix it by throwing it away and building a better one. As interesting as the resulting map is, this is just a pointless exercise.

jrajav 14y ago
> And that's completely ignoring how HORRIBLY BAD a simple majority vote is. It essentially guarantees a 2-party system. Yes, personally I think this is a much more important issue than the electoral college.

duaneb 14y ago

I'm just at a loss as to why my state has the previously unknown name of "Willimantic", a state which also contains Providence, Hartford, Springfield, the Five College area....

nikcub 14y ago

Good luck telling Montana they are now part of Utah The real issue with this is that you would have to change all the states every so often to account for population shifts. Besides, the states have long histories that you would lose. Better fixing the electoral college, which is what is really broken.

erehweb 14y ago

Problem: Redistricting states every x years would introduce unwelcome difficulties into government. E.g. what happens to state workers in towns that move from one state to another? Would states have a disincentive to invest in their border regions, knowing that they might end up becoming their neighbors' problems in a few years?

Raphael 14y ago
The districts don't have to be the same as the states.

cardine 14y ago

It would be really cool to see what the 2012 election would've looked like with this map.